Customer Experience Design

Who would you pick?

Suppose that you came into work one day and waiting for you by your desk was your fairy Godmother.

And suppose your fairy Godmother said that because you'd been working really hard lately she was going to let you choose the attributes that every single one of your customers would have that day.

You'd probably think back to try and recall those times when you'd really had some fun in your dealings with a customer. You'd think about what those people were like and how they affected you.

So what kind of attributes would you choose?

• A sense of humour?
• A great conversationalist?
• A smile that you could hear through their voice?
• Maybe a little bit sexy / flirty?
• Someone who didn't take you for granted?
• Someone who knew what they were talking about?

You'd probably have a great day if all your customers were like that. It would be a day to remember. A day to tell people about.

Now suppose that the fairy Godmothers of each customer you'd dealt with in the last year also offered them a wish. To chose the attributes of the person at your company who would help them in future. What kind of attributes do you think they'd like?

• A sense of humour?
• A great conversationalist?
• A smile that you could hear through their voice?
• Maybe a little bit sexy / flirty?
• Someone who seemed genuinly interested in them as an individual?
• Someone who knew what they were talking about?
• Someone who did what they said they'd do?

Would they pick you?

Do you give good mouth?

Word of mouth that is.

Do you tell your fiends and family about the good, bad or indifferent experiences that you have. Chances are that you whinge about the bad ones. Rave about the good ones. And say little or nothing about the stuff that falls in between.

 
And the chances are that the bad ones significantly outnumber the good ones.

 
Your customers are no different. They are just like you in this respect. So the question is, what are you doing to explicitly create the positive tension that means your customers will rave about your business to their family and friends?

 
We live in a world in which we already know that word of mouth is the most trusted and sought out form of recommendation. In which we as customers seek this out. In a world which has already created a myriad of ways to both give and receive word of mouth feedback without even meeting the other people involved. Just look at the customer scoring systems that exist on ebay, on Amazon, on Youtube.

 
So in a world in which intelligent, rational people know and understand the importance of word of mouth feedback do most organisations and their marketing departments still insist on trying to sell us things through interruption marketing, false promises, and glossy adverts?

 

Please park your brains and morals at reception...

I was speaking to a guy at work a couple of days ago about customer experience. He's taken to using the phrase customer experience in pretty much everything he does. He thinks it's cool. He thinks it marks him out as a progressive, customer focused, tuned in guy who's got his finger on the pulse. Oh yeah!

This is same guy who thinks that sending out a million doordrop mailings a year to customers is OK because it helps us hit sales targets. This is the same guy who thinks it's OK to load price increases on existing customers is cool because it's the way the industry works.

This is the same guy who hates receiving junk mail at home. The same guy who got really angry when his bank refused to treat him as a he thought they should treat a customer with over 15 years of loyalty.

Why do so many people expect to be treated one way, and yet are complicit in the creation of customer experiences that they themselves would hate to experience? What is it about most organisations that allows them to remove the common sense that most of their employees have?