Customer Experience

Businesses with past success built upon the quality and innovation of their products may falter if their concept of service (repair break/fix) is only as a support to the manufacturing operation. However if the quality and innovation of product is supported by a similar level of quality and innovation in service, this can provide an excellent way to build and sustain long-term relationships.  Retaining customers means that a reputation has to be sustained over an extended period, and the service aspect of the relationship can provide a bridge should there be a problem with a faulty product. If the concept of service has evolved simply from one of reducing the cost of manufacturing errors, and does not focus on the optimum value derived by the customer from the application of the product, the relationship may not be sufficiently robust to resist a stress. This is best illustrated in figure 1, which shows the effort required to build satisfaction in a product into long-term loyalty. Unless satisfaction and loyalty are high, the value of a customer as a promoter is minimal, but promotion by a customer will have immense value.

 Many companies have split personalities over defining service as a marketing tool. On the one hand they recognise that good service brings value to their customers and might be used as a reason to purchase; on the other hand advertisements and salespeople rarely talk of service preferring to focus on the Brand and features. Once an item is purchased, excellent service becomes a real motivator of satisfaction and serves to reinforce loyalty. 

Strategies followed by successful service companies demonstrate that there may be a cyclical nature to business focus, emphasised during periods of growth and recession. Service is now firmly recognised as a mechanism that can and will deliver growth, and has proven to be a resilient revenue creator and margin builder. That does not mean product development or technological development will give way to service, quite the contrary; closer alignment means that they become integral. Cloud computing is an example – highly reliant on technology development, but fundamentally demonstrating value to the business through provision of a service offering.

Research carried out with a number of the best performing companies; found that the majority of senior managers were visiting up to a hundred customers a year, believing that there is a high correlation between relationship-building and customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, if supported by good service.  The same research also highlighted that the senior manager could occasionally be seen as a soft-touch by the customer if they gave away hard-won margin on a contract, which underlines the absolute necessity to treat customer centricity professionally and not believe a few positive customer-focused actions will win hearts and minds.

The service operation has to be heard and understood in the Boardroom, if it is to achieve its primary role of business development (revenue and profit growth) through feedback from the customer to the business. This close alliance with the customer is often referred to as customer intimacy and recognises the role of the customers in helping the supplier to continually improve product quality performance, and increase the relevance and usability of the products to themselves and the customers. The best way of achieving customer intimacy is to gain recognition from the Board that the service operation is not simply a provider of good service and satisfied customers but will generate and contribute to the profit of the business.

Research carried out with a number of the best performing companies; found that the majority of senior managers were visiting up to a hundred customers a year, believing that there is a high correlation between relationship-building and customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, if supported by good service.  The same research also highlighted that the senior manager could occasionally be seen as a soft-touch by the customer if the-y gave away hard-won margin on a contract, which underlines the absolute necessity to treat customer centricity professionally and not believe a few positive customer-focused actions will win hearts and minds.

As businesses slowly begin to come round from the negativity of the last 18 months, and inspect their operations for damage, I have an image of a scene of battle reminiscent of Star Wars with some crafts relatively unharmed, others badly damaged and some destroyed.

It is arguable that a great number of the existing detection mechanisms (customer surveys, feedback forms) completely fail to identify the problems and issues that have followed the banking crisis. Good “Customer Radar” has a number of components, but the most fundamental aspect is the ability to act upon information quickly. Too much emphasis can be placed upon dealing with symptoms rather than tackling actual causes, and so excellent interpretation and diagnosis is also an essential feature, and gathering customer information doesn’t guarantee effective results unless it is used correctly and the results fully applied.

Steve Downton, Downton Service Management Consultants Ltd, Noventum Group

Our research, initiated last year and extended this year, has reinforced the conclusion that certain strategies are proving to be most effective in creating increased revenue by providing the customer with what they require. However, translating a strategy into a realisable goal is not always achievable, top down, because there is not a clear understanding of the drivers or customer environment at senior level within the supplier and sometimes too much emphasis is placed upon dealing with symptoms, rather than tackling actual causes. Converting a strategy into an achievable goal is not achievable bottom-up, unless there is top-down commitment! Successful companies focus on the customer’s developing needs to anticipate the need for change and not wait till the customers leave. They have effectively learned to combine top-down commitment with bottom-up understanding through close attention to the experience of their customers and their customer interface staff.

When dealing with a service organisation, working from the “bottom-up” means working from the customer interface, and therefore the approach must recognise the customer will be responsible for significant input and reaction to change. A major change in operation might require moving customer interface staff from one area to another.

The available population with the potential to become service engineers is growing fewer, for a number of reasons. The engineer has to be able to balance customer needs with business pressures, particularly as customers become ever-more demanding of high levels of customer service and the cost of delivering service continues to increase. In addition equipment is becoming more complex with sophisticated interfacing and networking. Integrating field and support engineers into a broader customer interface role is also hindered by engineers not wanting to accept an in-house role, contrarily many support staff fulfilling in-house roles reject the Nomadic lifestyle of a field engineer.

There is a strongly held misconception that asking customers what they want and then providing such requirements will guarantee customer satisfaction; this is a risky premise when even presuming to question the customer could annoy or lead to disappointment - many people perceive a call from the garage asking whether their service was satisfactory as an irrelevant annoyance. Customers expect their suppliers to know.