Do you know what your customers really experience?

My challenge today to all CEOs, COOs, CMOs, CCOs and everyone whose job description includes ‘caring about the experience customers have with your company’…do you really really know what your customers are experiencing? And how do you know?

So let’s start with a real live customer story. You can no doubt translate this example into your own industry, and while you read it, I encourage you to think about whether this could be happening in your company and most importantly – how would you know?

I ordered a pair of “office glasses” from a large chain high-end spectacle frame/optometrist shop. I figured with COVID and working from home, I’d be sitting all day looking at my screens for hours, and “office lenses” would be best. I had my eyes tested to be sure the prescription was the latest. I chose new frames, had the measurements scribbled on the glasses and was told it would take 10-14 days.

I received a text message to say the glasses were ready within the expected timeframe (tick) and I had to go in to collect them to be sure they were fitting and sitting well. Very exciting.

So I put them on, and I really can’t see very well. Like really blurry - like - well, I can’t see! The shop assistant tells me this is very normal and I should take them home and try them for 2 weeks. I'm hesitant. I’ve worn multi-focal lenses for some years and hardly have an adjustment each time they’re upgraded. But – they know better than me, and knowing my degree of impatience and wanting everything to work perfectly, immediately, I suck it up and go home to “try for 2 weeks”.

Two days later – I gave up. I seriously could not see. Back I go, and am told – oh dear the prescription seems to be someone else’s, not mine. Very sorry, let’s do another eye test to be sure (which confirmed the prescription was correct and the lenses were made incorrectly) and so they offer to remake them.

Roll the clock forward, pair no 2 – I can see better than pair no 1, but, I can’t really see that well. So I go home again to “try for 2 weeks”. You guessed it – 2 days later I give up again. Back to the store. I’m told there are two types of “office lenses” – ah hah! No-one thought to mention that. One to see stuff that’s a bit closer and one for a bit further (this is my layman’s terminology). Ok – I need the further ones but seems they defaulted to the closer lens, with no-one thinking to ask me what I actually needed.

Onto my 4th store visit – and the new ‘further’ lenses are perfect! Hmm – right “4th time” is surely not their company's goal.

A few months later I'm enjoying my office glasses and almost having forgotten the painful customer experience, I decide to upgrade my multi-focals to the latest prescription. So, visit no 1 - I go in to be measured, and order my replacement lenses. Well-informed as I now am, I ask if there are different types of multi-focals they make, to which I am told no. Just one type. As I’ve had their ‘one type’ before, I figure this is easy. Same frames. Same type. New prescription.

Visit no 2, to collect them – is a smashing disappointment. The lenses have been made too small for the frames (frames they sell by the way, not my own) and so the lenses are wobbling in the frames (and obviously not aligned with my eyes). Was I ok to take them as is or would I prefer to have them re-made. Ummmm… So they promise to remake, and on visit no 3, they are not only sitting properly in the frame, but I can see well. Yes! We got there!

So you might ask – why did I go back at all?

Final product is good quality. Staff are really lovely – perhaps they lack training, they make mistakes, but it seems their lab (or whomever they outsource the lab work to) make a lot of mistakes too. Sooo much rework, sooo much waste. Awful customer experience. And that's officially my last visit. I don’t expect perfection (although that would be nice), and I’m very understanding when things go wrong, but hey, not this many times.

Customer Experience (CX) isn’t some fluffy thing. The impact to your bottom line of poor CX is real. Rework costs. Wasted work costs. Customer revisits, cost. But not only are there costs to you from this poor set of experiences, revenue drops. I will not buy from this company again. And I will tell my friends and colleagues. Not to mention the employee experience which suffers, as it’s not a fun place to work when customers keep coming back and complaining.

So here’s the question, as CEO/COO/CCO etc – how do you know if this (or the equivalent) is happening in your organisation? How do you measure re-work? Do you have indicators telling you if a customer has had to come back 5 times? Do you have measures that connect your customer experience and your operational performance that would highlight the pain points your customers and/or your employees experience? How often are you reviewing and interrogating them? Are your improvements plans based on these indicators?

What action can you take to measure, understand and then prevent, this sort of re-work in your organisation?

At AchieveAble, we can help you identify your CX pain points and design experiences that meet customers’ needs, and reduce your costs. We can help you establish the right governance to stay on top of wasted energy, rework and customer frustrations. Reach out if you’d like to know how.

Laura Mazin is the Director at AchieveAble, a boutique CX Consulting business helping organisations identify, design and drive customer experience improvements. Reach out to accelerate your customer experience improvements, leveraging Laura and her team’s vast experience.