Last month I had a chance to explore the idea of customer experience from the five senses. It’s in the way your customers see, feel, hear, possibly touch and taste their way through their customer journey with your company or product. I know some times my supporting staff probably think I’m a bit over the edge when I’m insisting on certain elements of a customer visit to our facility to be “just so”, but I’ve made it a point to let others know what success this spells, and conversely, possible disaster.
So what ties us to the physical aspects of a customer experience is the emotional take-away. What’s interesting is that anyone who is involved in customer care, loyalty, service, or experience has a great amount of influence to design an experience that will leave the customer with the appropriate emotion. While there are opportunities to create negative responses, designed to create a specific reaction and result (harassing calls by collection agencies come to mind), I would rather focus on the desired positive methods and results that help drive positive results.
For most of us in this age of impersonal contact, 800 #s with a thousand branches in the phone directory to the ubiquitous emails from companies who will try to sell you something every minute of the day, the personal touch is becoming the differentiator in how we win the business and more importantly, the hearts of our customers.
Think for a moment of when you last felt “cared for” by a company. Not in a generic sort of way, but in a way that you thought to yourself that the person representing that particular company cared for you, cared enough to understand what you needed or wanted and addressed it with you in such a way that it was memorable. And possibly more importantly, it was memorable enough for you to repeat the positive story to others in your circle of influence. While all of us know that bad news and bad service is spoken about at a much higher rate than good news and good results, speaking about the positive emotions that were produced from an exceptional experience will drive others to your business or service.
From my engagement with our sales reps to the end-use customer, I make it a point to design the customer experience with positive, caring moments. These moments ultimately yield in sales results and customers who feel that our company cares to understand and address their problems not only with solutions, but with a caring heart. Don’t think that Southwest Airlines doesn’t think about this on a daily basis.
Chris Echevarria is a veteran of the offset analog world who has made her way into the digital space. From marketing segment manager, competitive market analyst, product manager and currently as Canon Solutions America’s customer experience manager in Boca Raton, Chris enjoys participating in the changing landscape of the printing industry.
One Response
Great article, Chris! The customer experience is so important and connection is definitely what takes it above and beyond!