At Coachio Group, when we work with clients to help them create Remarkable Organisations with Exceptional People, we apply a ‘value creation lens’ to ensure that there is a focus on each of the three essential areas for any business wanting to achieve sustainable success; Organisational Value, People Value, and Customer Value.
Without spending time explaining the merits of this approach, I’m fairly certain that the one thing we can all agree on is the need to ensure customers feel valued and that they receive value, by way of products or services. However, value isn’t just what we are delivering, or indeed why we are delivering it, but absolutely includes how we are delivering it.
If you’re like me, at some point in your life you may have returned time and again to a favourite restaurant that only ever served ‘OK’ food in an ‘OK’ environment. But maybe, like I did, you kept going because your experience, from booking, arriving, and service, through to paying the bill and saying goodbye, exceeded your expectations and then they continued to meet them each time you visited. That didn’t happen by chance; that level of success was determined by the quality of the connection between those who worked there and you, the valued customer. Creating that experience took significant and consistent effort.
Unfortunately, examples like this stand out as memorable because in so many situations these days it seems customer experience is bottom of the list of priorities for many businesses. I’m sure if asked, business leaders would vehemently disagree with this, but as customers it’s what we actually see, hear, and feel when we engage with a business that creates the experience, not what we are told to feel in advertising and marketing campaigns.
Not that marketing doesn’t work, of course it does, we possibly wouldn’t be at that particular business if we hadn’t been influenced by some type of promotion, whether we realised it or not. But what happens when we engage with the business, at the premises, on the phone or online, creates the experience that can undo the work of the marketers that did so well in grabbing our attention.
In an ever-changing world where everybody is competing, locally and internationally, for the same customers’ attention, it’s never been so important to invest in ensuring your people provide the best possible, genuine experience that ensures your customers both feel valued and receive the value they expect.
Consistently good service creates and builds trust, loyalty, and sustainability for businesses in an uncertain world. It’s true that customers can actually have more trust for a company after they have made great effort to overcome an issue or complaint, but this should not be any kind of strategy to rest our laurels on. It’s so much easier and cost effective to avoid such issues in the first place. After all, if you don’t have the time to fix the issues properly because you’re too busy apologising, it’s likely that trust will be lost when the customer experiences more of the same.
Like with many aspects of life these days, it seems that we are so busy being busy that we forget to pay attention, to spend time connecting, listening, understanding, and engaging with each other on a level that is meaningful and impactful. Everything seems so transactional; we do things quickly so we can move on to the next thing we must do quickly. But we are missing an opportunity to create a real connection, one that will last with our valued and valuable customers.
Most business don’t operate like a fast food chain, where a cursory exchange of pleasantries can be woven into the workflow process. In those situations, it works perfectly because by the very nature of what they have promised, ‘fast food’, they are setting my expectation that I won’t be having a lengthy or meaningful engagement. Instead, it will be quick and transactional, not personal, tailored, or designed to make me remember that experience in 12 months’ time when I need some more new tyres for my car.
As with the restaurant scenario, if you want your customers to return time and again, no matter how frequent their need of your products and services, you need to deliver a level of service that creates a memorable experience. To achieve this, you need exceptional people that understand how important this is, and that have what they need to know to create such customer value.
With a team of exceptional people, you can be assured that the best possible customer experience will be delivered in a way that serves both the needs of each customer and, in turn, your business.
If you can’t be certain that your customers are receiving 100% of your promise 100% of the time, you may need to invest in your team. Your business needs people that understand the importance of customer care and know what customer service excellence looks like for your customers. You need people who want to enhance their skills to be more empathetic, emotionally intelligent and to become great communicators.
Coachio have an awesome opportunity to boost your teams’ customer service skills by enrolling on a course delivered to internationally renowned organisations. Developed by our partners, Amaze Training, who have worked with globally recognised names including Heineken, HSBC, Santander, and Burj Al Arab, this one-day workshop will upskill your people in customer service excellence so your business maximises the benefits of taking a customer-centric approach. It can be run in house for larger organisations, or individually as a public course local to your business – check out the current dates here, or find out more about the course, and get in touch with us today to register your interest.