What is Customer Experience?
There any many doors a customer enters, and many people the customer interfaces with, when one person screws up it impacts the entire customer experience.
It first starts with Strategy. This is where most companies miss the mark. Many think they are in healthcare, retail, banking, insurance, government, etc. Very few realize they are in customer service. Amazon, Apple. Southwest Airlines, Mayo Clinic, Chewy.com, Northeast Delta Dental, Metro Bank in London, Home Depot, Costco understand the service strategy. Everything is built around a positive customer experience. I am not talking about lip service.
These firms are role models for the world. You grow much more rapidly with of word of mouth advertising. Service leaders teach principles and empower their employees to do whatever it takes to keep a customer happy. To do whatever you need to do to take care of the customer on the spot. This means everyone must use empowerment. All service leaders grow by word of mouth. Very few spend a lot of money on advertising.
Make it easy for customers to do business with you. Eliminate stupid rules and policies. They turn off the customer and increase costs.
Have hours you are open convenient to the customer. Amazon and Chewy.com are open 24/7. Most companies have too many people. Put some of them to work in your 24/7 call center with humans that answer the phone in one ring
Make sure everyone is empowered. It takes two miracles to get an employee to make a $25 decision in favor of the customer. What the employee does on the spot to keep a customer over happy is the best marketing money you will ever spend. Every customer is different. If you treat every customer like a King or Queen, you have rapid growth. This is the concept I started with in January 1980 with Feelings.
Master speed. Amazon has a better grasp of speed than any company in the world. They have changed the market in the US and the markets they service. The mindset of most employees is slow. In addition, they support policies and procedures that are long and cumbersome.
Remember the customer and use their name. Less than 1 percent of companies do this. Nothing is more precious to a customer than their name.
Use Service Recovery when you make mistakes. Must happen in 60 seconds. Be generous with the compensation. You can count on two hands the firms that practice Service Recovery. Do not lie. I suspect about 80% of employees lie just to get rid of the customer.
Train your entire staff on customer service with something new and fresh. Must be fresh. Every four months, ideally. If you put employees through the same program, they fall asleep. There are no high schools, vocational, colleges, or universities in the world that teach the art and skill of customer service. If you want high performing customer-driven employees, it is your responsibility to train and develop them. View this link for our Service Culture Plan http://mypersonalsuccess.com/3-year-service-culture-plan/
