When someone decides they don’t like their initial experience or don’t like the experience they are getting from you any longer, they reach a VOTING POINT…a fork in the road where they “vote” as to stay or leave the relationship with your company. Just so you know…this is not good. This is not where you want your customer to be and should do everything you can to avoid these “voting points” in your relationship.
Voting points are triggered most often by something out of the ordinary happening that was unexpected (usually negative surprises) or not what they liked. It has caused them to reach the fork in the road and ask themselves a very critical question, “Should I continue dealing with this company or should I leave and look at some of their competitors?“
This is not a good question…ever…to have your customers asking themselves. Keeping them from reaching a “voting point” with their experience the better things will go for you and the customer. You hope they stay with you…and these next few moments of the experience they are getting will give them the guidance they need to make the decision of which fork to take.
What’s even more important is to rewind the tape and analyze why the customer has come to a Voting Point in the first place.
From my experience, the majority of time a customer reaches a voting point when one word has been violated…CONSISTENCY. Customers love to have things consistent…the same way…knowing what they are going to get and getting it with every interaction (with a few positive surprises thrown in from time to time). When they see something has changed, it sends up alarms in their head that “change” is on its way and we all know how much people like change. It’s why we drive the same way to work every day, even if we know there is going to be bad traffic…it’s easier than changing routes and figuring out new things.
But the other big reason customers reach a Voting Point is because something went wrong with their experience…something that caused them to rethink doing business with you. If they have been a loyal customer, this rarely happens because of one situation. It is usually something that has built up over time and is annoying them where they finally reach a voting point. For example, every time they come into your business they are greeted by their first name, offered some coffee, and warmly greeted. That stopped and now it is the 5th time they haven’t been treated special and so they start thinking this is the new way of treating you rather than an anomaly. They don’t like it and have now started thinking if other things have changed for the worse as well and so they are preparing themselves for a potential vote…do I accept this less than desirable experience or do I go somewhere else and check out the competition?
If they are a relatively new customer and the experience is different each time they arrive…it is inconsistent (there’s that consistency word again) and now they don’t know what to expect and what they’re getting isn’t awesome. They start to think this is just how you operate and they seek something with some consistency and awesomeness. Neither the consistency nor the awesomeness are happening so they reach the fork in the road…a voting point.
The goal is to AVOID VOTING POINTS AT ALL COSTS. But it isn’t as easy as you think to spot and correct.
For most companies, the worst part is more often than not you don’t even realize your customer has hit a voting point…they simply leave and don’t tell you why. They are just not happy any longer and leave. You never had the chance to fix it or learn anything from it along the way. You are no better off than when you started…in fact you are worse off because now you have one less customer.
The GOOD NEWS is that you can often see voting points coming down the track if you are observant and watch for changes in behavior. Changes in the way your customers are interacting with you, buying from you, talking to you (in person and on the social channels), and acting when they are with you. These are all potential signs they are approaching this fork in the road. This is where asking questions, watching behavior, getting employee feedback, and listening to social channels can give you a wealth of information of upcoming voting points.
Creating ways to catch these before voting points occur should be a part of your customer experience process. This gives you the ability to keep a constant eye open to changes that you can address before they reach a voting poin. And if you notice it for one customer, you can be assured it is happening to other customers as well. Stopping one voting point from happening almost always saves more than one customer.
A QUICK CHECKUP you can do right now is to spend some time over the next few of weeks doing the following. These will help give you a better feel for potential voting points…
- Talk to employees…what are they noticing
- Read the social channels to see what is being said about you
- Talk to your best customers…and random customers…hear not just what they are saying but how they are acting and what they are not saying
- Observe what is going on in your business…take a “360 degree view” of the interactions that are happening throughout the company, not just with sales
Once you have some initial information, make some assessments. Is your customer experience process being followed (or do you even have one…if not we should talk). If it is, are there parts that might be breaking down a bit for some reason? Are the processes right but your employees aren’t executing them properly? Do you potentially have the wrong employees in the wrong roles to deliver an awesome experience? Have we deviated from serving our ideal customers and added other customer segments that might not appreciate our customer experience? And many others that will help you identify the anomalies.
Observe critically, analyze, and make the appropriate changes. And if you don’t want to make the changes for the sake of your customers experience with you, here’s one you might appreciate. Avoiding potential Voting Points can make you more money than adding new customers. Keeping the existing ones happy is always more profitable. A plan to eliminate voting points could not only drive more loyalty but it can easily drive more revenues and help you reduce your support costs.
