The Six Laws of Customer Experience

Though we try to keep up with our day-to-day business operations and the amazing amount of information that crosses our desks (or computer screens or BlackBerrys), it’s nigh unto impossible to read every trade or business magazine, blog or e-newsletter we subscribe to. (We all had good intentions to make time for this when we signed up, right?!) There are some excellent articles, sharings and advice in these various media that can help us both personally and professionally…if we only had the time.

I’ve become an advocate of Google Alerts, where you enter the author name, association or topic you want information on, and you get an e-mail at the frequency you request (immediately, daily or weekly) whenever Google finds it. I need to be very specific in my alert terms — otherwise, I get bombarded with information — but it’s amazing what information you can receive if you take the time to fine-tune your search requests. I’m also signed up for the electronic versions of most trade and business magazines, which allows me to scan the content and drill down into only the articles that interest me. A real time saver!

One of the gems I recently received online was from Bruce Temkin, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, who writes a blog titled “Customer Experience Matters” (experience matters.wordpress.com). The topic for this analysis was “The 6 Laws of Customer Experience,” and many of the concepts and thoughts he shared are appropriate to any size business. I’d like to share some of the highlights of his paper, and you can choose to incorporate the ones that make the most sense for your operation.

Temkin’s Six Laws of Customer Experience

• Every interaction creates a personal reaction.
• People are instinctively self-centered.
• Customer familiarity breeds alignment.
• Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers.
• Employees do what is measured, incented and celebrated.
• You can’t fake it.

Every interaction creates a personal reaction. He suggests that any experience is individualized; the same experience may be perceived by one customer as good and bad by another. That’s why it’s critical for each employee to take the time to understand the needs of each individual customer before trying to create the solution for him. And to accomplish this effectively, employees need the latitude and training to accommodate the needs of each customer, within the parameters and guideline you set for them.

People are instinctively self-centered. You’ve heard many times in the past that we need to become more customer-centric, building an environment that helps establish positive customer experiences, even at the expense of our own business platforms. Temkin offers these following precepts that need to be understood to make this happen:

• You know more than your customers; deal with it! Simplify: Make it easy for them to comprehend the attributes of your products at their level, not yours. I’m not suggesting that we talk down to customers, but we need to be able to relate to them, whether through employee interaction, signage, or store design and layout.
• Don’t sell things; help customers buy them. Always frame the customer experience from their point of view.

Customer familiarity breeds alignment. Retail is all about satisfying customer needs and providing them with a positive experience so they will return. Everyone in your organization, from the accounting department and buyers to landscape crews and cashiers, needs to understand that they are an integral part of the customer experience and this should be the primary driver in what they do.

Actively seek customer feedback, both positive and negative, and use this to guide and adapt your operations to continuously improve.

Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers. Successful companies emphasize developing their employees and providing them with the tools needed to deliver exceptional customer experiences, not on the customers themselves.

Though this initially may sound counterintuitive to the other comments in this article, it makes sense. Take Disney theme parks as an example: What sets them apart from their competition is their emphasis on training employees to make the vision a reality and exceed customer expectations. Ongoing training, the application of technology, keeping employees informed and finding ways to celebrate successes are activities that Temkin recommends to help in this area.

Employees do what is measured, incented and celebrated. Your employees need a guide or benchmark to understand your expectations. Define and find ways to communicate them, and measure your employees’ compliance and progress to help them improve.

You can’t fake it. You can’t give lip service to creating an exceptional customer experience; it has to be one of your top corporate and employee goals. And it has to be a consistent goal: The marketplace, competition and consumer are constantly changing, and you need to adapt and improve.

Don’t Overpromise

One of Temkin’s pithiest points is that you “advertise to reinforce, not create positioning.” If you advertise your customer experience position and can’t deliver, you’ve set up expectations you can’t meet, and your customers will be sorely dissatisfied. Promote only what you can deliver.

We keep hearing that the most compelling point of differentiation for independent garden centers versus the box stores is the customer experience they offer. And while I completely agree that this is the way it should be, are we really providing this? Have we reached our full potential in differentiating through the customer experience? In tough economic times where consumers challenge every discretionary purchase, the customer experience can transcend price as the deciding factor in where they’ll spend their limited resources.

Without exception, every company I’ve ever talked to says, “Our employees are our greatest asset.” But do we treat them this way? Do we give them all the training and tools to reach their potential? Do we empower them to use their strengths to help create the customer experience we want and need them to?

The new consumer mindset will focus on price and experience as their guiding principles in what they buy and where they buy it. Both are important, but you have to choose which you’ll place your emphasis on…