Guest Blog: What is your problem?
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Ricky Nowak shares an experience about how customer service can be so different at similar businesses. I have always said that consistency is key to the customer experience and leads to loyalty. – Shep Hyken
It should not have been a problem. But it was.
It should have been easy. But it wasn’t.
What it became was a loss of business opportunity and brand reputation.
Why?
Because when a request to do small printing job ‘on the spot’ due to an urgent client request was made, the owner of a local printing franchise told me “This is fiddly–gonna take ages. It’s impossible today and the earliest is late tomorrow…(groan). And it’s not gonna be cheap.”
Now it was my turn to groan.
So off to OfficeWorks where I requested the same job.
The reply?
“No problems, and don’t worry about it being a big fiddly – we love to help customers. Busy now with commitments to other clients, but promise you that I will do it before I leave tonight and you can have it by 7.00am tomorrow when we open? Will that be ok?”
So, what is my problem?
Only that I didn’t go to OfficeWorks earlier and thought that customer service was easy.
No it’s hard, but when it delights and is made to look easy, you have an advocate and opportunities to continuously engage with the customer and their visible and invisible contacts.
Think about it. Every time a customer interacts with a provider they consciously and subconsciously experience a variety of emotions, memories and feelings which may have nothing to do with the product or service but can determine if they will return to your on or off line store or refer you on.
So, irrespective of whether these decisions are based on fact or perception they have, at the pointy end the potential to determine the future of a business by the click of a button and no longer the sound of footsteps walking out of a store.
It’s at the peril of businesses to ignore the experiences customers receive. A lack of time, awareness or inability to act intuitively on what they ‘sense’ is no longer an excuse or choice and will sabotage loyalty as well as brand reputation. Not a good option any way you look at it.
Customers want experiences more than they want explanations of ‘why not’ or “why bother”
Customers will be loyal as long as providers give service.
The question we need to keep asking is this.
“ Are we giving our customers a compelling enough reason to do business with us outside the product or service we provide?
If we give our customers the experience that shapes this reason, loyalty will not be forfeited for the next bright shiny object.
Ricky Nowak CSP is an Australian Speaker, Author and Leadership Facilitator who helps leaders connect and communicate to their people so their staff are hugely productive, happy and resourceful.
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com. Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article:
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