There’s no question customers prefer to be treated more with “awesomeness” than just “great”…no argument. If they have told us once they have told us a thousand times…make me feel special and I will be loyal and rave about you to all my friends. So what part of this don’t we get and why is it so hard to make this happen?
After giving hundreds of speeches and talking to an equal number of business leaders, I can guarantee you one thing they all say…“we love their customers and treat them well.” So if this is true…Houston, we have a problem.
I saw an interesting statistic that actually makes complete sense to me but I hadn’t seen it put in these simple “gut check” form for a few years. Here it goes…
The research asked how many executives thought they delivered a superior experience (my word) to their customers…80% said they delivered this superior experience and felt good about how they were treating their customers. Then they proceeded to ask their customers how many felt they were given a superior customer experience…18% of their customers said they were getting this superior experience. 80% vs. 18%…do you think someone is out of touch with reality?
Here’s an interesting question…if 80% of the companies in a given industry, for example, were delivering a superior experience, wouldn’t we eliminate differentiation?
Think about it…if everyone in the same industry who build the same products or delivered the same services ALL DELIVERED THE SAME INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE, what would be left to differentiate them? There wouldn’t be anything…they would all be pure commodities…no differentiation.
We know this is ludicrous and doesn’t really happen…something is missing in this equation where it isn’t equal for every company. There is differentiation in the market. So what creates this differentiation?
While it might be in the executives head that they do a superior job, the group that has the final vote (with their wallets) says something entirely different. Does this mean I don’t believe that the executives don’t care about their customers…absolutely not, of course they care. What it tells me is that there is a huge disconnect from what the company thinks they are delivering and what they actually are delivering.
There are three primary reasons why this disconnect happens…
- They don’t understand what an awesome customer experience really is and as such can’t engineer it or deliver it
- What they might think is an awesome customer experience really isn’t in their customers mind and they are delivering something to the contrary
- They truly don’t care…they are completely focused on their product and/or service and the customer experience is a far away removed afterthought, if a primary thought at all
As I have discussed in earlier posts, some of the most well-known and respected research firms in the world (McKinsey, Gartner, Forrester, and others) are telling us the same thing…
An incredibly awesome customer experience is the only true differentiator for companies today and well into the future…if they don’t have one they run the risk of being gone.
When there is a disconnect of this magnitude, it’s time to reevaluate what is truly going on within your organization and with your customers. I would challenge every leader to evaluate where they are today internally with the experience they deliver and then validate this with some solid customer feedback. When we talk to customers and learn more of what they truly believe would be an awesome customer experience, it can a critical first step in engineering this remarkable customer experience and may be the biggest step an organization can take to truly differentiating themselves in an overly crowded, noisy market.
Then when we talk to your customers, they will give you a resounding “thumbs up” for the experience you deliver to them…AND they will become your best ADVOCATES and be anxious to tell all their friends, colleagues, and others how truly awesome you are to work with…that’s DIFFERENTIATION!
