Delivering a consistently good service shouldn’t be difficult after all it’s not rocket science.
Yet one of the most common things I hear amongst peers and colleagues is just the opposite.
Just yesterday a Masters student took her research to a printers in Hillcrest KZN.
The instructions were clear to print all 10 transcripts. The total cost was R800, so no small transaction. When she got home she realized that they had missed out a full transcript. This delayed the beginning her analysis and waste of precious time. On calling the company the next morning, they were more indignant then apologetic, even after she explained that now she would have to drive 45km to collect the last transcript, the delay and extra fuel cost, and all this on a student budget.
The last transcript cost R80 to print – and one would think the manager would have wavered some of this cost especially after hearing her story – but no, they didn’t give an inch. One doesn’t need to be a genius to conclude that she won’t be asking this company to print and bind her final thesis paper. So not only have they lost a customer, but they have lost reputation in the local community who will hear this story.
Good customer experience is not a science with rules and regulations, it’s not a process that can be ticked and boxed. Yet this is often how companies try and deal with it. They dig into one area of the way they deal with their customers and so often miss the mark of the whole experience.
Apple has developed a reputation for taking something that is already amazing and improving it. Every new product that they launch is better than before and thus make their customer experience even better. Apple customers are constantly queuing up and pre booking the latest expensive and often “not needed” product. Why? Their products and service consistently meet and exceed the needs and expectations of their customers.
Bruce Tempin gives the definition of customer experience as, “The perception that customers have of their interactions with an organization”
I like Mark Perrault’s version, “ If the shopper feels like it was poor service, then it was poor service, we are in a customer perception business”
Every day we deal with our customers and clients, and of course every day we ourselves experience customer service. Perhaps the question we need to be asking on a daily basis is: What does customer experience mean to me – and what am I going to do to improve my customer’s experience today? Making a difference in this area matters…it matters a great deal!
I totally agree Vicky. Thank you for the Blog.