Customers have finally woken up to the fact that they have always been in control. Maybe they always knew that but now with the incredible amount of choices the customer has and the demand for a round-peg/round-hole fit to their customer experience you can bet that they will settle for nothing less. So as the service provider, we have to be able to compete with all the others in our industry who are able to give their customers a positive customer experience and do so at a lower cost and with less stress. The customer experience is an integral part of any CEO’s or upper level executive’s daily concern. If the strive is to attain or retain that position at the top, the customers love or indifference or loathing their experience all begins at the top.
Identification of Principles: For all service providers it’s vital that we know where we stand. How can we know what we stand for if we don’t know where we stand? For that reason a clear and readily identifiable set of underscored principles is essential for continued success.
Leadership Engaged & Trusted: If the troops you’re sending out into the thicket can’t make decisions on their own, they might as well not even be there. It’s vital that we continue to engage the people interacting directly with our customers and that we trust those interacting with the customers to act on our behalf.
Customer Driven/Employee-Friendly: We should also have a customer driven mindset that’s also employee-friendly. Those might seem to be different ends but by creating an employee friendly environment for those out interacting with our customers we are making the employees experience that much more about the customer. Happy employees enjoy going to work and that joy is translated to the customer’s experience.
Learning Ongoing: Without knowledge we are unable to keep up. That’s just a central rule to life. So if the learning continues then the experience will only blossom for everyone. If we are not able to keep up with what is going on that affects our customers then how can we be expected to engage them as equals?
Open, Honest, Consistent Communication: If there are changes afoot the only way to implement them is through open, honest, and consistent communicating. As the best service providers we need to be able to answer customers ongoing questions and we need to be able to keep them connected to what we are doing. If ever there is any doubt about things ongoing in the company then customers will seek business partners elsewhere.
Connected Employees: As an extension of that last point, employees need to remain connected and engaged to all things going on which effects their ability to do their job. They also need to have access to ancillary information which could vastly affect how they conduct themselves with customers.
The customer experience is as vital today as it ever was. Because we want to retain our long-trusted partnership with our customers and continue to underscore our place of leadership in the industry, it’s vital that we remain connected at all levels of the business life-train. The brain, the heart, and the body of any business are the management, the employees, and the customer.
