Remember that feeling that you experienced when you met that special someone for the first time? The feeling of being totally smitten and enamored, accompanied by a sense of excitement for the future? Sometimes this type of encounter produces a lifelong connection, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s the same journey with customers. The intersections and timelines can include a burst of engagement when a customer discovers a new solution provider, a short-term relationship that is barely satisfactory, or a lifelong partnership with a business that hits all of the right experience notes, consistently, over time. Going after a lifelong partnership with customers, means knowing that being smitten is not enough to deliver the goods. The really productive relationships go way beyond this stage.
As I mentioned in a previous article, we are in an “age of astonishment” when it comes to the business of customer experience. Customers will be impressed by those businesses that have adopted a service mantra of going beyond customers’ expectations, as their “minimum level of care”.
Customer intelligence has to be viewed as an asset that enables the business to unearth deep information about its customers.
Can you imagine a business challenging itself to meet this remarkable level of care, on a daily basis? I can tell you that a business with this mentality will not become stuck in a cycle of inefficiency, bureaucratic clumsiness, or skill ineptitude. When a business is entrenched in a reactive style of interacting with customers and resolving their issues, we call this the adrenaline vortex.
I believe that many businesses function in this vortex, but are disinclined to make such an admission. The overriding mindset is, “why change if the customers keep showing up and revenue is steady?” Of course, the truth of this matter is that an ever-expanding marketing budget is bringing in a steady stream of customers, without any juxtaposition against the steady stream of customers who are leaving, (we call this customer churn). So, the distorted picture is that the business is holding steady, despite the irregular levels of service delivery and customer experience.
Acting on customer intelligence, is one of the most potent pathways to designing experiences and crafting solutions that exceed customers’ expectations.
The smitten stage in a customer relationship cycle is a superficial stage, where not much is known about the customer. In relationship terms, being smitten indicates the “puppy love” stage. Additionally, this stage is also the transactional stage in the life of the customer’s journey. Successful businesses are those that transition past this stage to the relational stage, where the real magic with customers happen.
A common danger associated with not going beyond being smitten with customers, is that a business runs the risk of becoming tone deaf to its customers’ expanding needs and, if nothing else, we know that these needs are always in an evolutionary cycle. Not moving past this stage, is a set up for superficial interactions It’s a deceptive comfort zone that can lull a business into being distracted by paper-thin euphoria that eventually wears off. If there’s no transition plan in place to uplevel the customer relationship, then it remains at its transactional level. Customers lose their appetite for these soulless transactions over time.
The new demand, is to maximize responses so that the business as a customer-centric brand, can exceed customers’ expectations.
Customer intelligence has to be viewed as an asset that enables the business to unearth deep information about its customers. Oh and by the way, the days for conducting the once-a-year customer experience and customer sentiment surveys are gone. They should be replaced by continuous, real-time experience tracking and regular customer forums, as a start to keeping on top of evolving customer needs. Another challenge with customer surveys that put a business at risk of being out of touch with its customers, is the absence of follow-on improvement actions, culled from the wisdom enshrined in customer feedback. What is the point of putting in the effort to listen, without adding meaningful action to the intelligence that has been extracted from the listening channels? Acting on customer intelligence, is one of the most potent pathways to designing experiences and crafting solutions that exceed customers’ expectations.
In this age of astonishment, customer experience is a design matter. In the past, the experience intention was to optimize customers’ responses to their interactions with a business, at every touchpoint along their respective journeys. The new demand, is to maximize responses so that the business as a customer-centric brand, can exceed customers’ expectations.
The operative point here is that the business “must know, inside-out,” the details of the customer’s expectations.
But, what does it really mean to exceed customers’ expectations? It means surprising customers with offerings that make a monumental difference to how they receive value from the business and how that value makes a difference to the quality of their lives.
It means that if the business knows the specifics of what a customer expects, at every point along his or her experience journey, then the business goes way past simply meeting those expectations. The operative point here is that the business “must know, inside-out,” the details of the customer’s expectations. This intelligence and action apply, as well, to exceeding the expectations associated with eliminating the many pain points attached to existing experience journeys.
The ball, is always in the court of the business that is passionate about keeping its customers happy. In the midst of dispensing your customer experience brand, are you missing, meeting or exceeding your customers’ expectations?