Nobody wants a negative experience when they buy something. Nobody wants to feel like they are an intrusion on the salesperson’s day when they make an enquiry. Nobody wants to feel like they’ve been taken advantage of and have been sold something they didn’t want or need. Nobody wants to feel rushed into making a decision. Nobody wants to feel like they are an idiot for asking questions about a product or service. And yet, I hear customers say they feel like this quite often.
Where has customer service gone? Where has customer care gone?
Of course, there are some fabulous businesses who take the customer experience very seriously and invest in training their staff to put the customer first. Bunnings is an excellent example of creating a culture of exceptional customer service. They’ve even invested in having professional ‘greeters’ at the store entrance whose role it is to make customers feel welcome and to ensure that they find what they are looking for. This massive investment in staff has resulted in huge payoffs for one of Australia’s best-loved shopping brands. It’s one of those places where you take the family along and even the dog! You start with needing to buy one item and end up with a trolly full of ‘useful’ things for your home or garden. What makes you buy more than you intend? What makes you decide to start another home improvement project, or grow a few veggies, or decorate your garden?
It’s the amazing customer service, exceptional knowledge of the staff and the competitive pricing. Not to mention the café, trolleys for kids and who can go past the aromas wafting from the sausage sizzle. It’s the full customer experience that keeps you going back time and again.
Of course, all business owners want customers who spend more than they plan and keep coming back time and time again. But the thing is unless they train their staff on exactly how to provide exceptional customer service and indeed lead by example from the top, the customer experience can often fall flat and drive customers to seek out a competitor.
When you think about the customer journey from the first contact point, through to purchase and beyond, every chance to engage with your customer builds the relationship, so that you don’t just make a sale, but gain an ongoing customer and a loyal advocate. From the very first enquiry – whether it’s through social media, website, email, phone or meeting, that customer is making a judgement about whether they want to do business with you. Considering every part of that customer journey from their point of view will ensure that their experience meets their high expectations.
I recently decided to do a ‘mystery shop’ (for something I actually needed) for one of my clients and sent an email enquiry through their website for a simple service from a branch office. I received an email response two days later, which simply said ‘we can’t provide that colour’ – end of story. I sent the same email to their competitor and received a phone call an hour later with a similar response; however, they asked me questions about why I needed that particular colour. It turns out that the same result can be achieved with a slightly different product, at a lower price. Not only that, but they would also do a small sample for me to look at to ensure I would be happy with the result. The sample was ready that afternoon, I called into their office, and I ordered the full product according to their advice.
There’s a big difference in those two customer experiences. Suppose the first business repeats that day in and day out. In that case, their business will continuously lose out to their competitor, who takes every opportunity to engage their customers to establish relationships and create exceptional customer experiences. Businesses who genuinely care about their customers’ outcomes don’t even need to think about how they ‘sell’ things in their business, only how to serve their customer to solve their problems.
What would you rather spend your time on – selling or solving problems for your ideal customer?
Ask yourself – how does your customer ‘feel’ when they do business with you?