Know What Customers Want: Why You Should Stop Pretending to Know
Sam Walton once said: Thegoal of a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. Does your business go with its ‘gut’ to know what customers want? Or do you ask customers directly and use other means to gain useful insights?
It’s a question we should always ask, and yet we often find so difficult to answer. How an organization handles this question (and the answers) will determine its ultimate success.
If you consistently offer your customers what they want (at a price they feel is fair), you’ll have all the customers you can handle.
We usually start our client workshops on customer service with an exercise to list what customers want.
Here is a prioritized list from the majority of these workshops.
Always remember that little details can often create big experiences. Pay attention to and fully understand all the details.
Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you.
Sensitivity
Use language that demonstrates you are always thinking customer-centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.
Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.
Here is an example often overlooked. Always update phone messages to be customer-centric.
Helpfulness
Think creatively when solving customer issues. See your customer as someone who needs your help.
But to deliver WOW service, remember your customers are there because they want and need YOUR help.
And remember how good it feels to help someone in need! Go the extra mile.
Flow
No one knows what your customers want better than your customers. If you ask them with genuine interest, they will tell you.
So ask them and heed their advice. Go with their flow.
Satisfaction
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. Always follow up and follow through to increase customer satisfaction.
One of the biggest complaints people have is they often never hear back from sales or service employees. Someone promises to do something, and it never happens.
An easy way to thrill your customers is to simply do what you say you will. Whatever you promise, do it promptly, thoroughly and accurately.
Then do a little more. It thrills them every time!
Know what customers want … attentiveness
When a customer is telling you the issue, give them your complete attention. Customers consistently tell us they hate dealing with employees who don’t listen or pay attention.
When you begin talking with a customer, stop whatever else you are doing and focus on them.
Don’t multi-task. Don’t half-listen.
Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them. Make appropriate eye contact, listen, nod, and show them you are paying attention.
Then confirm that you understand.
Knowledge
Importance of knowing your customer.
Use language that demonstrates you think customer-centric.
Put customer needs ahead of your own. Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.
An example that is often overlooked. Update phone messages to be customer-centric.
Attitude
Be sure and set aside time to look at the big picture which controls your attitude. Things are never constant or ever as they seem.
Your big picture analysis is essential in helping you adapt to change.
To illustrate how simple things in customer service can happen without much notice, we like to use the following example.
We occasionally visited Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. That was until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order which included soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries.
We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain but were told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager.
One call is worth the effort for us, but not two. This is especially true if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We found it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.
KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis …so make it easy for them to complain.
Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to if anything goes wrong.
“The most important concept that a market-focused organization pursues is that of result benefit. A common and well-established confusion in managers’ minds is between the attributes and features of a product or service and the real end-result benefits. These benefits are the ones desired by customers who may use that product/service.”
The customer is the reason we’re all here. So any company looking to provide great service must first and foremost try to look at everything from the customer’s perspective.
Because now more than ever, the voice of the customer is loud and public.
There will always be more than one way to do anything, such as providing customers access to important information.
Your sales team might have thoughts about how best to do this. I am sure the product team, and marketing might want it done a completely different way.
But what’s best for the customer? What will provide the customer with the best possible experience?
It’s one thing to talk about being customer-centric, but doing so means putting the needs of the customer front and center. That is, even when it’s at the expense of people within the company.
Taking this approach might lead to some difficult decisions, but customer service isn’t easy, remember?
The good news is that the opposite is also true: provide positive experiences and customers will tell others about and choose you, time after time. When this happens, anyone who advocated against the customer-centric approach will quickly forget they’d ever argued against it.
Below is an actual letter sent to a bank by an 86-year old woman.
The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times. Sound familiar?
Dear Sir:
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.
By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.
I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years.
You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.
My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.
The bottom line
What your customer perceives about your company is what determines whether they will stay with you. And their perception is built one contact at a time. Even one bad experience can taint their perception of you.
So make sure every contact they have is a great one. Create customer evangelists by caring about your customers and showing it with everything you do.
This list is your gold-plated ticket to increase customer loyalty. Make sure your company does all these things for every customer every time, and your customers will keep coming back again and again.
Ask your customers what they want and listen to what they say.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
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Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
