The customer is said to be central to the values of most organisations. However, much too often we see customers losing it on helplines, switching products out of principle or simply continuing to purchase whilst cursing the provider to others because the change effort is just too great.
This latter condition we call apathy. It’s when you don’t actually like what is going on, but you put up with it because there’s just too much involved, and you are not capable of making the change with other demands at that time. It’s where a customer has become ‘process disempowered’. Many disempowered customers are stuck with contractual lock-ins, perhaps they are not particularly quick to do the maths or simply don’t think it through, grumble and tolerate until their angst gets sufficiently strong enough for them to take action.
So how do we avoid hacking off our customers? Of course, this doesn’t apply to you because it’s about those terrible companies that don’t put the customer at the centre of everything and of course that’s not yours, is it?
Beneath the customer service speak we need to be sure that we are being truly customer centric, so let’s look at what matters to customers.
Waiting: Multiple delivery systems variable demands, attempts to bear down on staffing levels and poor capacity planning can all lead to customers having an inordinate wait for access to helplines, sales lines and others. This is time they don’t get back and forms part of the transaction for many.
Online failures: When online attempts fail, immediate access to a human being is a crucial part of the relational process between provider and customer. Too often however, helplines are obscured, hidden deep within websites and when calling several layers of automation are experienced before actually getting to speak to fellow homo-sapiens.
Accessible, accurate product information: Organisations now offer such wide product ranges, particularly with online sites and the like. Often this is inaccurate or not sufficiently detailed. Even professional services are often now increasingly sophisticated, complex offerings simply cannot be understood from menus.
Particular needs: We have the most diverse community we’ve ever seen. The post-modern world makes consumers individuals, and the market has given them a sense of power as a consumer that is easily frustrated by poor sales support, after sales and customer service processes. Whilst it’s absolutely right, the FAQs and other inputs can make a huge difference to dealing with volume enquiries, they should never be primarily intended as a cost-cutting approach to the human touch and the attempt for someone to be able to be heard as an individual. It’s an essential part of the relationship and leads to happy customers, great testimonials and long lifetime client values, yet so many organisations act as though their sales are so great as a result of their processes, this individuality is a secondary consideration only stimulated at the point of complaint.
Complaints: 94% of customers who do switch where they buy are so disenchanted that the grass simply seems greener elsewhere and their frustration so great, they become open to change. They also just go without saying why. Complaints are a valuable opportunity to gain feedback and need to be listened to with care and an eye to customer satisfaction, retention and process improvement from the narratives given. Often, they are a chance to re-establish a meaningful relationship with the customer and truly treat them as an individual.
Excessive Automation: People buy from people, not from algorithms. Never assume mass delivery systems enhance, support and foster the identity of individuals. If you are selling one-offs that are a bargain, fine, but if you want a long-term relationship with your customer, automation needs to be wisely interspersed with human contact.
Feedback: Frequently companies think they are catering for their customers by eliciting feedback. As with all research, the researcher often lacks the reflexivity to understand that they are asking questions that the company needs answered, rather than listening to the detail of the customer experience. So much customer feedback is quantitative not qualitative in its nature and assumes people will not engage with anything more than a few simple questions and tick boxes that sometimes it barely constitutes feedback at all. It tends to ask what the company wants to know about its processes rather than what the customer wants to experience. It can feel like just another electronic intrusion to the customer and re-emphasises the absence of the human touch.
Trust and respect of identity are both paramount in all trading relationships. These are human qualities, built over time and very difficult to generate from automated, technological, systematised practices, however good those practices are dealing with scale. Equally, thinking customers don’t like manipulation by industrial psychology, covert data capture in exchange for information or discount, data scraping, product placement and the like.
Finally, have a wonderful end to 2021 and beginning of 2022 where Covid and some other issues are now slowly receding, but new ones are advancing, e.g., the climate. Remember the people you love, remember also the value and humanity of your customers. My very best wishes to readers, clients, my family, friends and colleagues. Let’s also give a vote of thanks to the unsung hero of Northern Insight, Mike Grahamslaw, who has served the north-east business community well for years with this publication. Let’s ensure, as contributors and readers all, we advance this cause in the year ahead.
