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Managing your customer's experience

By Brent Morton

Everyone is familiar with the term "customer service". Businesses want to provide it; customers seek it. However, consider how the widespread use of the internet - e-mail, web, and social media - has vastly increased the ways in which a customer can interact with your business, and the expectations they have when it comes to things like response times and business practices.

Then consider the myriad of ways available to consumers to take that experience they had with your business and share it with others. The result is that managing the experience of your customers is more important than ever.

As Bloomberg Businessweek Research Services suggests, “Whereas customer relations used to be considered a sales or service function, customer experience encompasses everything from the first impression of the brand all the way to sales, fulfillment, invoicing, billing, collections and after-sales service.” (How to Achieve a Great – and Profitable – Customer Experience, February 2011)

It’s an accepted fact that when customers have had a bad experience with a business, they generally don’t return – but what more and more businesses are doing now is tracking what customer experience (CE) means to their bottom line. For example, what is the cost of a customer who complains and ends up taking their business to your competition? Are you leaving money on the table by not providing the kind of CE that matches your business objectives? Ideally, your reward for proactively managing the experience your customers have is the creation of loyal brand promoters that help you grow your bottom line.

Remember: "Customer service is the most influential thing a company can do to increase customer advocacy. 55% (up from 53% in 2009) of consumers recommend a compay because of its customer service, compared to products at 49% and price at 425."
(RightNow’s Customer Experience Report North America 2010).

What is Customer Experience (CE)?
We’ve looked at how the definition of customer experience has changed to the point where your customers experience your business (and brand) in many different ways. On top of that, surveys show that, more often than not, a customer’s decision to recommend one business over another has less to do with the product or price than it does with the experience they’ve had when coming into contact with the business.

Another key concept to bear in mind when it comes to thinking about CE is that the experience encompasses every single way that each customer interacts with your business, on every level. An excellent way to think of these interactions is as “touch points”, with each touch point representing a step in the process as a customer does business with you: from the initial contact all the way through post-sale invoicing, service, and support. You may find it a worthwhile exercise to take a look at the customer touch points in your dealership to identify ways in which customers interact with your organization, with the goal of making each point of contact a positive one, which will create an excellent experience for the customer as a result.

To map these touch points in your business, follow a customer through each part of a transaction – for example, buying a part (online or in person); bringing equipment in for service; or initiating a trade-in. In what ways does the customer interact with your dealership? Are there opportunities to create new touch points, or improve the experience at existing ones? Keep in mind that the power of CE is that it helps you build up a “savings account” of customer appreciation that pays dividends of repeat business and the promise of new customers when those who are satisfied share their positive impressions.

Why does CE matter?
Simply put, satisfied customers are good for business. But treating your customers well with the hope that they’ll remember you and return in the future is no longer enough. These days, it’s all about creating a psychological connection with your customers and turning them into loyal, engaged advocates for both your brand and company. Indeed, this type of customer will generally be willing to pay more for your products and services – precisely because they value their relationship with you – and then go on to recommend you to others. In a crowded market, these customer advocates can be crucial to encouraging a new prospective customer to choose to do business with you and not with one of your competitors.

Developing your dealership's CE plan
Improving the customer experience at your business should be thought of as a transformative process, possibly involving the reorganization of people, workflow, and even technology to allow you to better focus on the customer. You’ll want to take care to identify specific outcomes and financial goals, budget sufficient time and money, and consider how you can specifically target those efficiencies that can be created by offering a customer-centric CE process (how you can deliver more value to the customer by being faster, better, cheaper, and so on). One idea may be to consider segmenting your customers, so that while every customer enjoys the benefits of your CE planning, your highest-value clients receive the highest-value experience (since they’re the ones who will help you repay your CE investment the fastest).

Most importantly, your goals for improved CE should be realistic, sustainable, and supported at all levels of the organization. Your vision for what your dealership will offer as a customer experience should be clear, taking into account what you want your business to be known for, and how you can attach your brand’s promise to every touch point. Ultimately, by implementing a CE plan, you will be taking a proactive step to position your business to reap the benefits of improved customer satisfaction.

Measuing the Customer Experience (Source: www.netpromoter.com)
Asking the simple question, “How likely is it that you would recommend our dealership to a friend or a colleague?” helps you track and measure Customer Experience and gives you a clear measure of your company’s performance through the eyes of your customer.

• Promoters: Loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fuelling growth.
  
  
• Passives: Are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
  
  
• Detractors: Are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

Working to improve your score—over time—requires a commitment from all levels of management at your dealership.

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