Let me tell you about a few of my recent “1st World” problems:
- A while ago I was in Montreal checking in a hotel (part of a major chain) at about 10 PM. The night desk clerk spent close to 10 minutes trying to look up my loyalty account, with no success. Then he informed me I should go look it up, come back down to the front desk, and he would input my information. Note, the per night cost of this hotel was about $300.
- While merely trying to sign up at one of those indoor skydiving places, I discover a poorly organized website that is cumbersome and does not show accurate availability. I called to make a reservation, and after being put on hold for 8 or 9 minutes, the worker says she cannot sign us up. All because she is too busy. She asks for my number to call back when she has time, but never actually does.
- My flight is delayed due to mechanical issues (on an airline that I’m a Platinum member); this will cause me to miss a connecting flight and this 1 hour delay, will ultimately cost me 12 hours due to no open seats on other flights to my destination. I never receive a call or text to attempt to problem solve this.
If you’re thinking, “Dan, if this is all you have to worry about, you have it pretty good”. Well you’d be right, I do have it good. These are definitely not awfully inconvenient problems for me. Not even close.
However, if you are a leader at any of these three businesses, or if your organization is not that ETDBW (Easy to do business with), know that you are inadvertently creating a a few lasting impressions:
- They don’t care about my business
- They would rather maximize profit on one transaction than have me as a customer for a lifetime
- My time does not matter to them.
In short, a positively memorable CX matters! Why? It’s certainly a logical leap to think that a customer who has an excellent experience, remembers it. Because of one positive experience, they can tell others about it; sometimes even becoming mini marketers for that product or service. Further, those that are loyal, having had a positive experience are retained, will buy a product or service over and over.
Consider the following: Studies[1] by Bain & Company, along with Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School, have shown that even a 5 percent increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25 and 95 percent.
There are several reasons why this small increase in retention can have such a large impact on profits. Here are two important considerations:
- Customers are likely to spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Particularly with small businesses that don’t have a lot of brand recognition, a customer’s first purchase or two can be considered somewhat of a risk. So they are likely to keep the cost relatively small, and then increase spending as the relationship grows.
- Repeat customers are more likely to refer others. Bain & Company’s research showed that after just one purchase from an online apparel retailer, an average shopper was likely to refer three other people to the site. But a customer that made ten purchases from an online apparel retailer was likely to refer seven different people to the site.
Now, you might find yourself asking: “So what?” I can tell these organizations do not believe in Design Thinking or Voice of the Customer ways of looking at their processes.
Well, creating a positively memorable experience is HARD! Especially for an organization that has any degree of complexity around the following:
- The types of products/services your customers want;
- How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for you to quote/price the right products/services;
- How easy or hard, fast or slow, manual or automated, simple or cumbersome it is for them to order it, receive it, process the invoice, and actually pay for it.
- What about the delivery, set up/configuration, training, etc., how seamless are these processes?
- Do you have numerous people involved, sometimes with “less than ideal” coordination when you think about those involved from a contracting, pricing, order processing/execution, set up, training, implementation touchpoints?
Having lived this firsthand, I know onboarding new clients/customers is not only challenging, but it is very time-consuming, and candidly, frustrating. Now with even more awareness in the marketplace around this elusive goal of creating an ideal customer experience, the typical customer is more perceptive to whether you (or any) organization is truly “easy to do business with”.
In fact, check out this article on customer service expectations – https://www.alltius.ai/glossary/millennials-gen-z-customer-service-expectations
If you feel that you may have some opportunities for improvement in this area, TSI can help. We’ve created a very hands-on training workshop that is short + sweet, and worth your investment. You will learn solid foundation of concepts and perspectives as well as tools to be used so they may be applied for your organization. If you are interested, email us at tsi@transforming.com.
