Emphasize Customer Experience

A few years ago I read Tom Heath’s story in the Washington Post called: “Customer service is battleground”  Although he does hit on customer service for the first few paragraphs, ultimately this is a great story about how two entrepreneurs built a successful enterprise.   The 2 brothers, Tom  and John Hughes, were also an appropriate subject for the first day of summer: they own six Haagen-Dazs ice cream shops.

I commend this article not just because of the “how-they-did-it” story, but also for the introductory paragraphs about customer service.  The Hughes’ brothers explain that customer service “is the battleground where they win or lose customers in the highly competitive dessert market.”  Although customer service is always important, the brothers’ wisdom is especially important in any industry where a number of competitors – including substitutes – can risk turning your business into the purveyor of a commodity. 

In business, we can compete essentially in 3 areas: price, our product/service, and the customer’s experience.  Competing in price is devastating for most businesses without the scale to compete with the big boys.  A local merchant will get destroyed by Walmart on price; the telecom company I worked for in the early part of this century was eaten alive by the large phone companies.  Even if your competition is just other small businesses, price competition will eat your margins, and without margin you can’t invest in your business or stay alive when the inevitable market downturn comes.

So, if price isn’t such a good way to compete, how about the quality of your product or service?  Absolutely.  Although I’m sure Haagen-Dazs fans will say there’s a huge difference, but is there really a big difference in the quality of Haagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerry’s, or my favorite – Coldstone Creamery?  Companies that want to stay alive will continue to invest in maintaining and improving their quality, so you will need to keep doing this investment for as long as you intend on staying in business.  However, is this investment enough to help you keep your repeat customers and win new ones?

Price is devastating and quality is critical, so where else can you compete?  The customer experience.  If you look at your own buying habits, or if you ask any of your repeat customers, the reason why we go back, more than any other reason, is our overall experience with the vendor.  I buy my suits from Davelle Clothiers in Reston.  I can get similar quality for a similar price at any high end store (Nordstrom, Saks, etc.), but even Nordstrom’s legendary customer service cannot compete with the experience I get from the team at Davelle, so I drive the 60 miles from my home in Annapolis to get it.  I’m sure you have many examples of this in your own buying.

In Tom’s column, it was clear that Zappos.com does not take this experience for granted.  They invest in it – and so should you.  You can charge a premium for the experience that your customers get, because it’s the experience that they value.  You run a gas station, you say?  Make the customer experience at your gas station second to none – so great that customers will drive out of their way to experience it.  Run a bank?  Make the customer experience so magnificent that people won’t leave even for a better rate.  Just make the experience so great that people wouldn’t think about going anywhere else – and charge them appropriately for it.

Don’t know how?  Go outside your industry for ideas and make customer experience job number one!  Remember, although your people may be your company’s greatest asset, your company’s value is determined by essentially one thing – repeat customers (or predictable future customers).

How do you deliver awesome customer experience?

Grow Strong!

Coach Grev