3 ways to influence customer experience perception

Who has a better customer experience, Disneyland or the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)?

The DMV wins hands-down if you stick to cold, hard facts. Here are a few:

1. You spend less time waiting in line at the DMV.
2. There are more surprise costs at Disneyland.
3. Planning your day at Disneyland is far more complicated.

I sense you don't agree. Despite these facts, you still believe that Disneyland has a better experience than the DMV.

You're right, because of one very important thing.

Customer experience is the sum of all the experiences a customer has with your brand and how they FEEL about them. It's emotion, not facts, where Disney wins.

Emotion alters our perception. Compared to the DMV...

• You look forward to going to Disneyland.
• You enjoy being at Disneyland.
• You are more likely to recommend Disneyland to a friend.

Can you use Disney's experience magic to your advantage? Here are three opportunities to manage perception:

Opportunity: Make the wait seem faster

Wait times feel longer when the experience of waiting is miserable.

In one study , the average phone customer waiting on hold for 10 minutes estimated their wait time was 28 minutes. That's nearly 3x times longer than reality!

The typical Disney customer spends far more time waiting in line than at the DMV. Yet Disney has crafted a better waiting experience.

Resource: seven factors that influence wait time perception .

Let's compare waiting at the DMV versus waiting at Disneyland. You'll spend far more time waiting in line for rides at Disneyland, but the experience is far less miserable than the DMV.

Here are a few factors that influence perception:

Expectations: Waiting less than expected makes the wait feel shorter.

• DMV: the wait is often longer than expected.
• Disney: the wait is often shorter than expected.

Movement: Moving through the line makes the wait feel shorter.

• DMV: you sit in once place while you wait.
• Disney: the line is constantly moving.

Entertainment: Occupying your time makes the wait feel shorter.

• DMV: No entertainment provided. It's up to you.
• Disney: You are immersed into the experience as you go through the line.

Bottom line: Make waiting a better experience, and customers will feel the wait is shorter.

Opportunity: Friendliness puts a shine on everything

Friendly employees make other aspects of the customer experience seem better.

There's no question the employees at Disneyland are friendlier than the employees at the DMV, so let's use a different comparison for this one: fast food chains.

InTouch Insight uses secret shoppers to conduct an annual study of drive-thru operations at fast food chains. The 2022 version found Chick-fil-A had two problems:

• Longest average wait time of 10 major chains
• Order accuracy was only 83 percent

Yet customers still gave Chick-fil-A the highest overall rating. One reason was Chick-fil-A employees were rated the friendliest.

Resource: Why customer service reps aren't friendly

InTouch Insight did the same study again in 2023 . Chick-fil-A did better this time, reducing its average wait by more than a minute, though its wait time was still the longest.

The average wait time at KFC was more than two minutes shorter than Chick-fil-A. How customers perceived that time is a different story.

Here's data from a separate 2023 study conducted by MarketForce:

Chick-fil-A customers wait more than two minutes longer than KFC customers, yet they're far more satisfied with the speed of service.

One big factor? Friendliness.

Let's look at the perceived friendliness scores from that same MarketForce survey:

Bottom line: Hire naturally friendly employees and keep them happy, and your customers will believe you're providing a better experience.

Opportunity: Use positive positioning

The service call is the most dreaded moment in the cable customer's experience. It feels like an epic hassle.

A friend of mine runs a technical support team for a large cable company. She made an interesting discovery while listening to reps schedule service calls.

The way reps positioned it had a huge effect on customer satisfaction.

Here are two examples. Imagine you are the customer and you're on the phone with these technical support reps. Which approach would you like best?

Rep A: "We can't fix the problem from here. We'll have to schedule a service technician to come take a look at it. Does tomorrow afternoon between one and three pm work for you?"

Compare it to this:

Rep B: "I'd like to get one of our expert technicians to come out and look at this issue so we can get it solved for you. We can get someone out as soon as tomorrow afternoon, between one and three pm. Will that work for you?"

Both reps are suggesting the same solution, but the way they're suggesting it is very different. Rep B positions it in a far more positive light.

Resource: How concrete language increased sales by 13 percent

Research shared by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick Delisi in The Effortless Experience found that customer satisfaction was 82 percent higher when customer service reps used positive positioning.

They also found that customers' perception of the effort involved was 73 percent lower when reps used positive positioning.

Bottom line: Use positive positioning to improve customer perception of the solutions you share.

Conclusion

There are many aspects of the customer experience that you can't control. Yet you can still influence customer perception by using these three techniques:

1. Influencing wait times
2. Treating customers with friendliness
3. Using positive positioning when sharing solutions

Workshop: Customer Service Train-the-Trainer

Last month, I announced my first online Customer Service Train-the-Trainer workshop. It quickly sold out.

So, I've decided to offer a second session.

This hands-on workshop will help you become a better customer service trainer. You'll learn how to quickly create, deliver, and evaluate a world-class program.

• Date: Tuesday, March 19
• Time: 10-11:30 am (Pacific)
• Price: $95

Space is limited to 25 participants --> Register Now