“Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!”
Tom Peters
When your customers call or walk into your establishment, they already have a perceived expectation of what your customer experience should be. Your advertising, website and salespeople, which serve a promise to your customers, have already shaped that expectation. Deliver on that promise and your customers come to trust you. Fall short and you have broken that promise and trust. For example, a restaurant menu is a promise to your customers that what is printed on the menu is what you have to offer. If you have to tell a customer that he has an old menu, the new menus haven’t been delivered by the printer and the dry-aged steak is not on the new menu, then to the customer, you failed. He doesn’t care about the printer. All he cares about is his steak. And you failed to deliver it. And his perception is all there is.
Customers don’t care that it’s your first day on the job. They don’t care that you are understaffed because someone called in sick. Customers don’t care that the computers were down when they called. They only care that they are your customers. They are willing to give you their hard-earned money in exchange for an experience that they feel is more valuable to them than their money. And when they come to you, they never have an expectation that they will be dissatisfied.
So how do you live up to your customers’ expectations? At the very least the customer experience you deliver should be with no surprises and no excuses. To your customers, any experience less than their expectation is perceived as a dissatisfying surprise. And any reason you offer to explain why you could not deliver is perceived as an excuse. And their perception is all there is.
So do everything you can to make sure there are no negative surprises. Get rid of any potential dissatisfiers. For example, remove forbidden phrases such as “I’ll be back in a second,” Can you hold for just a minute?” and “I’ll be right with you.” Such phrases only frustrate a customer when more than 60 seconds go by. Review all the customer touchpoints and take any negative issue and make it a neutral. Minimize wait times. Clean dirty restrooms. Create “no hassle” return or exchange policies. Then, as Larry Winget, the Pitbull of Personal Development puts it, “Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it.” That’s it. It’s that simple. Just “do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it.”
And if the customer is unpleasantly surprised because you could not deliver, then offer no excuses. Simply apologize. Even if the customer asks for a reason, just say, “It doesn’t matter. We failed. It should never have happened and I apologize.” Remove the surprise and offer some form of atonement.
QUI TAKEAWAY: To drive customer loyalty, deliver to each customer an experience that has “No Surprises. No Excuses.”
Too often, the only way a business asks for customer feedback is with the question, “How was everything?” And for many owners and managers, the response “Everything was fine.” is enough. If you are one of those who is satisfied with “Fine”, then know that your customers are leaving you.
Be Your Customer. You hear of a new restaurant in town. You decide to try it out. There is no hostess upon arrival. When she does return back to the stand five minutes later, she curtly asks “How many?” with no other greeting. During service the server wasn’t rude, but he certainly wasn’t exceptional. The meal took slightly longer to be served than you expected. The beverages were never refilled until you asked. Yet when the manager comes up to the table and asks, “So how is everything?”, what do you say? “Fine.” The manager is thinking, “Another satisfied customer,” but you’re thinking to yourself, “Never again.” Your customers are no different. If service is only adequate, there is no real desire to return.
Maybe that’s too harsh. What I’m saying is that if your customers perceive your service as merely satisfactory, it simply is not good enough for them to want to return. They’re perfectly satisfied for the moment, but they’ll switch to a competitor if something better or less comes along.
Loyalty among satisfied customers is fleeting. In fact, research conducted by Xerox and featured in a Harvard Business Review report by Thomas Jones and W. Earl Sasser, Jr. found out that on a 1-to-5 satisfaction scale, the very satisfied customers who ranked their experience a 4 were six times more likely to defect than the extremely satisfied customer who rated their experience a 5. Creating only satisfied customers will not build your business. In fact, if you are only creating satisfied customers, your business will suffer. Proof? How about Circuit City versus Best Buy? Borders versus Barnes and Noble? KMart versus Wal-mart?
Does your product have such an overwhelming quality or price advantage that your customers won’t consider your competitor? If not, then the key criteria to driving loyalty will be how your customers perceive their overall service experience.
If you want to retain your customers and grow your business, you need to deliver service that exceeds their expectations and more than satisfies them. So how do you do it? You must deliver a consistent experience without any dissatisfiers and full of positive Moments of Truth.
So what is the QUI takeaway in this one? Continue to ask the question, “How was your experience?” And when a customer responds, “Fine,” immediately ask, “Is there any one thing we could have done to make it more enjoyable for you?” Then do whatever it takes to deliver it before he has a chance to walk out the door.
How do you get your customers to feel that their experience with your business is so over the top that they want to tell the world? For them to be WOWED, answer this question for your customer “What would World’s Best look like?” or “WWWBLL”. The “World’s Best” experience is not as “the world” sees it, but as the customer personally feels it.
The customer pays for their experience. And they seek the best value in their experience for the price you ask them to pay. So a person living in Detroit having a five-figure salary feels the best value isn’t a luxury plane to the Swiss Alps, but rather a four-hour drive to Boyne Mountain.
Once you understand the expectation of WWWBLL for your customer, then you need to deliver that experience consistently. There are Three Principles to answering the WWWBLL question: Be Your Customer. Create Their Experience. Be the Difference.
Principle One of the WWWBLL Experience: Be Your Customer
To your customers, their perception is their reality. Jan Carlzon, then president of SAS Airlines, coined the phrase “Moment of Truth,” which defines any time a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, and based upon the collective sum of those “Moments of Truth” forms an unshakeable perception of that company.
Why is the male grooming standard at Disney theme parks so strict? If children are not brought to Walt Disney World by their parents, they are brought by their grandparents. Ask Grandma if she would leave her grandchild in the care of the teen attendant with visible body tattoos, long hair, unshaven beard, and multiple body piercings – a Moment of Truth. Grandma may not say it, but she certainly thinks, “Of course not! If he’s not doing drugs, he’s probably selling drugs.” That attendant could be Disney’s Cast Member of the Month. It doesn’t matter. Grandma’s perception is her reality.
If you dine in a restaurant for the first time and have a decent meal, but, in the end, step into the restroom – a Moment of Truth – and you find it filthy, you may not return. You are thinking, “If the owner doesn’t feel restroom cleanliness is important, he probably doesn’t think it’s important in the kitchen either.” Your perception is that if the restroom looks and smells this bad, how clean could the kitchen be? And your perception is your reality.
Customers buy with emotion and justify that decision with reason. Customers are willing to pay a premium because it makes them feel better emotionally. Think about a Four Star resort spa experience. The reality is that you will go into a private room and take off all your clothes. A complete stranger is going to come into that room and for fifty minutes touch you all over your body. And for that experience, you pay the spa about a hundred dollars. Realistically why would you do that? Because emotionally you believe you feel so much more relaxed, it was worth it. Your perception is your reality.
If you want to relax at home, envision yourself in a “Calgon, Take Me Away” moment, soaking in a bubble bath, surrounded by candles, listening to Kenny G. You can go to any dollar store and buy a pack of ten emergency candles for a dollar. That makes each candle just ten cents – very reasonable. But for some of you, that is laughable. If you are going to relax, dollar-store candles just won’t do. You’ll return to that spa and get one of their scented candles. The spa sells candles for ten dollars each. You could get one hundred dollar-store candles for just one spa candle. One hundred candles! You could have a bonfire in the bathroom with those candles! But which candle would make you feel better? You’d say it’s because the spa candle smells like mango-papaya. You could return to the dollar store to buy air fresheners, pop them open, and put them all over the bathroom. But you’d respond that it just wouldn’t feel the same as how the spa candle would make you feel. Your perception is your reality. You, being the customer, are willing to pay a premium because it makes you feel better. Now you are being your customer.
QUI TAKEAWAY: Your customers’ perceptions are their reality and they buy with emotion. Their expectation of customer service is no different. Maya Angelou said it best, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” If your customers’ Moments of Truth interactions with your business are “wow’s” and, in the end, they feel great, they will be sure to tell their world of family and friends. So how do you create an experience that will emotionally bond your customer to your company?
“Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is!” Tom Peters.
Your Number One work responsibility is to WOW new customers and have customers return loyally, raving to others. So, how do you do that? Be the customer. The customer pays for his experience, not yours. To them, image is everything, perception is reality, and feelings are facts. They buy with emotion and justify that decision with reason. So he seeks the best emotional value in his experience, not your logical best price, service, or product. When your customer interacts with you, you are not representing the company. You ARE the company. And, as the company, you cannot begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the potential dissatisfiers. That means removing Forbidden Phrases. Forbidden Phrases are those that could potentially give a customer a bad impression of you and your company. The customer seeks his best value, and, bluntly, one of the Forbidden Phrases is a poor one. Here are just a few:
“I’m new here.” “I’m in training.” “It’s my first day.” Be the customer. If you’re going to pay your hard-earned money, do you want to be served by a rookie? Your customer is no different. Saying that you’re new is your experience. The customer is seeking the best value for their experience. When you say you’re in training, your service is a poor value for his experience. Even more, customers don’t care about your experience. All they care about is their experience.
PROPER: Simply don’t use these phrases. The customer seeks a GREAT experience, and you simply want to give it to them as best you can.
“You’ll have to go to (call) …” The customer pays for his experience, not yours. He doesn’t HAVE TO do anything.
PROPER: You may have said, “Could you go to (call ) …”, but he might have a “pass onto pass onto pass onto …” negative experience.
It’s best to say, “Let me walk you to the call…” and do it quickly.
“To be honest with you …” What is the customer hearing? “… because I lie to you the rest of the time.”
PROPER: Simply do not use any of these phrases. You’re not lying to him because you haven’t said anything. And the best value for the customer’s experience is one that is quick, easy, and painless.
“That’s not my job.” Be the customer. “Well, it looks like you work here. Why isn’t it your job and why don’t you find the person who does?”
“I don’t know.” When you say “I don’t know,” you are saying to your customer, “I don’t know. They didn’t train me well, and this company always keeps me in the dark.”
“I think …” or “I believe …” “What time does the mall across the street open on Sunday?” “I think 11 a.m.” Here is what the customer is hearing you say, “I have no clue, but here is my best guess… “
PROPER PHRASE: “That’s a great question. Let me find out for you.” The best value for the customer is an experience when they feel they have all a great question.
“Okay.” Your customers may be parents. When they asked their six-year-old, “Are you going to clean your room before dinner?” and the child said, “Okay,” what were the parents thinking? When the parents asked their sixteen-year-old, “You’re going to be home by midnight, right?” and the teen said “Okay,” what do you think the parents were thinking? “Okay” to them means “Maybe. Maybe not.” So when you say “Okay,” the customer is hearing “Maybe. Maybe not.” Or he is hearing “Okay,” which means “good.” So your customer feels your service is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average.
“No problem.” Your customer has every expectation that his experience will be problem-free. No customer ever calls or walks into your establishment to proclaim, “Here I am. Here’s my money. Dissatisfy me now.” When you say, “No problem,” your customer is thinking, “Why? Was there a possibility that it would be a problem? At the same time, “No problem” means “no problem to you.” What you are saying to your customer is, “Of the two of us, I am the star of the show. And you are asking something so small that it is no problem.” Not exactly customer-centric, are you?
“Okay” and “No problem” are saying to the customer, “We will meet your minimal expectations”. And since you are intent on delivering outstanding service, should anything simply be “okay” or “no problem”? Of course not.
PROPER PHRASE: “Certainly.” His experience is not just “okay” or good, without a problem or just satisfactory. It’s “certainly” better.
“That happens all the time.” For example, “The hotel key you just gave me doesn’t work on my door.” “Oh, that happens all the time.” Here is what the customer wants to ask, “Well, if it happens ALL the time here, why don’t you FIX it?”
PROPER PHRASE: “I apologize.” (More on this below.)
“Our policy is …” Be the customer. Here is what the customer is hearing you say, “What I am about to tell you will cover us. You’re simply not going to like it. But that’s your problem.”
PROPER PHRASE: Explain what the policy is, but don’t use the word “policy.”
“I’m sorry. We’re a little understaffed.” or “Someone called in sick today.” or “I’m sorry” plus any reason why you were unable to deliver.
Customers do not expect to be dissatisfied when they walk into your establishment. Any explanation you give about why you did not meet their expectations is not being heard as a reason. It’s being heard as an excuse. They don’t want an excuse. Customers are paying for their experience, not yours. “I’m sorry” is your experience. Bluntly, they don’t care how you feel. What’s in it for them? Customers want action, not excuses. At the very least, you should give him an apology.
PROPER PHRASE: Simply say “I apologize,” with no excuses, and do whatever it takes to work towards a resolution, even if it means recommending him to your competitor. Don’t “fire” the customer. Simply ask him to “resign.” “I apologize, but we can’t find a solution for you. Could I recommend this company (your competitor)? I could call them if you like.” Both are happy. The customer is happy because you found a quick fix. He has an emotional connection. The more emotional the connection, the more memorable the experience, the more loyal the customer. Ideally, the customer will remember and return later. The competitor is happy because you referred a customer to them. The competitor may refer a customer to you when they can’t fix a problem. A Mutual Admiration Society of sorts.
QUI TAKEAWAY: Are there any Forbidden Phrases that are specific to your industry? “Checking in? or “Checking out?” for hotels. “Just one?” or “Are you done with that?” for restaurants. Identify and eliminate them from conversations with your customers, and you will be on your way to delivering a problem-free, exceptional experience for them.
I ask my audience, “What is the best form of advertising to build market share?” Invariably, almost everyone responds “word-of-mouth.” Yet I tell them they are wrong.
The reach of word-of-mouth has gone well beyond just family and friends. People are turning to the internet to use sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even Facebook to make buying decisions. While the reviews and advice are virtual, it is still word-of-mouth advertising. Customers do it and most likely with technological advances, will do it even more. While customers don’t know any other customers, they trust their reviews. Michael Angelo Caruso, leadership and communication consultant, says it like this: “If I tell you how great I am, it’s advertising. If someone else tells you how great I am, it’s the truth.” Customers trust the reviews and ratings of complete strangers over advertising. But here’s the catch. Customers not only are looking at the good reviews. They’re making a no-buy decision on the poor reviews, too. For example, if a customer is looking for a hotel, he may veer away from one that has customers post reviews of paper-thin walls or poor housekeeping. A bad review will hurt you more than a good one will help.
So simple word-of-mouth, be it in person or on the internet, is not the best form of advertising. The best form of advertising is “positive word-of-mouth.”
There are three things that happen after you do business with a customer.
You do not meet the customer’s expectations. The customer is dissatisfied, never saying anything to you, but rants to everyone, including those he does not even know.
You meet his expectations but, in his mind, did nothing to set you apart. He may be satisfied, but he tells no one.
You exceed the customer’s expectation where he wants to continue to do business with you. Not only does he loyally return, he raves about you to others, even those he does not know.
QUI TAKEAWAY: It takes more than meeting a customer’s expectations to drive positive word-of-mouth advertising. Satisfied customers feel their experience is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average. And satisfied customers will leave when they find something better or less expensive. Exceeding customers’ expectations is the only outcome that actually builds your business. In order to become raving fans, customers must experience an interaction that is simply over the top. They must walk out your doors and say “Wow! That’s the best thing that has happened to us today.” Without the “wow” there is no rave review. And if you are not generating rave reviews, you simply are not generating enough positive word-of-mouth advertising to build your business. So, today, don’t treat customers as they would have expected. And don’t treat them more than they want to be treated. Instead, treat them a little better than they want to be treated. Don’t serve to sell. And don’t serve to satisfy customers. Instead, serve to WOW them. Serve to CARE. Be Magnificently Boring! And Be GREAT out there!
Don’t serve to sell to customers. And don’t serve to satisfy your customers. Serve to WOW them.
Don’t treat customers as they would expect. And don’t treat customers as they want to be treated. Treat them better than they want to be treated.
Here are three things you can do now that can WOW your customers and set you ahead of your competitors:
Define and dissect just one of the “ow” or WOW” moments in your company’s customer experience. Take a potentially negative “ow” and make it neutral. Take a neutral moment and make it a “WOW” reward. For example, educate your customer service representative not to say “May I help you?” Your customer obviously needs help if he or she is approaching the representative. The proper response should be to greet the customer and ask “How many I help you?” Even better, “How may I serve you today?”
Today walk through one of your competitors’ locations with a mindset to “Be Their Customer”. What are some of the little things that they do better than you? How can you improve upon those touchpoints to enhance and differentiate you from them? Too often, in our day-to-day operation, we live in a silo mistakenly thinking that our competitors just sit there with no intention of doing anything different than before. Get out there to see for yourself how “the other guys” are doing.
Use the CASE Method to improve the customer experience. Identify just one different idea outside of your industry that you can CASE (Copy And Steal Everything) that would enhance the customer experience. For example, shopping mall food courts offer free samples of their menu to passing customers. If you work in a hotel, could you CASE that in your restaurant at lunch of your signature dinner dishes? How can you offer free samples from your company to potential customers?
QUI QUESTIONS: Why only three? Because nobody remembers Number Four. Why now? Nobody cares how good you used to be. So do it now. And be GREAT out there!
"People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed."
Samuel Johnson
This blog, along with my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, offer practical tips, insight and inspiration to serve as reminders on how to improve your personal delivery of customer service.
BILL QUISENG | Deliver the World's Best Customer Experience 