Performance Management

See Your Business Through a Customer’s Eyes

By Erica Olsen ⋅ February 5, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Original article featuring Erica Olsen: http://www.mastercard.com/us/business/en/smallbiz/articles/archive/0205Customer.html

Considering the time and effort you invest in
your business, it may be hard to stand back and see your company from a
different perspective. Discover strategies that will help you to
understand how customers experience your business.

By Tara Remiasz

Imagine you’re traveling for business. After your flight takes off
and you settle into your seat, you suddenly smell freshly baked
chocolate chip cookies. After a while, you see the flight attendants
handing the cookies out to everyone. When you finally take a bite of
your cookie, you congratulate yourself for choosing an airline with
such a great perk.

Several years ago, an employee for Canadian Airlines International
devised the idea that baking and serving fresh cookies would be a great
way to enhance the customer experience, says Paul Levesque, author, CEO
and founder of Customer Focus Breakthroughs Inc. based in California.
The idea of serving fresh cookies may sound simple, but it required a
solid understanding of the customers’ experience before the idea could
be developed.

Often times it is difficult for owners and workers to grasp the
customer experience because they are so ingrained in the minutia of
running the business. Here are some strategies that will help you to
see your business from a customer’s perspective.

Break It Down
Levesque says he had consulted with Canadian Airlines
International about how to brainstorm customer service ideas. It is
likely that a process like the one he taught Canadian Airlines
International personnel was used in the brainstorming session that
produced the fresh cookie idea. According to Levesque, you cannot
separate employee motivation from the issue of customer service. Asking
employees how to improve customer service has two inherent benefits: 1)
Because of their daily dealings with customers, workers possess unique
insights into the customer experience. 2) Employees will have a
stronger desire to see initiatives enacted if they generate the ideas,
as opposed to just following a mandated policy.

Ask employees to break down the customer experience into each step
in the transaction, Levesque says. For example: First, the customer
arrives in the parking lot. Second, the customer enters through the
front door. Third, an employee greets the customer. And so on. Each
step will be based on the type of business you run, whether it is on
the Internet or a brick-and-mortar operation.

Once the customer experience has been broken down into each step,
it’s time to apply three customer service principles to each phase of
the process. You and your employees should consider how your business
can exceed expectations, make the customer feel important and tailor the experience to individual categories of customers.

Levesque offers an example of how all three of these principals were
realized when he visited the Magic Kingdom and spotted a braille map of
the entire park. The existence of this map went beyond what most
patrons probably expected, demonstrated that visually impaired visitors
are important, and that the Magic Kingdom considers how to enhance
everyone’s experience.

Ask Your Customers
Perhaps the only people who can vouch for the customer
experience better than your workers are the customers themselves.
Former customers can provide you with a wealth of information on how to
improve operations, says Erica Olsen, vice president of marketing for
Reno, Nev.-based MyStrategicPlan.

Olsen suggests having a third-party call former customers for
feedback. Instead of directly asking ‘Why don’t you frequent our
business anymore?’ she suggests couching the question in terms of ‘We
are trying to become more effective as an organization and would value
your feedback.’

When you conduct surveys of existing customers, it’s essential that
you ask if the primary job was done correctly, she says. Often times,
surveys focus on specific details and overlook basic questions such as
how well a business achieved its central goal.

There’s no magic number in terms of how many surveys you should
conduct, but Olsen suggests that you do enough to see patterns in
people’s answers. Allow yourself the necessary time to gather feedback,
rather than conducting too few interviews before making changes. She
also stresses the importance of giving something back in return for
your customers’ feedback. By offering a discount or small gift card,
you are in fact acknowledging that you value your customers’ time.

A Little Help From Your Friends
Andrew Field, CEO and founder of PrintingForLess.com, Inc., in
Livingston, Mont., also endorses the idea of conducting surveys. Field
suggests using a one to seven rating scale that covers how a certain
transaction went, and also how important that particular transaction is
for the customer.

In addition to tapping employees and customers for feedback, Field
recommends professional mystery shoppers or simply employing the
services of friends and family to mystery shop your operation. Field
learned the value of mystery shopping accidentally, after his mother
placed an order for brochures from his company. When the box of
brochures arrived at her door, Field’s mother was dismayed to find that
the box had been damaged in transit and some of the brochures had been
ruined. Several of Field’s sales reps confirmed that this problem
occasionally occurred with their clients’ shipments. Armed with this
new information, Field’s company instituted a policy of shrink-wrapping
bundles of paper goods and then double boxing each shipment.

Whether you decide to use a professional mystery shopping service or
friends and family, the key is to obtain objective, unbiased
information about how a customer experienced your company. Be sure to
obtain feedback on everything from how the customer was greeted to the
quality and timeliness of service.