Doing your best or Satisfying your customers?

Recently, I had a chat with my superior at workplace on the differences between achieving one’s best and satisfying customers. After this discussion, I did ponder on this discussion and then, I realized how many modern companies might have lost market share by not focusing on how their customers feel. Many companies focus on providing their customers with the best offerings especially hinging the performance indicators on cost, quality and time. Employees including customer facing staff, place high importance on striving to achieve the best from sales to execution. However, doing the best may not align with customers’ expectation. In addition, a quote from the famous Sir Winston S. Churchill relating to this argument states that “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”

Have we ever thought that somehow, there might be a gap between providing the best and satisfying the customers? Furthermore, sometimes, there is a subtle gap between what customers really want and the customers say they want. This gap may have led many companies to lose out on little things that matter such as the feeling of their customers. In satisfying the customers, great deals should be placed on the feeling and emotions of the customers as large amount of customer experience is emotional both at conscious level and subconscious level.

From the US 2017 Customer Experience Index done by Forrester, it can be deduced that “many brands are focused very heavily on the execution side of their work and campaigns. Customers actually want more of the emotional side of it. If brands want to break away from the pack and become CX leaders, they must focus on emotion”. (Bliss, 2017). In addition, Powton (2017) highlighted that “Competition is fiercer than ever with fewer barriers to entry. Just having a good product at a reasonable price is no longer enough. Customer experience is the new battleground and emotion should be your weapon of choice”.

However, one major constraints in satisfying customers is how do we measure customers feeling and emotion?

In 1980, Robert Plutchik classified emotional responses into eight primary emotions; anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy. He created a wheel using bipolar emotions; joy versus sadness; anger versus fear; trust versus disgust; and surprise versus anticipation. This wheel is similar to a colour wheel in that the emotions can be expressed at different intensities. They can also mix with each other to form different emotions. This wheel can help in analyzing customers emotion and to develop an appropriate approach to improve customer experience. (Powton, 2017)

It is important that companies focus beyond sales and service delivery by focusing more on whole customer experience. This will aim at ensuring customer retention and leading to a high competitive advantage via positive experience with customer dealings and interactions. Some of the basics needed to improve on positive customer experience include specialized solutions, skillful listening and resourceful responses to unique customers’ demands.  (Forbes, 2011).

Adeniji A

References

Bliss, J. (2017) Is emotion the key to customer experience differentiation? Available at: https://www.mycustomer.com/experience/engagement/is-emotion-the-key-to-customer-experience-differentiation/ (Accessed: 17 November 2018).

Forbes (2011), Satisfying Customers - the Basics and Beyond. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2011/02/24/satisfying-customer-the-basics-and-beyond/#2dc977935288/ (Accessed: 17 November 2018).

Powton, M (2017) How To Measure Emotion In Customer Experience. Available at:  https://customerthink.com/how-to-measure-emotion-in-customer-experience/ (Accessed: 17 November 2018).