Great experiences are like diamonds.
They can’t help but shine, even when mixed up in piles of mud.
For those of us who are professionally involved with customer experience, observing services and how they interact with their audiences is part of what we do for a living. You don’t have to be an industry professional though, to form a strong opinion about the turmoil you tend to go through when you want to have a job done, a product delivered to you in the time and fashion that you paid for or you purchase a service that you expect to work.
We are all customers.
Unfortunately, most experiences we come across as customers are a big pile of mud. You wouldn’t expect that, since everybody’s talking about how important is a delightful Customer Experience (CX) nowadays for a business to grow.
Competition in every service or product is fierce, the players are numerous and everybody’s competing in an ever-changing environment. The truth is that benchmarks have risen to the moon, because people have access to products from any corner of the earth.
If that isn’t enough, you don’t compete only with players who sell similar products to you. The collective experience level is what raises the bar for any other product or service each of us comes across. If you order i.e. a book from the other corner of the world in a user-friendly e-shop with a clear journey up until the check-out process and arrives on time in a wonderful package, that surely means doom for the big or small retail chain which is selling i.e. your dream trousers, but tortures you through a bad website menu that doesn’t help you find anything and when you finally do, sends you to unclear instructions on how to complete your order and then fails to answer in a satisfying way when the shipment takes forever, even if the store is located near you.
You’ve heard that in every conference though, haven’t you? Any YouTube video, white paper and expert talk. Sure thing. So, companies who can invest heavily, are calling themselves “customer-centric”, are creating CX teams who build personas and customer journeys, incorporate multiple tools to serve questionnaires and follow the customer in every action, engage data analysts who compile lengthy reports, and so on. Rightly so, because the bigger the organisation, the greater the need for such structure. Now, what is the outcome of all that investment is not what I would like to touch upon in this article.
What I would like to point out though, is that great CX doesn’t have to be a sport only for multinational companies or retail chains, with stores spreading all over the country (or the world) and complex CX teams.
It only takes a willingness to truly care about your customer.
This starts from putting yourself in the customer’s shoes — understand what the infamous “Empathy” is all about. Could be as simple as “don’t do what you wouldn’t want to happen to you”. That is an effective meter for what to avoid.
The indicator of what to actually do would be the answer to the question “if I were the customer of my business, what would bring a smile on my face when I engage with it?”
Both do not need heavy investment or complex data and endless workshops to answer. They can be uncovered by very targeted strategic actions.
Being a consultant for CX and Service Design projects myself, I engage with Empathy for a living. However, this time, I would like to just wear the hat of a customer of different businesses who have delighted me on a particular “moment of truth”: when I received the product I had purchased and opened up the package. Their common characteristics are:
- they are all small businesses
- I had no idea they existed — they found me through social ads
- they excited me so much as to tell them apart from huge businesses which I presume all have those impressive CX teams and still cause me frustration in numerous points of contact
- all it took was a small gesture that showed me they valued me as a customer — no hefty budget involved
So what did the trick?
- in most of them, a handwritten note, thanking me for my purchase and wishing me to enjoy the products. Or semi-handwritten. On the package, on the receipt, on a post-it note, it doesn’t matter. Someone took the time to personally thank me for choosing their store (hello The Jerkins, Nok Nok, Gasmoto, Artncreate, Premium Co)
- a gift for my next purchase (Rock Sugar Baby)
- an unexpected gift with my current purchase: ISATY included matching earrings for the handmade necklace I bought. And a handwritten note :)
- honorary mention for timely customer support: furious with their courier company for continuously crappy service, I reached out to Pharmacy Discount to let them know that their otherwise notable efforts in every other aspect of their service, are ruined by a bad last mile experience. Not only did they answer immediately, but also offered to help me with the delivery of my next purchase, as I had explained that I needed baby food on time, because well… it’s baby food and the customer can’t exactly wait.
The outcome?
I have added each of them in my personal Notion list (don’t ask) and they are the first I’m looking into for any similar future purchase. Most importantly though, I’ve talked to my friends about their gesture in any given opportunity. Some of them have made their purchases already. And I believe have refered their friends, too, not because they were offered a gift, but because — strange as it may sound — positive experiences that bring a smile on your face are so hard to find in the sea of services we engage with every day.
They indeed feel like diamonds in piles of mud.
Behavioural Economics will tell you that Social Proof is one of the main drivers for action. That’s why every business tries to incorporate testimonials and reviews (hopefully positive) in its physical and online presence. You don’t have to be a scientist to understand it’s true.
Don’t get me wrong. Obviously, large organisations cannot put handwritten notes in their packages. If they are an online business, they fulfil hundreds or thousands orders every day. If they exist only in the physical world, they serve numerous people, as well.
But every business — no matter how big or small — has to understand the value of customer empathy. And act upon it. Or empower its employees to have room (and a budget) for own initiatives if those adhere to the overall journey the company has decided to create.
In the world we live in, businesses are expected to offer a seamless experience. But nobody gets a prize or wins customers over for that. Like I said: this is expected.
The ones who will go the extra mile and surprise you in a positive way, will be the one you tell your friends and your social media readers about.
If you’d like a team of specialists to help you get a better idea of how you can add moments of delight through your customer journey or eliminate frustration wherever it occurs, give us a shout.
Dollphin specialises in Customer Experience and Service Design, from Strategy all through Implementation, by emphasising on understanding the needs of the people we are designing our experiences for (in other words, Empathy).
A final note: this piece is by no way paid by any of the stores and is not aiming to promote their products, but their willingness to think about — and act upon — customer delight in a very humane level.
I am mentioning them by name, because I strongly believe we have to not only call out negative experiences, but also highlight positive ones.
