Being genuinely interested in your customers’ experience is critical to your business. When we do customer loyalty research the intention is always to find out our client’s customers’ real experience of doing business with them. The main reasons they love a company and the most important improvements they can improve. The good, the bad and the ugly.
For a company to really be good at what they do, they must understand what it is like to be a customer. The ability to stand in their shoes, and see things from their point of view.
How does it feel when someone says they’re going to call back, and then they don’t, what it’s like to have to wait longer than expected, what it’s like when you over promise and under deliver and what it’s like to deal with people who are just going through the motions, there is no enthusiasm.
It’s the same when we do eNPS (Team engagement research). I’m talking about being interested, about connecting with your team to understand what their experience is.
You don’t have to agree with someone to be able to stand in their shoes.
When I’m working with leaders, I often experience that they measure their team by their own focus. What they are motivated by and what they are passionate about. Leaders are often focused on being promoted, that does not mean that all their team are motivated in the same way.
We must take into consideration what motivates each member of the team. We must understand what they are passionate about. Most team members do a good job but often there are other things that interest them outside of your world. They may not live and breathe your business like you do.
When I’m training how to deal with customer complaints, the single biggest part of this training is to stand in the other person’s shoes. Suddenly, you experience empathy.
In any relationship it’s important to try and understand the point of view of the other person and see it from their experience or point of view.
Again, it’s not always about agreeing, or disagreeing. It opens up the opportunity to look for issues and resolve them.
I spent time last week observing a new client’s customers coming into their business and it was clear that people didn’t quite know where to go. Do I wait? Do I go and sit down and wait for someone to call me to a window? There was this very real uncertainness.
Later on, I was speaking to a team member and a customer overheard, and when I suggested a ticket system, the response from the customer was that’d be amazing, because then you would know when it’s your turn.
Another example, I was working with a truck company and customers would walk into the office reception where they would be faced with all of the sales team sitting at their desks. On observation I noticed the customers would stop because they didn’t know where to go, as there was no reception area. What we learnt was if one person stood up, the customer would directly approach them. This became the standard for all branches.
Again, it was about being interested and understanding the customer from looking at it from their view.
We must stand back and see what the customer sees. Sometimes it’s really hard to do because you see the same thing every day. It’s good to get other people to walk in or ring or go to your website and ask them to tell you what their first impression is.
Need more information? Have a look through my previous Blogs, located on The Loyalty Zone website or contact me, I look forward to hearing from you.
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Warm Regards,
Craig Cherry