Delivering Simplexity
Life is complex. We want “freedom of choice”, and yet it is so easy to drown in dilemmas. Don’t make your customers stall in front of a yogurt aisle.
It had been quite a productive morning. I was almost done writing an article I wanted to send by the end of the day, and I was even getting ambitious enough to think I could finish a second one before dark.
That’s when it happened. First phone call: “Hello ma’am, it’s your mobile phone company. Did you know we could also provide Internet for a very competitive price?”
Annoying, I will admit, but it turns out I had wanted to leave my provider for a while, so I listened to the very patient representative explain how I had been a faithful customer and how his company wanted to reward me with this “special offer”.
I was half convinced, when ironically, my phone lost the signal, and the line got cut. The situation was quite comical, considering they were trying to increase my value as a customer by cross selling other services, and yet could not get their basics right (provide a reliable mobile network coverage).
This is not where the story ends; it gets worse. Half frustrated and half empathetic towards the sales rep who took quite some time with me to verify whether my address was admissible, I called the number back to resume the conversation.
You are probably quite familiar with the experience that followed. Second phone call. The woman who picked up announced “customer service” instead of sales. Briefly, I explained my situation and asked to be transferred to the sales department. “You what? You want me to transfer you to SALES!? You won’t be able to speak to the same representative, you know that, right?”
Luckily for me, I was very close to losing my cool when the gentleman called back, putting an end to my misery. I eventually signed up, and a few days later, a technician showed up and got everything up and running (I will spare you the details of the 34-minute phone call required to cancel the former provider).
Keeping the (right) scores
In the company’s database, my customer value probably increased. I might even have moved to a different, more valuable segment. From my perspective, however, this was less than enjoyable. In fact, the whole experience was so poorly designed that what the brand might have earned in profits, it lost in credibility.
If I was asked tomorrow whether I would recommend this brand to a friend, the answer might come as a shock for the people working within the ISP’s retention department. That is because this metric, called the Net Promoter Score, probably does not figure anywhere within their reports.
In a world where so many products and services are viewed as commodities, not investing in service design as a key differentiator can be very costly. Just as I had no remorse leaving my previous ISP for this one based on its price (alone), I would not be ashamed of leaving the new one if I could get a better experience somewhere else.
The harsh truth is that customers don’t care about companies’ internal processes, the complexity and limitations of their softwares or who’s approval is required to do what. They want their expectations to be met, consistently. And without rigorous and thoughtfully designed processes, this is a lost battle.
Co-creating experiences
Services now contribute to approximately 74% of Europe’s GDP (and close to 80% of America’s), and yet the concept of service design remains relatively new. In their book, Woo, Wow and Win, Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight, Thomas Stewart and Patricia O’Connell describe service design and delivery as “providing an experience that matches a customer’s expectations, and delivering it time and again.”
In other words, it is the art of delivering what customers deem as simple, delightful and reliable, while embracing and learning to manage complexity behind the scene. Of course, this cross-disciplinary practice must include the customers themselves, since they stand at the very centre of the interaction.
With growing ubiquity of technology, customers can now interact in-store, online, on a mobile device, over the phone… And they expect consistency no matter which channel they use. Add social media to the mix, and customers’ voice has more power than ever to praise… or defame.
In short, to manage complexity and deliver simplicity, service providers need to continually design and refine both their internal and customer facing processes to stay ahead of the curve.
3 books you should read
· Competing Against Luck, by Clayton M. Christensen et al. Why? Because the Theory of Jobs to Be Done can teach you a lot about customers wants and needs.
· Customer Centricity, by Peter Fader Why? Wharton professor Peter Fader makes CRM sound easy in this 60–90 min read. A good place to start to understand customer lifetime value and segmentation
· Woo, Wow and Win, by Thomas Stewart and Patricia O’Connell Why? It is another good “beginners book”. Readers with previous knowledge of service design can skip directly to part III, which suggests 9 archetypes to better understand how to position a service business.
Audrey Raby is a strategist, a storyteller a speaker and a mom. She’s also COO of innovation consulting firm Nash, in Montreal.
