Customer Experience – Next Competitive Battlefield

Today on road in Mumbai and again ashamed to see the condition of the roads across the city. Its not post monsoon but pre monsoon and 6 months after the last monsoon.  Who is in charge of the city roads?

Hope our corp-orators are travelling by road and not by helicopter ofcourse not by train. Just callous attitude of the people in power and people busy with their daily duties ignoring collapsed infrastructures.

This happens when there is no mind for Customer (Citizen) Experience.  People who votes and who are suppose to be served are ignored for various other priorities. Citizen comes last if at all.

Now moving to the corporate. Customer Experience is also not a priority here.  Customers are adjusted to sub standard customer services and experience.  My earlier post r CEOs PASSIONATE abt their CUSTOMERS? I had stated that problem is at the TOP.

Culture percolates from Top to the bottom.  Amazon CEO Bezos is a great fan of creating wow customer experience. He had stated about Inverted 30 : 70 Ratio - Customer Experience.

Companies spend huge sums of money on marketing but hardly work on creating amazing customer experience which in turn will reduce marketing spend, shorten sales cycle and build powerful brand through word of mouth.

Enough is Enough. Be it government or companies , time has come that non performers or rather non wowers will be out of the business. If your government is not focusing on citizen need or company is not focusing on creating superior customer experience, all other competitive advantages will soon become history.

In his recent blog post Jacob Braude, vice president of strategic planning at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness rightly writes that Experience Is The Next Frontier In Marketing.

I think time has come for every entrepreneurs to embrace new battlefield and start working on customer experience design. In Govt space Gujarat and Bihar govt has already embraced and made the citizen their focus area.

Competitive landscape is changing and focusing on customer experience is the right strategy for everyone be it corporations, government or NGOs.  Strategy for Next Financial Year - Customer Centricity - Customer Delight - Referral Marketing - Improving Net Promoter Scores  { Rest all strategies and parameters will be taken care of }.

* Inviting interest from readers to join Customer Experience Professionals Association of India.

Is the BRAND you represent LOVABLE??

Which are the brands do u as a customer LOVE??? If you take too much time to think you don’t LOVE any.  If the name is on your sleeve that’s LOVE.  

Passion for Customer will make your Brand Lovable.  We all know LOVE is a two way game. Customer will LOVE your brand only if you love your customers. What we do for our loved one requires no mention.  Passion of not sales person and marketing team, but its passion at the TOP that matters the MOST.  Yes (mostly ignored) culture of the organization percolates down from the TOP.  “Shining in the sun like a pearl upon the ocean “ is the Hindi movie song  but it has a message for every enterprise.  Yes end to end experience to the customer from the brand must be like that. It should be shining and visible from among its 100s of competitors.
 

You should be clear leader and on top of the mind of your customer in your category. Whenever there is a talk about delightful customer experience expamples are given about brands like Starbucks and now Zappos.com or Kingfisher Airlines in India. Hardly MOST companies embrace WOW !! / Delight and Memorable Customer Experience as their business strategy.  Its never their in any Business Plan.
 

Zappos.com sends pleasant surprises to their customers along with orders . They invite customer,suppliers or anyone to visit their office in Las Vegas. I wonder why many companies even can not copy the best???
 

Entrepreneurs who celebrate their day to day business will delight their customers (even employees and suppliers too) . No one else.  What Laloo Culture could do to Bihar and what Nitish/Narendra Modi Culture is doing is for everyone to see. We are also witnessing what no culture at all can do at central leadership level. Its a clear case of CULTURE issue. Culture at the TOP matters the most. Bucks stops and start from there. Enterprise indulges in many many training programme for its people every year. True training deficit is mostly at the TOP { Who can tell their bosses/owners ???} .

Make it a point in next Management Meet  that objective worth pursing for next 12 months is Talk of the Town  { Customer Experience and Culture of Employee Happiness. } . No other strategies. Whatever it takes to achieve these two goals are the guiding actions. Period. Make your area of Influence a merrier place. Celebrate your entrepreneurial endavour. Its about brand in action & its also about CSR in action.

Note: We all know how miserable Loveless life could be. Same applies to your BRAND. 

Business ( Scripts ) Processes that create Memory n Delight !!!!

Processes r SCRIPT of the Business. 


U can WOW !!!! or Un-wow CUSTOMERs through business processes. 


Some businesses r run without formal processes. Its people driven. Its keep changing from people to people. 


- Unorganised


Some businesses are only process driven without having customer in FOCUS. 


- Mechanical


Some Businesses are run by people and process. 


- Human

Like Film script, writing business script (Processes) is an ART.It requires understanding of business, human behavior, target market,  business objectives , culture & risk too. Its a team effort with whole organisation INVOLVED. 

To create Memorable & Delightful CUSTOMER Experience, approach to Business Processes plays KEY role.

Customer Experience Champion Starbucks Believes in:

( Converting ordinary experience into Extra ORDINARY )

- Make it your Own

- Everything Matters

- Surprise & Delight

- Embrace Resistance

- Leave your Mark

Happiness Champion Zappos.com believes (Core Values) in: 

- Deliver WOW through Services

- Embrace & Drive Change

- Create fun & little weirdness

- Be adventurous, creative and open minded

- Pursue Growth & Learning

- Built open & honest relationship with communication

- Built a positive team with family spirit

- Do more with less

- Be passionate and determined

- Be humble

Unless the core values or business motives are clear , business processes ( script ) will remain Mechanical and will/can never WOW!!!! 

Start with Core Value / Belief and Change Drivers and then write ( re-write / re-design/ re-vamp  ) script. Its a SCRIPT which decides success or failure of MOVIE ( Business too ) . 

12 Ways to WOW !!!!! - ( For ) Individuals & Enterprises

Unexpected Speed ( Execution, Thought, Response ) WOWs !!

Complete Precision ( Product, Work ) WOWs !!!

Unprecedented Design  ( Product, Service, Anything { beautifully } Planned ) WOWs !!!!

Deep Insight ( Report, Research, Study, Letter { mails too } )   WOWs !!!!!

Change in Paradigm  ( New Idea, New Way of looking/doing things , Unimaginable ) WOWs !!!!!!

Total Dedication ( Employees,  Followers ) WOWs !!!!!!!

Human Kindness ( Going Out of the way, Forgive, Humanitarian Conduct )  WOWs !!!!!!!!

Power Packed Presentation ( Oral, Pictorial or Movie ) WOWs !!!!!!!!!!

Sudden Surprise & Suspense (  Prize, Gift, Free , Deep Discount )  WOWs !!!!!!!!!!!

Great Courage & Confidence ( Leaders, Entrepreneurs, People ) WOWs !!!!!!!!!!!!

Ease & Simplicity ( Boss, Product Design, Problem Solving )   WOWs !!!!!!!!!!!!

12) Are we as an Individual & as an enterprise WOWing !!!  someone DAILY??  ( keep yr daily WOW  !!! scorecard ). That's THE true competitive advantage. 

Rest all differentiators r commoditised.  

Fan-Tas-Tic

Yes that’s the exclamation !!! One uses when delighted by service excellence:

McDonald's at Panvel. We drove in and within 90 seconds we were out with our order fulfilled. 

Order - Payment & Delivery Turnaround Time - 90 Seconds. After Making Payment at Drive Thru Counter we came to Delivery Counter i.e. 15 seconds and he was ready with our packet of delivery.  ( Order, Payment Took 70 seconds ). Total Item = 7. 

Big M visible from distance ,Security at the Gate to guide vehicles, Drive Thru lane, Order and Payment Counter, Delivery Counter, Packaging, Quality of food of course and staff efficiency. All touch pints were well in place to create well deserved WOW!!!

Thinking of Drive Thru Services, Design of entire road map i.e. entry of vehicle to exit, placement of counters, internal processes of design of order, pick up,

packaging and delivery all were DESIGNED.

Unless every customer facing touch points and processes are thoughtfully DESIGNED it will not create Service Excellence WOW!! 

Most of the time entrepreneurs miss out on Customer Facing Design. Factories and Shops are designed meticulously. Spent hours and days on Brand ,Logos,employee uniform. But no investments in employee training, processes which are critical for customer delight, making it easy and quick for CUSTOMER to deal with the company. No Clue.  We have tons of call centers but no thinking on how and what is the convenience for the customer to reach out when in need.  Pressing 10s of buttons before someone speak to u is ridiculous. Every company has website but email link to contact the company is more often than not takes hours to find. It should be on every page and clearly visible so that when the visitors want to take action it’s there. We have internal control audits but no audits on CUSTOMER Friendliness of Business Processes!!!

Uff long way before businesses wakes up and put CUSTOMER at the center stage of their activities & final suggestion to McDonalds’, CUSTOMER in drive thru services eats while travelling so;

1) Tissue paper for hand clean 

2) Waste paper bag to keep all the waste  

3) Wet tissue napkins to freshen up 

Will add to the customer DELIGHT.