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Great Experiences will Rock Your Customers

My friend Becky has a wonderful post today called How to Win at Customer Service. Why do I think it is wonderful? Because it made me think and inspired this post.

I often tell my clients and you my readers that we should not sell products and services, because customers expect them to be good to great; therefore, we can neither differentiate ourselves nor exceed customer expectations when we focus on products and services. Four sentences in Becky's post is testament to this:

It is much easier to remember the poor customer service experiences than it is to remember the good ones. We tend to rant and rave when things go wrong. When things go right, we tend to take it for granted. That is, unless the service is spectacular - then, we remember it and tell our story to everyone.

She is correct: We expect things to go right and when they do we tend to take them for granted.

However, although we may not remember great customer service, we will remember great customer experiences. Subtle but important differences separate customer services and customer experiences.

For example, those of us who visit Starbucks regularly find the service consistently good, but we expect that. When it isn't good, we rant, as we should. The experience, however, happens after we get our beverage. And that usually is better than good, as it it built around conversation, taste, visual and auditory senses. The difference: a service happens; an experience excites our senses.

So, stop selling products and services, and continue selling solutions. But if you want to rise above your competitors, find ways to surprise your customers with great experiences. Excite their senses, and you will rise above the rest.

Customer Experience Differentiates Businesses

More than any other factor, customer experiences differentiate competitive businesses. Products and services cannot, as customers expect products and services to be good to great, so unless your products and services are beyond great, all you can achieve with them is to either meet customer expectations or disappoint customers. Price is only a differentiator for those who shop price, and they are not ideal customers for most businesses because they reduce your margins, and they do not become loyal customers or brand evangelists. That leaves us to create incredible customer experiences, which aren't as hard to imagine as you might think.

Here are three examples of customer experiences happened this morning. Each of these stores provide consistent and good experiences, giving me no cause to shop elsewhere.

1. First stop, Petco. As a pet owner, I need a pet store that is nearby, with competitive pricing, good parking and a fast and easy shopping experience. My local Petco consistently meets those needs, and this morning exceeded my expectations. One cashier consistently asks for my Petco Card, which I never applied for because of a disability that makes writing with a pen or pencil painful and difficult. Today, for the first time, I shared that with her. She offered to fill out the card for me, which took a couple of minutes, and today I received a discount on both bags of litter. I was more than a little happy.
2. Next stop, Staples. As a business owner, I need an office supply store that also is nearby, with competitive pricing, good parking and a fast and easy shopping experience. Each time I visit, the store's signage leads me directly to what I need, with no stops and starts. Today, I needed padded envelopes for mailing out review copies of Lead With Your Heart. I was in and out of Staples in under 10 minutes.
3. Final stop, Starbucks. As a coffee drinker, I have become a loyal Starbucks customer. I like the services and the ambiance of the stores and I am never disappointed by the product. Today, as usual, I fell into a long line. However, problem solved, as one barista cashiered, one made drinks, and another walked up and down the line taking orders, serving coffee of the day, and grinding beans. Again, out in under 10 minutes, despite the line.

Every business can excel by providing great customer experiences. Why don't many? Perhpas, they don't believe it matters or they have decided to sell price or they don't make the effort because it takes time and employee training. What other reasons might keep a business from focusing on experiences? What are some recent experiences that you can share that demonstrate reasons you return to a certain store or business time and again?

What Is Your "Loss of Business" Risk?

According to the 2007 Customer Experience Impact Report by Harris Interactive, 80 percent of consumers will never go back to an organization or company after a negative experience, up from 68 percent in 2006.

The report, sponsored by RightNow® Technologies, also reveals that 51 percent of consumers cited "outstanding service" as a top reason they continue to do business with a company. Another 60 percent noted "outstanding service" as a top reason they would recommend a company.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I urge businesses not to sell their products and services but to focus on creating and selling great customer experiences, which become free gifts (metaphorically) to your customers who will never forget that you care more about them than you do profits. At the end of every day, people must come first, not money, if you want your customers to continue to buy from you.

So, how do you create a great customer experience that results in happy and loyal customers? It depends who your customers are but the first steps are:

• Know your customers needs.
• Understand how your products and services meet those needs by solving problems.
• Focus on the solutions, not the products and services, and offer the best customer service available to make those solutions the best possible.
• Know your customers emotional wants and needs.
• Build experiences to meet those wants and needs.

If you were asked today about your why your customers or clients do business with you, what would be your answer? How do you create customer loyalty? What works and what doesn't?

iPhone Not Quite as Cool Today

What were the people at Apple thinking, especially Steve Jobs and the Marketing gurus there, when they dropped the price of the iPhone by $200 after only a few months on the market?

Just this summer, the popular phone sold for $599. Today, it sells for $399. If you paid the higher price this summer, would you still be a happy customer? I wouldn't.

Setting the right price point is among the most difficult but most important functions a business has when launching a new product. And even if the price was set incorrectly, it is silly and unprofessional to drop the price by 40 percent just months after the launch. By doing so you tell your customers the following:

• The product was never worth the higher price.
• Apple screwed up.
• But maybe no one will notice if they stick the correct price tag on their product.

Wrong! Your customers notice. Apple received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from angry customers who purchased at the higher price. Backed into a corner and left with nowhere to go, "Apple CEO Steve Jobs apologized and offered $100 credits Thursday to people who shelled out up to $599 for an iPhone this summer and were burned when the company chopped $200 from the expensive model's price," according to an article posted on CNN.com.

But then Jobs muddied the water when he wrote in a letter on the company's Web site that "the technology road is bumpy," and then he wrote, according to the article, "there will always be people who pay top dollar for the latest electronics but get angry later when the price drops."

You think? Look, Apple got the price wrong. How is charging $200 more a few months ago any different from price gouging? This is not the way a business should choose its price points. The Apple seems to me to be a bit rotten. When a product is launched, the price should be set. Will the price change overtime? Sure. But not just a few months after its launch. Are you with me or against me on my take?

P.S. Seth offers links on the subject. David Reich also does a nice job of reporting on Apple's iPhone pricing.

Creating Great Experiences

And sometimes doing so begins with the simplest of things. For example:

• Post your hours online, on doors or windows, or on signage in large, readable numbers and letters. We shouldn't have to get out of our car to read the signage or use a magnifying glass to read your web site. And if there are going to be any changes to those hours, post them a week in advance, also in large numbers and letters.
• When your place of business is open, make sure someone is always there to provide service and to share a smile.
• Create prices that meet your ideal customer's needs, no more, no less.
• Someone always should be available to provide a solution to meet or exceed your customer's expectations, without sarcasm or a lack of caring.
• Provide enough parking spaces, enough phone lines and enough customer care employees.
• Recognize customer's time is valuable, and don't waste it.

I am frequenting asking myself and others: why doesn't every business make customer service and customer experiences their number one priority?

It's What They Don't Tell You That Kills You

This morning has been one of the worst in current memory. It is a recurring nightmare that went really  badly today.

Who among us enjoys calling technical support at any high-tech company? I, for one, dread it. And the past 72 hours have convinced me that customer service at these companies is charged with shortening our lives any way they can.

IPower hosts my web site and my e-mail. Both important, as I am an entrepreneur dependent upon both to build my business and to serve my clients. In January of this year, my shared server was down, meaning my business was as well. Mike, tech support guru, suggested I go to a Virtual Server, saying doing so would provide much more reliable service. (It costs more, as well.) So I upgraded and wrote a check. The check cleared, my upgrade did not.

My service was spotty, as can be the case with any host. But since I was on a Virtual Server, this wasn't supposed to happen. Over six months, my service collapsed and I had to call tech support four or five times. Everyone was very nice and told me the server would be up soon. What they didn't tell my was that I wasn't pointed to my Virtual Server> Instead, although my check had cleared and Mike assured me all was well, I remained on the shared server. Since no one uses words like VNS, DNS, NS, and pointed, when last Friday, six months into my service contract, they told me I wasn't pointed to my Virtual Server, I blinked twice and said, "what?"

Apparently, Register.com had not pointed my Domain toward the server after I asked them to in January. Well, by now, it is late afternoon Friday, and the department I need to speak with at Register.com has gone home and won't return until today (Monday). So first thing this morning, I called to have my domain pointed to my Virtual Server. The tech guy said something about DNS or NS, and I said okay. Big mistake. He changed my name servers. Meanwhile, I have no e-mail service and IPower is telling me that I need to log into my VDeck, whatever that is. Now here's what they didn't tell me last Friday. Before pointing to my Virtual Server, I should check my e-mail because it would be gone after I was up on the new server.

It is now five hours of going back and forth. Jeff and Susan at IPower can't get on the same page, and an hour ago I asked for a supervisor to call me, because Jeff couldn't let me sit on hold to talk to one and we weren't getting along well. So far no supervisor has called. Surprise, Surprise. Meanwhile, I get an e-mail from Susan telling me all my e-mail from Sunday and Monday morning are lost forever.

Now I ask you: Is that what you would call good customer service or creating a good customer experience?

Give That Company A Gold Star

This past weekend my wife and I spent Saturday in New York City. We have lived in cities most of our  33-year marriage, but upon returning to New England, we chose to live near my family in the burbs, about half-way between New York and Boston.

Anyway, that's the geography. The point of this narrative is that creating great customer experiences grows businesses. Our city adventure proved to be an example that any business can follow.

When we moved to Connecticut, I signed up to receive Goldstar Events e-mails. By doing so, I receive regular news about the arts, sports and social events that I am interested in for the cities of Boston, New York and Springfield, Mass. No membership fee is applied, and Goldstar's e-mails are not intrusive. In addition to learning what is going on that I may be interested in, Goldstar offers incentives.

As a marketer, I encourage every business to incent its best customers. Often businesses lure new customers with offers and deals, but take for granted its current customers. I'll discuss that error in the ways of marketing in another post, but for now all I'll say is that it is far more profitable to cater to your current customers than to seek new ones. Although we must do both, when Comcast offers a $69 deal to new customers, while I'm paying more than $100 for the same service, they create a world of unhappy customers. Now, back to doing it right.

We love the water, sailing and boating, but because we run our own business, we try not to take much in salary and instead work to use those profits to build our company. So, we are constantly on the search for deals. Goldstar drops them into my computer several days a week. One such offer showed up a few days before we ventured into NYC this past weekend. Regularly $40 per person to tour southern Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on a 1920s vintage boat, Goldstar offered the same trip for $20. We grabbed it, saving $30, once the service fee is added. We had a great 90-minute tour. We fell in love with Goldstar even more.

But Goldstar didn't stop there. They sent me an evaluation form wherein I could offer a good, bad or indifferent opinion of the event. And then they sent me a URL, which I shared with my friends. And everyone who clicked on that URL and signed up to receive the notices resulted in earning me a $1 off any event in the future. Normally, I don't bother my friends with these things, but I have become a brand evangelist for Goldstar. Why? Because the company creates great customer experiences for me. And that is the lesson of this post.

I can find a schedule of events for any city at a variety of places. But few make it so easy. With Goldstar I only learn about those events I care about based on my profile; I only receive e-mails that cater to my wants and needs; and I get deals for everything from the ballet to concerts to meals and shows. If I don't buy a ticket, I pay nothing for the information. And if I do buy a ticket, Goldstar incents me to spread word of mouth marketing about them.

That is smart marketing. I am interested in learning more about customer experiences. Do you shop with similar business, on- or off-line? How do you feel as a long-time customer when a company you do business with offers great deals to sign up new customers but ignores you? We'd love to hear from you.

Electronic Stuff Fails Predictability Tests

We don't spend much money on new things: Our cars range from a decade to two decades old; our TVs fall into  the 10- to 40-year-old range; you don't even want to know how old some of our clothes are. Nobody in this house feels a want or a need for material stuff. Food, travel, friends and family, and the arts? Now that's a different story, and those are the places (plus the mortgage) where we spend most of our money.

So anyway, one of our five TVs died. (We also never get rid of anything that still works.) Funny thing. It was the newest one. No problem. I moved the next newest one from the bedroom to the family room, and then the one in my office to the bedroom, and then the old black and white to my office. Not a big deal. Except...

None of the cables exiting our DVD player (which is two decades old) fit the TV. So it's off to radio shack. As soon as I explained my needs to the nice young man, I knew we were in trouble. He spoke modern electronics, I spoke ancient. Anyway, he sold me cables that he knew would work. Of course, they didn't fit.

Next day (today), I returned. This time I was helped by a woman closer to my own age. She sold me an adapter for the cable system that came with the DVD player , deducted the cost from yesterday's purchase and handed me both the adapter and $12 in return. I'm happy.

But I wonder why I had to make two trips, even though I explained to the young man that an adapter should meet my needs. He was confident that I couldn't do what I thought I could and get the DVD to work with the TV. Hmm. What's wrong with this picture? And how often do you suppose this kind of customer/service person interaction leaves a brand a bit less shiny than the day before?

P.S. Maybe it has something to do with Seth's brief post entitled Price... "[they] haven't given [me] anything else to care about."

Your Choice: The Home Depot or Joe's Hardware Store

How do we choose where we shop? If you need a hammer or a toolbox of tools would you go to The Home  Depot, a big box with lots of choices and low prices, or do you go to your Joe's Hardware Store, which is locally owned and offers personal service but higher prices?

If The Home Depot went away tomorrow or the local hardware store went out of business, which one would you most miss? You can use this example to compare your shopping experience for nearly every consumer good: Best Buy or the local audio/visual store; Stop & Shop or the corner grocery store; Ben & Jerry's or the local ice cream shop; or Barnes & Noble or the local bookstore?

What drives you to choose? How do you rank the following when deciding where to shop?

1. Price
2. Selection
3. Location
4. Service
5. Overall experience