Why should people bother to buy from you?
Tue 23-Jun-2009 14:07I have recently returned from delivering a keynote at a global conference on customer experience for a client.On reviewing my notes I discovered that certain themes had recurred more than once during our lively andanimated conversations on how to enhance the customer experience.The ceo’s challenge to the audience (at my prompting) was "Why should people bother to buy from us if we arethe same as the competition?" Playing devil’s advocate he continued, "Sorry, but I can’t think of a singlereason! And I certainly can’t think of a single reason in a world where our competition is cheaper or faster orfriendlier or whatever!"As I travel from client to client I see that this is a big question for far too many businesses: banks, buildingsocieties, shops, consultants, pubs, almost any business...To make sense of the "Why?" it helps to realise that many live in a world of mediocrity - everything claims tobe better but actually everything is the same.My theme continued from the CEO’s opening, "Compare your business with the competition: youemploy...similar people with...similar qualifications at...similar salaries to use...similar software on...similarmachines to deal with...similar customers with...similar needs so that you can sell them...similar productsat...similar prices to those of your...similar competitors!"The good news, of course, is that in this world of similarity and mediocrity, one only needs to be five percentdifferent from the competition to stand out! And the good news for my client is that they could do that, and inspades.The theme of the conference was ‘Be Different: Be Remarkable Now’. The ‘Senior Exec’ had recognised thatmost service firms’ operations are among the safest and that’s because the firms appear to take no risks. But,because of that, it’s actually quite a risky business.In one breakout group on the danger of being unremarkable, the group had created their own businessepitaph:
’Here lies another businessThe business did OK, but not great No-one will remember it that well But at least it looked like everyone else.’
The next stage in the conference was to get delegates to talk about the ‘customer experience’ as ‘what youget’ and also a little more as well.The delegates could see that operations is all about the delivery of the product or service - and that this isoften seen from the producer’s point of view:
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Are we giving them the right stuff?
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Are we giving them what they want?The ‘aha!’ moment for many was the realisation that the customer experience is that same transaction, exceptthat it is seen through the eyes of the customer. So we ask:
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‘What does the transaction look like and feel like for the customer?’
Operations does not operate in a vacuum. For the customer, a crucial element of receiving the product orservice is whether it meets or exceeds expectations! If marketing is the promise and operations is the deliveryof the promise, then the customer experience is where marketing meets operations!
Why does the Customer Experience matter?
The next ‘aha’ was when the conference unilaterally declared that the Customer Experience is probably theonly thing that matters in the business. The breakout groups announced that the customers pay the bills, thecustomers tell other people how great we are, customers would rather be treated well rather than be treatedbadly, customers remember exceptional service and tell others - they become our ‘raving fans’, customersremember dreadful service and tell others.
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