Defining a Great Customer Experience
Defining a Great Customer Experience
Finally, I was able to speak with several of their customers. To no surprise, I got a 180-degree opposite opinion. The customers I spoke with felt that this financial services company was lacking in several areas of customer service. They complained about the sales process, transacting the sale, the lack of follow up, caring about the customers after the sale, and lots more. Basically, they felt totally different than the VP of Sales and, to a large degree, his own sales team. In essence, the customer experience was vastly different than what their vendor actually thought it was, and that was resulting in poor customer retention.
What’s the difference between over-the-counter drugs and prescription drugs? Over-the-counter drugs are bought as a result of your own self-diagnosis, while prescription drugs are obtained as a result of seeing a medical professional, aka your doctor. In business, you can self-diagnose your own problems and develop or create your own solution. This is often a satisfactory route for simpler problems and issues. But for more serious problems, like customer service and customer retention, you are better off seeing a trained professional. Unfortunately for my client, and for many other businesses, he was self-diagnosing his own problem of poor customer retention and wasn’t succeeding since the problem was getting worse. As the saying goes, when you’re too close to the forest to see the trees, get the heck out of the forest. In other words, it’s time to get help from the outside.
Strativity Group conducted a three-year study with 4,496 participants; 42% were employees from B2B, B2C and services industries, and 58% were the customers of those employees. The participants were asked to rank the quality of the customer experience they provide or receive. Both employees and customers were asked to respond to the same questions. The results were quite interesting. While 83% of employees responded with the strong conviction that they exceed customer expectations, only 33% of their customers agreed with the same statement.
Similarly, 89% of the employees strongly believed that they use their common sense and discretion in the way they deal with customers. Only 44% of their customers agreed with the same statement. In the area of defining the experience, employees consistently ranked their performance higher than their customers did, with an average gap of 35%. The study clearly demonstrates that employees and customers have completely different definitions of a great customer experience and therefore produce unacceptable results. The cause of the problem was that customer experiences were never clearly defined for the employees who participated in the study (as is true for many companies today). The definition of a good customer experience was left to the personal interpretation of each employee, which created misunderstandings and discrepancies in performance.
Employees need the customer knowledge necessary to deliver optimal customer experiences and stop believing in their own interpretations which, according to the study, are misaligned with the customers’ expectations. While 70% of the employees in the study were convinced that they understood the customers’ pains and issues, only 38% of the customers agreed with the same statement. While employees often receive skills training on using tools and handling transactions, they may only receive vague and undefined information on customer experiences and customer knowledge.
Learning about customer expectations goes beyond just surveys. The customer experience must have clearly defined performance descriptions (exactly what the employee has to do), clear measurements (how do we know when we get there), and employee education programs (teach me how). You must define the experience you want your employees to deliver based on your customers’ expectations. Only then can you bridge the gap between the customer and your employees.
Talking to your customers about their expectations is critical for understanding what they are looking for in a good customer experience. Ask them tough questions such as:
- How likely are you to be a customer of ours one year from now? Why or why not?
- How likely are you to refer our product or company to a colleague or friend? Why or why not?
- If you knew then what you know now about us, how likely would you be to choose us as your supplier? In other words, would you make the same decision given what you currently know about us and our products?
- Why do you continue doing business with us?
- When it’s time to renew or reorder from us, do you evaluate other companies or products?
- If your purchasing manager, department head, or whoever makes the purchasing decision, were to leave your company today, would you continue purchasing from us as you have in the past or would you evaluate other suppliers?
Answers to these questions, and others like them, will give you a world of insight into how your customers perceive your company and its employees. With this valuable feedback you can then construct a viable customer experience plan and train your employees on how to execute this plan.
At a time when customer experiences are the next competitive battle, successful businesses need to launch a new approach to customer experience execution. They can’t afford to leave their employees guessing as to what experience their customers want. Every employee’s actions can either build or destroy customer loyalty. Make sure they have the right information, training and ammunition for maximizing the customer experience.
Good luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
Defining a Great Customer Experience - To learn more about this author, visit Russ Lombardo's Website.
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While consulting with a client of mine who was Vice President of Sales for a financial services company, I asked him what he believed his customers thought of his company and how they liked doing business with him. His answer was that his customers loved his company and their experiences were very positive. I then spoke to his sales people to learn more about their existing sales processes as well as other sales-related issues. What came out of those interviews was only slightly different from their boss regarding their customers’ experiences. The sales reps’ feelings were similar to their vice president, although not quite as over-confident and smug. Where they differed related to the fact that they did get some complaints from customers, but not enough for them to believe the customers had anything but excellent experiences with their company. They too believed that their customers liked their company and enjoyed doing business with them.
Finally, I was able to speak with several of their customers. To no surprise, I got a 180-degree opposite opinion. The customers I spoke with felt that this financial services company was lacking in several areas of customer service. They complained about the sales process, transacting the sale, the lack of follow up, caring about the customers after the sale, and lots more. Basically, they felt totally different than the VP of Sales and, to a large degree, his own sales team. In essence, the customer experience was vastly different than what their vendor actually thought it was, and that was resulting in poor customer retention.
What’s the difference between over-the-counter drugs and prescription drugs? Over-the-counter drugs are bought as a result of your own self-diagnosis, while prescription drugs are obtained as a result of seeing a medical professional, aka your doctor. In business, you can self-diagnose your own problems and develop or create your own solution. This is often a satisfactory route for simpler problems and issues. But for more serious problems, like customer service and customer retention, you are better off seeing a trained professional. Unfortunately for my client, and for many other businesses, he was self-diagnosing his own problem of poor customer retention and wasn’t succeeding since the problem was getting worse. As the saying goes, when you’re too close to the forest to see the trees, get the heck out of the forest. In other words, it’s time to get help from the outside.
Strativity Group conducted a three-year study with 4,496 participants; 42% were employees from B2B, B2C and services industries, and 58% were the customers of those employees. The participants were asked to rank the quality of the customer experience they provide or receive. Both employees and customers were asked to respond to the same questions. The results were quite interesting. While 83% of employees responded with the strong conviction that they exceed customer expectations, only 33% of their customers agreed with the same statement.
Similarly, 89% of the employees strongly believed that they use their common sense and discretion in the way they deal with customers. Only 44% of their customers agreed with the same statement. In the area of defining the experience, employees consistently ranked their performance higher than their customers did, with an average gap of 35%. The study clearly demonstrates that employees and customers have completely different definitions of a great customer experience and therefore produce unacceptable results. The cause of the problem was that customer experiences were never clearly defined for the employees who participated in the study (as is true for many companies today). The definition of a good customer experience was left to the personal interpretation of each employee, which created misunderstandings and discrepancies in performance.
Employees need the customer knowledge necessary to deliver optimal customer experiences and stop believing in their own interpretations which, according to the study, are misaligned with the customers’ expectations. While 70% of the employees in the study were convinced that they understood the customers’ pains and issues, only 38% of the customers agreed with the same statement. While employees often receive skills training on using tools and handling transactions, they may only receive vague and undefined information on customer experiences and customer knowledge.
Learning about customer expectations goes beyond just surveys. The customer experience must have clearly defined performance descriptions (exactly what the employee has to do), clear measurements (how do we know when we get there), and employee education programs (teach me how). You must define the experience you want your employees to deliver based on your customers’ expectations. Only then can you bridge the gap between the customer and your employees.
Talking to your customers about their expectations is critical for understanding what they are looking for in a good customer experience. Ask them tough questions such as:
- How likely are you to be a customer of ours one year from now? Why or why not?
- How likely are you to refer our product or company to a colleague or friend? Why or why not?
- If you knew then what you know now about us, how likely would you be to choose us as your supplier? In other words, would you make the same decision given what you currently know about us and our products?
- Why do you continue doing business with us?
- When it’s time to renew or reorder from us, do you evaluate other companies or products?
- If your purchasing manager, department head, or whoever makes the purchasing decision, were to leave your company today, would you continue purchasing from us as you have in the past or would you evaluate other suppliers?
Answers to these questions, and others like them, will give you a world of insight into how your customers perceive your company and its employees. With this valuable feedback you can then construct a viable customer experience plan and train your employees on how to execute this plan.
At a time when customer experiences are the next competitive battle, successful businesses need to launch a new approach to customer experience execution. They can’t afford to leave their employees guessing as to what experience their customers want. Every employee’s actions can either build or destroy customer loyalty. Make sure they have the right information, training and ammunition for maximizing the customer experience.
Good luck and good selling!
Russ Lombardo
Defining a Great Customer Experience - To learn more about this author, visit Russ Lombardo's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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