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Contact Vox to learn about how we can help you create a comprehensive Customer Experience that drives bottom-line results dramatically higher.

I had the privilege of attending the all-city Chicago Vistage meeting last week. While it was great to meet other like-minded business leaders, it was most compelling because of the speaker, Alan Beaulieu. Alan and his twin brother are economists who provide forecasts for companies, organizations, and even governments through their company, the Institute for Trend Research.

If you’re thinking “you lost me at ‘economist’” then we are kindred spirits. It’s not my thing. But he was powerful in his predictions, and I’ve been thinking about the discussion ever since. I admit, when he first began speaking about 2011 and the future, I was growing uncomfortable. What about NOW? What about TODAY?

But his focus was on beyond. What happens beyond Chicago, beyond the United States, beyond 2011, beyond this economic turmoil in which we’ve been immersed.
It’s so tempting to think short-term. So many organizations are focused on the immediate realities of our world today. Even the “unsinkable” companies of past generations are looking at how to make the next payroll; how to pay off the latest debt; how to cut the costs FAST.

When it comes to customer experience, it’s easy to fall into short-term thinking. Here are some examples:

• Promotion without strategy – customers can smell desperation and often exploit it. Know your limits and understand your desired pay-off before promoting something too quickly. (KFC!)
• Talking without listening – Executives who decide what to say to customers without talking to them first will have a hard time appealing to them. (MotrinMoms learned this the hard way.)
• Sacrificing current, loyal customers for the sake of acquiring new customers – AT&T recently retreated on their original iPhone policy in response to the outcry from current customers.
• Finally – this one is a personal favorite – treating social media as the end-all of customer communications. Social media is a fabulous tool, as I discuss here, but it’s just that – a tool. It’s part of a larger strategy of connecting with customers in powerful ways to naturally create loyalty and retention. If there is no larger strategy at work, social media will be a way to possibly connect with a segment of customers, and that’s only if it’s executed well. If not, it’s just another tool being underutilized.

So, as hard as it is, I believe we all have to start looking at beyond. Take a minute, map out where you want to go with your experience strategy, and then take the steps to get there. I feel better already.

Yesterday at a conference, I was peppered with questions about WHY small and growing businesses should enter into social media. This video from a few weeks ago helps answer some of those questions. But it’s important to note that it’s always wise to think of the WHY prior to jumping into the HOW.

Let’s not whitewash it. It’s a scary world right now. Everyday, we’re absorbing news via all our devices and witnessing low quarterly earnings, uncertain futures, and friends and family being laid off. It’s easy to just keep going through the motions of cutting expenses, limiting focus to “critical” activities, and just making sure the boss is content.

And yet some companies are innovating right now. Here’s a sampling of how some of them are working on the customer experience (and action you can take) TODAY.

1. Take one small step. A client of ours is focusing on their e-commerce strategy. With limited resources, they are making small changes to their e-commerce process to ensure customers have a better, faster checkout process. This has led to improved conversion, cross-sell and up-sell numbers via the web site.

2. Unite! One organization asked us to come in and rally the troops around customer experience. Summer is their big season, so we are helping every person at the organization - from the CEO to the janitorial staff - understand their place within the customer experience. It’s helped them create a common language and improve their own service standards.

3. Focus on the future. One client in a very hard-hit industry is creating a 3-year plan to get ready for the future. Dabbling in new ways to connect with customers, testing theories, and gathering feedback, they’re able to set the stage for success instead of stagnate where they are.

4. Communicate. Many industries have been hit hard, resulting in difficult times for customers and employees. The focus right now for a client in such an industry is on engaging their employees to deliver a superior customer experience. How? By implementing ways to stay connected through dialogue and communication that’s honest, compelling and relevant. They’re asking employees to celebrate each other and their little victories in new ways.  Engagement is up and customers are remaining loyal, even through bad news cycles.

These aren’t costly, cumbersome projects. These are lean and flexible in response to the times we’re in. Anything you can take away here to get started? Let me know.

I shop online.  A lot.  This makes me somewhat paranoid about my credit card numbers being stolen.  I know that most online sites are secure, but I still check my accounts daily to make sure nothing fishy is going on.

This morning I saw a charge I didn’t recognize, so I called Bank of America and spoke to an extremely helpful fraud claims rep.  She immediately identified the claim with no help from me.  “Are you calling about the $14.95 charge on April 21^st?”

Yep!

She told me some things that shocked me. 

(1)    It’s not technically fraud.  YES - I didn’t authorize the charge.  But, what most likely happened was that I bought something from Company A that sold my credit card number to Company B who started charging me monthly for a service that I knew nothing about.  And, I technically authorized the charge by doing business with Company A.

(2)    She gets calls reporting these kinds of charges every single day.

(3)    She told me that if I called the company and asked for a refund of all charges, they would immediately give them to me because, “They know you didn’t ask for their services.”

(4)    She advised me to ask them which company gave them my credit card information so that I can be cautious when dealing with that company in the future.  This kind of charge happened to her once, and it was Best Buy that sold her card number. 

(5)    All this is legal.

So, I called the company, told them I wanted all my money back and no future charges.  They folded immediately and gave me the refund.  They told me it was YourCableStore.com that gave them my number.  (I bought a stereo headphone adapter from them a month ago.)  And they sent me an oddly delightful cancellation confirmation email:

The irony of this situation is that even though my “membership experience” was based on what I feel are duplicitous practices, it was much easier to resolve the situation with them than it was to cancel my AOL membership, or my 24 Hour Fitness membership.  And, at least their exit communication was well written and even gave me the opportunity to provide them with “comments or suggestions.”  (I remember my AOL confirmation email as essentially saying, “You are dead to us.”)

The real losers in this scenario are the companies that are getting my business honestly with their right hand and quietly scamming me with their left.  What kind of customer relationship does that build?  Will I ever buy from YourCableStore.com?  No way.  And now even Best Buy is even looking fishy to me, because my friend at BofA warned me.

Happy Customer Loyalty Month!

Through serendipity and a great friend of mine, I lucked into a chance to attend the first two practice rounds of the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia last week. If you’re a golfer, I don’t have to tell you that that is an opportunity you don’t check your calendar for; you just go. If you’re not a golfer, well, congratulations.

The Masters is a special tournament, and Augusta National is a special place. You get that sense of history and tradition on television, but to go there is to truly feel the “experience” in the best sense of the word.

There are no corporate logos at the Masters, no sponsor signs on the course, no corporate tents, no ads in the course guidebook you’re handed (for free) on your way in. If you’re hungry, you can buy an egg salad sandwich for $1.50, a Coke for a buck. It’s like, as you step on the course, you’ve walked back in time about 25 years.

The course itself is immaculate, with thousands of blooming azaleas, dogwoods, 150 year-old elms, and Magnolias everywhere on the course and around the low-key plantation-style clubhouse.

Given the prestige and the rich tradition of the tournament, they have no trouble selling tickets, which they cap for both practice rounds and the tournament. There’s a lottery to grab the practice round passes, and they closed the waiting list for actual tournament passes in 2000 (9 years ago!), and still haven’t needed to open it back up.

So it makes me wonder. As we talk about customer experience, and what companies should focus on to create a memorable, positive one, what can we learn from Augusta National and the Masters. I think it’s two things.

First: Commit. At Augusta, they are committed to providing both players and spectators with the very best, traditional golf tournament in the country. To do that, they say no to quick money from additional sponsors, they leave money on the table by not increasing passes to an exorbitant amount, and they keep the number of spectators to a manageable number (again, bypassing more quick money) so everyone can move around and see their favorite players on the most famous holes. At the same time, they spare no expense in preparing and maintaining an immaculate course, tweaking it each year to make it challenging for the players, but retaining all the memorable aspects of individual holes, creating a sense of nostalgia.

Second: It All Matters. At Augusta, when you buy a sandwich, it’s wrapped in green plastic. The reason is so that, should you commit the cardinal sin of dropping it on the hallowed ground, it won’t be a distraction to the players or patrons, as it will blend into the background. That’s just one of the countless details that the members of Augusta National take into account to assure that each year, the tournament experience delivered is top shelf. They understand that the experience is made up of everything. It’s not just which players are entered, or the tee setups, or the traffic patterns to enter the course. It’s those things certainly, but it’s everything else as well.

As you think about your customer experience, do you understand what your company is really trying to accomplish? Are you willing to commit to the vision of your customer experience? And then, do you take into account all aspects of the experience, and how each might impact the customer’s perception of the experience?

If not, you have some work to do.

Follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bill1vox

April is Customer Loyalty Month!

Here at Vox, we talk a great deal about how simple improvements to the customer experience can increase customer loyalty and therefore profitability.  Giving people a personal touch is often the key in creating the kind of relationships that will win a loyal customer.

What simple things do you do to keep your customers coming back for more? 

How do you build relationships with them? 

How do you repair relationships that may be on rocky ground?

Leave a comment with your tips on building customer loyalty!

The more I read, the more it seems like there must be some silver bullet solution for increasing customer retention and profitability through an improved customer experience.

Is the trick a new “CRM 2.0″ software package, or does the answer lie in evolving social media dynamics? Maybe it’s a Web solution, or a new way to measure customer satisfaction.

The truth is, of course, it’s no one thing that you do or buy or implement. The answer lies, ultimately, in the heart of your organization. Are you committed to creating an experience your customers love? Because when it comes down to it, your customer doesn’t care if you spent a bunch of money on a CRM platform, or if you’re now measuring loyalty instead of satisfaction. Your customer feels the way he or she feels based on the perception that you actually care. And the secret to creating that perception is…(drumroll)…to actually care.

Because once your company actually cares, you’ll do all the other things that will create a customer experience that really works.

Why put the responsibility on customers to check out recalled products that can hurt or, sometimes, even kill them?  Yes, companies (or interested parties) try all they can to push the information to all involved so they can take action before something happens, but why not use the power of technology to avoid a potential customer experience nightmare?

Well, some ideas around that are starting to brew among California lawmakers: program supermarkets computers to trigger an alert when recalled products arrive at the checkout counter.  This would be a perfect way to stop tainted food from ever reaching the consumers’ table.

The idea seems sound and is actually not that difficult to implement.  Most big chains already have systems in place to process marketing and loyalty promotion associated with products at checkout. Adding another trigger is mostly a matter of finding an effective way of distributing updated lists of recalled products.

Besides the obvious reasons to do this (say: saving lives!), it could save the companies a lot of money in handling after-the fact complains and, in the worst cases, negative publicity. 

I can’t wait to see something like this being implemented outside of California and beyond just supermarkets and grocery stores.  Don’t you?

Follow Luis on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/luiserpa

An article caught my eye in this week’s Crain’s Chicago Business discussing how certain legislation may require restaurants to put calorie counts for their food on menus.  You can read the full article here.

You may be able to guess why some restaurants are concerned.  The article reads, “At least one recent study has shown that calorie counts can change consumer behavior, meaning customers might opt for the grilled chicken over the Big Mac or cut back on fast-food trips altogether.”

There is much debate over whether this is a good idea or not, but the thought occurred to me.  If customers are aware of what they are actually buying, will they make a different choice?  Could I go as far as saying, “If we can’t deceive our customers, they won’t buy from us?”

In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in transparency about calorie content.  I can easily find calorie counts for any major restaurant online.  And, honestly, it really hasn’t changed my food choices.  I wonder, though, if it has encouraged restaurateurs to be more focused on what their customers want, and seek out economically feasible ways to give them what they want. 

That seems like a step in the right direction to me.

I recently went out on the cold streets of Chicago to talk to people about their recent customer experiences.  Here’s a quick (fun) video of some of their responses…

Follow Peggy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/entrop