It seems every time I buy a product or service, the provider offers the opportunity to give them some feedback through a customer survey. Although the feedback opportunities are wonderful, my service providers are mired in the details of asking about the logistics of their service. Executing flawlessly merely provides them feedback that they delivered what I expected. This is useful information, yet often empty. In fact, we call these feedback surveys “happy charts,” meaning that an extremely high percentage, as high as 90%, of customers, are “happy” with the experience they just had unless a significant service failure occurred or an expectation went unmet.

In the early stages of truly understanding what drives loyalty and advocacy, many of my clients focus on the details of executing a process without failure. Basic service/product quality is really the metric being captured. Yet meeting basic quality expectations isn’t enough today to enchant customers.

Voice of the Customer programs fall behind by focusing primarily on the quality of an experience. Knowing if a customer was greeted properly, if reservations were in order, and if the rental car had fuel are measures of basic service quality, core expectations of value for money. Today’s leaders take the next step and tease out what drives customers to extol the virtues of the experience.

Last year a colleague stayed at a hotel that was very close to the airport and provided a pickup service. He arrived and contacted the hotel for pickup, but they never arrived. Being tired and hungry, he jumped in a taxi. While he was checking into the hotel, the desk clerk asked if he was the gentleman that had requested pick-up. Finding out that he was, the clerk reimbursed his taxi fare. Wow! More than six months later, he still talks about how delighted he was with the hotel and recommends it constantly.

Does your organization know what customers love about you?

The whole love thing sounds a little squishy doesn’t it? That’s the challenge. Gaining the emotional connection with customers is truly the goal of any business. Emotional connection drives loyalty and advocacy. The Walt Disney Company knows what guests love about their experience; Apple knows what users love about their products. Do you?

The next time you review customer feedback results, see if you have the answer to these questions:

1. What did your customers love about their experience with you today?
2. Is there anything that they’ll tell their friends not to miss about their experience with you?
3. If customers could change one single thing about their experience, what would that be?

Look beyond the basic quality of the process to discover the heart of the experience. This will help you build an experience that truly enchants your customers.

1. Care must be taken in the short term to ensure that the strong talent left in place has the opportunity to grow, contribute and feel respected.
2. Ensure that employees feel committed and secure to reduce the effect that weak employee engagement has on your customers and their confidence in your organization’s ability to deliver on your brand promise.
3. Use this time to challenge staff and expand their contributions in ways that lever forward the organization and themselves in tandem.

Source: Economic Conditions Snapshot, June 2009: McKinsey Global Survey Results

By Bob Caruso, Managing Director, Endeavor Management

So how does a company do that? At the core, it’s about making offers that build trust–offers of stress-free service that really is stress free. Offers of discounts that are actually discounts. Offers of personal growth to employees that are made good. Each time we in the business world “make good” on a promise, trust is enhanced and deeper bonding occurs.

Here are three additional steps that organizations can take to enhance trust:

1. Offer customers/employees something unexpected
2. Deliver on the offer quickly without conditions (a.k.a. fine print)
3. Repeat as often as you can

Case in point – A few years ago, Bell South implemented a “just ask” program requiring every customer-facing employee to ask customers a simple question at the conclusion of every interaction: “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The result was a rise in overall customer satisfaction and customer loyalty because a little offer goes a long way and sales increased based on that little question, adding $100M in the first year. Additionally, reward points were given to service people to be used ot choose from a catalog of goods enhancing the quality of work because they had to qualify for the opportunity and follow up with the sale.

Bob Caruso, Managing Director, Endeavor Management