The Customer Experience

by Mike Chirveno

Everybody’s heard the old Native American proverb about not criticizing someone until you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins.  That’s certainly sound advice, but in the realm of business, the ability to walk in your customer’s shoes goes way beyond a deterrent to unwarranted criticism.  It’s the key to sustained competitive advantage.

Often, we’re convinced that the delivery of our organization’s good or service is the pivotal point in our relationship with customers.  There’s no question that those are important moments of truth.  But in reality, every bill, every inbound call to our customer service center, every outbound call from our collections group and every follow up email from our sales staff is an opportunity to build or destroy the customer experience. 

Companies that successfully control the customer experience build a culture of customer service.  That culture is rooted in the way we value employees.  I was recently interviewing a pastor who reminded me that we can approach church in a couple of ways – we can use people to build the church or we can use the church to build people.  In his ministry, he opted for the latter – pretty good advice for those of us in business as well.  If we use our organization as a tool to develop our staffs, we’re sending a couple of important messages – 1) we’re committed to the growth and resulting success of our employees and 2) they’re an integral part of what we want to deliver to our customers.  The better equipped they are to expertly deliver our good or service or to handle customer interactions via phone or email, the more we control the quality of the customer experience.  When a business starts and the founder is the sole customer touch point, it’s fairly easy to control the customer experience.  With all of the blood, sweat, tears and equity that go into a startup, the founder is going to make sure that each customer is treated with great care.  But as the business grows and the customer encounters are spread out over more employees, it’s easy to lose control of the customer experience.  It’s incumbent upon owners and managers to push down, through example, training and compensation, the right priorities and attitudes to their staffs.  Companies that successfully control the tone and tenor of each encounter and make it a positive, value-enhancing experience for the customer are the ones who succeed.

This well-equipped group of employees has the opportunity to carry out the key responsibility in achieving sustained competitive advantage - building relationships with customers.  When you have a group of employees that are thinking like owners and managers, you have a powerful tool in defending against customer defections.  With a properly equipped staff, you really have the ability to walk in your customer’s shoes.  When the driving force for customer interactions is “how would I want this to play out if I were on the other end” and employees are empowered to make decisions using that criterion, you’re delivering service that is so differentiated that it commands premium pricing.   This approach to customer relations requires those in your organization to carefully listen to customers.  Customer’s preferences for the delivery of your goods and services change over time.  As your industry matures, your customers will typically demand more tailored and personalized versions of your good or service.  Organizations that are closest to the customer have the greatest ability to shift to accommodate new customer desires.  Listening to the customer also allows an organization to identify additional opportunities to match more of their goods or services with already existing needs of the customer.  It’s much more economical to harvest additional revenue from existing customers than it is to acquire new customers.  Each additional good or service that you provide to a customer deepens the relationship with the customer and erects a strong barrier to entry for potential competitors for that business. 

A keen understanding of your customers, coupled with a thorough understanding of your industry and its business drivers, make a formidable combination for building sustained competitive advantage.  Organizations that are adept at walking in their customer’s shoes and have the agility to quickly develop and customize product offerings can enjoy first-mover advantages and the subsequent customer loyalty.  This formula for success isn’t new.  The Biblical writer Ezekiel, speaking of his spiritual flock, wrote, “I sat where they sat.”  In the 2500 years since Ezekiel ministered, things haven’t changed.  Companies who intimately know their customers and deliver targeted goods and services with the right price point consistently build sustained competitive advantage.