When does your customers' journey begin and end?

In Healthcare segment of service providers usually people are happy with the actual diagnosis / treatment but people are usually unhappy with all what it takes to avail the healthcare service. What it takes means proper pre-consulting guidance, administration , registration, payment and waiting during consultation. In case of In-house patients support and facilities for family attendant , visitors are inadequate as it is not considered core services and therefore ignored.   

Now lets leave aside the industry and look at across the industry. Core product and services are given required attention but everything else considered secondary are mostly ignored. Insurance policy features are great but agent will mis sale , call center will mis handle, claim settlement will be delayed , real estate developer will built class project but companies fumble at sales team , buying process and journey ,  post buying journey  and possession.

Imagine a restaurant serving mouth watering food but ambiance , hygiene ,  waiter attire and training , queue management are not in sync - what will be the fate of the restaurant? 

I have seen in spite of core product i.e food is tasty and talk of the town but unless all other peripheral aspects are take  equal care of restaurant going out of business. 

Therefore the question is what is the starting point and ending point of product and service your enterprise is offering? From where customer journey begins and where it ends? Every enterprise must know this as customers are equally concerned with all peripheral experiences that the business offers while offering its core product and services. & most critical ignoring this aspects can make or break the business in this new experience world we all are living in.  

Are you mapping WOW!! on your Customer’s Face?

Customer Experience is the next new and now management practice. NEXT has quickly become NEW and NOW.

Commodity, Product, Services, Experience , this is the hierarchy of business offerings as defined by father of customer experience Pine & Gilmore in their famous book The Experience Economy. Most Companies struggle in 1st two categories , some reach to third level and very few reaches the 4th level. 

Companies like Starbucks , Virgin , Apple, Zappos, Amazon, Flipkart, Commerce Bank thrives on superior customer experience. There are unfortunately hardly any Indian brands which can be classified in the 4th category. 

Reasons may be that Indian Customers are either not demanding or there is no culture at the top of offering wow !! CUSTOMER Experience. Most management are so tied up in day to day affairs in managing quarterly results, no one in the organisation thinks long term brand building interest of the company.  As steroids they take shelter under extravagant advertising and media campaigns. Hardly anything changes however at ground level.  Everyone’s performance bonus is linked with quick results and not with sustainable results.

It requires culture of WOW !!! at the top , thinking on HOW ?  and  action plan (which may take longer time) to change the organisation culture.  Performance parameters MUST change and should be linked to increase of Net Promoter Scorecard (NPS) and not only financial performance. Financial performance today which is not guaranteed tomorrow is hardly of much use.  Linking it with NPS will ensure that long term interest of the company is also taken care of.

If your existing customers are promoters of your brand half the battle is won. Today hardly any Indian brands know what is their NPS , forget about action to improve the same.   Some customer sensitive companies have customer feedback system but either they do not know what to ask as their questions are irrelevant or do not know what to do after the data is collected.

However off late very very few companies have started appointing Chief Experience Officers (CExO).  It’s just a very tiny beginning. Still we have to see how they are able to improve their customer experience. One such company I know is Club Mahindra. However if you look at customer reviews on the Google/mouthshut.com it’s horrible. Customers are happy with their locations but not the way pre sales to post sales and actual stays are handled. Hope CExO will address especially pre sales ways, posts sales booking & at stay customer care issues asap.

Now when we are going to buy most of our products after reviewing online review, how important it is to offer amazing customer experience? Isn’t it critical?  No amount of smart advertising & smart sales person can replace culture of offering wow !! customer experience.   Are we working to see following expression on your customer’s face?

 If yes, its your market or work hard to transform Commoditised offerings into Experiential offerings. 

In order to bring wow !! culture in Indian Companies I have tied up with UK based Consulting firm Beyond Philosophy , customer experience focus consulting firm, as their India Associate.