Customer Service is just one piece of the entire Customer Experience. When was the last time you or someone in your organization became a ‘new’ customer of yours? The Customer Experience starts before the contract is signed and lasts throughout your relationship and with every department that customer may interface.
Like walking into your living room with a new set of discriminating eyes, I’ll bet you’d find something that just isn’t right. Similarly, by stepping through your customer experience with an outsider’s point of view you will find opportunities to improve the experience for your new customers’ experience.
All this talk about customer experience these days is not new at all. Mystery shoppers were created with this concept in mind. Here is a short list of companies who are known for creating an outstanding customer experience: Hilton Hotels, Apple, Nordstrom, Amazon.com, Zappos.com. These companies make their customers feel special regardless of whether it is a new transaction or an interface with a different department in the organization.
It’s all in the kool aid. The employee base at these companies know how important their customers are. It is part of the company culture….from the top down. Customer Experience is THE Differentiator for these leading and quite successful companies.
The ability—or inability—for a company to serve its customers in a way that is consistent with meeting or beating their expectations will prove to be the ultimate differentiator that separates the corporate winners from the losers in the near future. Joseph Jaffe
Mull over this quote and next time we’ll discuss strategies for creating a differentiating Customer Experience.
Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organizational development, consultant training and Action Learning services, and is developer of the Free Management Library.