The 'differentiator' in client delight

There are some memories of your childhood that you deeply cherish. One of them for me was when the festive season arrived, stepping out with my parents in the streets of Calcutta to buy new clothes. Every store in the festive season offered compelling discounts to lure customers into their stores and I saw my mother astutely evaluate options to figure out which offer is more lucrative. This went on every year till one year when one of the stores started greeting every customer with a welcome drink- a concept that was unheard of , at least in the part of Calcutta I belonged to. The footprints in the store multiplied overnight and that year the shop did better business by far than many of its neighbouring competitors. Even my mother fell for it and walked out with bags of new clothes from that outlet. 

The following year, the competitors had figured out this secret sauce and this time they too offered every customer a welcome drink expecting the same results. That year was a very rewarding year for the window shoppers. Every store they walked into, they were welcome with a welcome drink. In fact the more the number of stores you went to, the more the number of drinks you got to have. Window shopping had an incentive attached to it. The store that had ushered the concept of the welcome drink in the year before had one of the worst sales in that decade. 

The next year onwards, the welcome drink trend continued across all the stores but it hardly promoted sales. However the ones that discontinued the welcome drink concept saw a lesser footfall. The real beneficiaries of the concept were the customers though my mother argued that they more than made up for the welcome drink with the inflation in price. The case in point though is, the welcome drink ceased to be a differentiator and in fact it started to be an expectation by the customers.

A couple of years later, another neighbor if store switched over from the welcome drink to an ice cream to lure customers into the store. And guess what? The footprints shot up for them this time! My mother said - ‘Every store offers the cola. The ice cream scoop is new. Let’s start with that store.’ Years later when I look back at this I realise two very important things. First, in the service industry, delight becomes hygiene over a period of time and therefore reinventing delight is a mandate for businesses. Secondly and more importantly, human beings don’t crave for uniformity as much as differentiation.

Joseph Pine emphasises that we are in the 'experience economy' and in the experience economy differentiation takes the cake! I don’t want to be treated like every one else. I want to be treated differently! When HRs across organisations put in so much of efforts to give the 50 inductees a uniform on boarding experience, this is food for thought. When businesses try to provide every client a uniform experience , this is food for thought for them too! 

Uniformity is a desire for audits and standards but does it really help? The businesses today that are really flourishing are the ones that are best adapted to providing customisation - the ones who in their endeavour to cater to the basic needs of the customer, do not forget to create a differentiated experience - knowing precisely what that customer wants and knowing specifically how one client's delight factor is different from the other's. As a customer, while I expect to be treated fairly, I also expect to be treated differently too! That's a tight rope every business has to walk on. Today, there's major focus on the first but there's more to be done on the other.

The next I walk into your store while you are offering everyone the cola, offer me the ice cream may be with a caramel topping on it! I promise you I will be floored!