Customer Experience Transformation: Gold Service, Mobile Experience and Branded Signature Points
I have been, or should say had been, a long time loyal Hertz customer. It used to be that they were the only rental company that could provide preset documentation and agreements, had covered parking stalls for Gold customers and had the very innovative and high tech (for the 1990s) name boards. The name boards were a signature point experience that clearly reminded you how efficient Hertz was as a competitor and how personalized and streamlined they made the rental process for loyal customers. However, over time, the Gold experience became tarnished and made me feel like the premium I was paying to rent with Hertz was more like buying fools gold. The boards became very dated and clunky compared to the slick LCD displays of other information you would see in the airport, taking away from the high-tech, highly efficient brand signature point for Hertz.
Functionally, the boards began to run out of listing space, so if you’re like me, you may have stood in front of one of these leader boards late at night, in the cold, impatiently waiting for your name to scroll around and finally show up somewhere. The boards that once were signature point experiences became counter points, where they demonstrated that Hertz was dated, low-tech, and had a misperception of what being a Gold customer should represent. (more…)
Tom Horton, CEO of AMR (American Airlines) is taking on a major transformation of the company as it emerges from bankruptcy. In a letter to all employees he points out the top priorities for the turnaround.
“The key to our successful restructuring is a business plan with a clear objective. And that is to make American a world-class global airline – America’s flag carrier – that is competitive, profitable and growing. To do this, we must consistently deliver:
- A superior customer experience that earns loyalty and drives revenue (more…)
With Spring break and Summer vacations being planned right now, many of us are thinking about trips that will involve air travel. It is a good time to explore the concept of customer experience on airlines. The TV show “PanAm” shows how air travel used to be and reminds us how it truly was a great experience. Today, it has become a concept of what one can endure or tolerate. Taking a long flight is something like planning for an adventure backpacking trip. You pack up your provisions of water bottles (after the security lines), granola bars in case you need sustenance along the way, and select reading materials to help you drift away as your cram into your small cocoon of a seat as if you were crawling into a one-person pup tent.
BNET posted an interesting article about Delta Airlines’ response to helping to create a better customer experience. Their thought is that the best way to improve things is to send their customer service teams to a sort of charm school. Many companies, frustrated with low NPS scores and slipping market share will look at fixing customer experience by trying to patch a bad overall experience with polite service. This is almost never the root cause of the issues. (more…)
Customer Experience is fast becoming recognized as a key driver of revenue growth, customer loyalty, and reputation building. There is a large scale trend where customer experience, as a cross cut to many traditional silos, is becoming a focus by top executives to drive revenue growth and profitability. In fact, a recent IBM Global CEO survey revealed that 95% of CEOs as high performing companies identify getting closer to their customers as the most important strategic initiative over the next five years.
This focus on customers includes generating what I call “Brand Integrity” where the company brand, what the product delivers and how the company engages customers all align and mutually reinforce each other.
In this case, the video highlights how iRobot is known for helping people save time. The Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, is simple to use and saves people time on household chores. To support that with a customer experience that saves time and is simple to use, iRobot provides customer service and support through multi-channel programs (e.g., social, mobile, web, phone) and has become a leader in leveraging social media to engage their customers.
As you watch the iRobot video, think about your own company and how your customer experience can become your brand and where it may be out of alignment as well.
Last month I delivered a keynote speech to a group of business leaders in Athens, Greece. The HMA had adopted the concept of replacing the old concept of trying to do “more with less” with the concept from our book, “doing more ON less.” I loved the signage for the event. The concept of “more with less” is completely overused and in crisis situations just results in lots of under-funded activities, diffused leadership attention and gridlock of any progress. Doing “More ON Less” is about reducing the focus to the highest impact activities, concentrating funding on those items and focusing leadership attention on just a big initiatives. Here is how the idea of transforming through “More ON Less” could be applied in Greece today. (more…)
Free mini-ebook on Customer Experience
At a recent inaugural meeting of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), a group of professionals in customer experience, including executives from Cox Communications, Sprint, Fidelity Investments, and UPS gathered in Boston to discuss the latest trends and tools in the field of Customer Experience.
One of the top unanswered issues was, “how can we get Customer Experience to be on the strategic agenda for CEOs and other top executives?” Some people were concerned that the tactics of re-engineering customer service touch-points might overshadow the strategic value of creating a customer experience that is amazing, unique and memorable and drives revenue growth, premium margins and customer loyalty. (more…)
Mobile devices are now a core part of customers’ daily lives and therefore potentially a core part of almost any customer experience. Similar to company web sites offering up a new facet of customer experience in the early 2000s, mobile devices have the potential and will become another unique experience element of equal or more impact.
In the fourth quarter of 2010, IDC reported that there were 92.1 million traditional computers sold and 100.9 million smart phones. Smart phones and tables have now become a core part of the overall customer experience between companies and their customers. Even if you do not have a mobile device customer experience strategy, customers are hitting your current website from those devices or are calling your call centers from those same devices in greater numbers. (more…)
For me, the question of how much to spend on customer experience is a trick question. Customer experience is an investment and can be an asset. It is not always viewed that way, especially when revenues lag and there seem to be unnecessary costs that could be eliminated with no immediate and direct impact on revenue. A great example are the Nordstrom piano players.
Just recently, my local Nordstrom re-designed their escalators and designed out the grand piano area. I had heard that Nordstrom was eliminating piano players, but thought it wasn’t wide spread until it hit home in my own shopping experience.
For several years I have been quizzing audiences when talking about customer experience on things like, “which retail store has a grand piano player?” Brand recall is amazingly high for the Nordstrom piano players and people always get this right away. The person answering usually has a big smile on their face and often follows up with a positive comment about the experience. (more…)
Innovative thinking is a highly valued capability today. By working specific mental exercises as a deliberate part of your day, you can increase your ability to integrate left brain (creative) and right brain (logical) thinking patterns into a mix that generates more productive innovative thinking.
Any edge to think and act with more agility, innovation and creativity is highly valuable. An article on the LIVESTRONG blog recently shared some practical exercises you can use to build your abilities to integrate right and left brain thinking. This enables you to be a source of innovative ideas that can be implemented in practical ways or to generate creative sparks at the right time while implementing structured processes. (more…)
Very often I am asked, “do we really need ‘every’ department to participate in our customer experience initiative. My quick answer is usually, “if a department truly has zero impact on customers, then maybe they should be eliminated or outsourced.” Many times this drifts into a follow up question to test the edges, “…well, what about our legal department for example.” I’ve seen this too many times and have a great recent example to share with you on why even legal departments can make a huge difference in customer experience.
Recently while booking a business trip, I found a good deal on a flight on my normal carrier, which is United. After booking it, I realized that the return date may need to flex and was wondering what any change fees or penalties may be for this potential change. That’s when I was hit with this perfect “Counter Point” example where legal language makes all the difference in the customer experience. (more…)
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.