"80 percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only 8 percent of their customers agree." - Bain & Company
A good friend of mine was recently traveling back home on a United Airlines flight. She was sitting at the gate with her fully-loaded, 100% caffeinated coffee beverage, feeling weak and weary from her week's work. All of a sudden, like a trained ninja, a United rep appeared with a sign that he stuck on the board that read... ... ... ... CANCELLED. He then spun around like a ballerina and stated, "I'm going to lunch now." For those of you that are stunned, like I was, this meant she would not be going home any time soon.
Her story prompted some serious thinking from me. So I sat down with my fully-loaded, 100% caffeinated coffee beverage and began to ponder how this type of customer experience, if not dealt with, could mame, if not kill, a start-up. I have been working with entrepreneurial clients for years using The Three Rules of Market Leaders, which I will post about at some other time. However, I have tweaked them some to fit our current topic more directly.
Here they are:
1. Design your offerings and experiences (aka: value proposition) for the right customers. In other words, choose your customers wisely and narrow your focus down to that group, specifically.
2. Build your operations so that you and your employees focus on activities that deliver those offerings and experiences in a superior way. In other words, don't create a marketing message that states we offer the best service if a customer can't get answers to questions without a hassle. Seems obvious, huh? I thought so too, but isn't United's tagline, "fly the friendly skies?" Apparently, it's not that obvious.
3. Continuously develop your capabilities to please your chosen customers again and again. In other words, learn from your experience, read books (and blogs), talk with your team about how to improve the customer's experience, and "shop" your competition to see what they are doing so that you can position yourself differently.
By the way, if you're writing a business plan then this should all be emphasized in there. I know it seems counterintuitive but investors like focus.
What else can we do to ensure we deliver a superior customer experience?
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