LISTEN MORE (like Spiderman did)! The secret to delivering a memorable Customer Experience

CX is the impression you leave on a customer after every interaction the customer has with your business.

Every process & policy that you build has an impact on your customers and also it impacts their decision to come back to you or not.

Like in every relationship, ‘LISTENING’ is the key to progress. The same is the relationship between customers & your brand. The more you listen (and act on it), the better the relationship gets.

Let’s understand this with a simple example:

Our beloved “Spiderman” the owner of ‘Peter Parker Pvt. Ltd.’, a food delivery start-up, always wanted to keep everything in check and he made sure that his Food Deliver App “WEBBY’ had all the sophisticated mix of processes & policies that made perfect sense as it had everything connected to each other.

Little did he know that while his WEBBY App connected everything, it also lead to a lot of hindrances for customers to get the desired services, and led to frustration and confusion among the customers. Spiderman still loved it the way it was, as the technology and process used in WEBBY App were considered the best in the industry.

On looking at the customer retention numbers closely, Spiderman saw that 85% of his customers left the WEBBY after using it just once, which means WEBBY had just 15% repeat users. Spiderman was devastated looking at this. How can 85% of customers move out of WEBBY after just 1 transaction? In fact, when he had been spending millions in customer acquisition (CAC) – for just getting customers inside WEBBY App in the first place.

Spiderman goes to his best school friends (some of them now graduating from World Class universities), hoping they would have some answers to this management problem.

His so-called EXPERT friends suggested to him the following:

1. Let’s give WEBBY users Cashback of Rs.100 for every repeat food order that they place
2. Let’s offer them Amazon Gift Vouchers if they order food from your app on Weekdays (instead of Weekends)
3. Let’s bind them in yet another Mini-WEB called “Yearly Subscription Plan” from which they cannot escape till they use your Food App for the entire year.

Spiderman was a bit skeptical about how this will work in the long run, but he still decided to go ahead! After all, these suggestions came from some of the best minds on the planet (graduates from top-rated universities). He implemented these suggestions the next day, and repeat usage went up (Swoosh!) to 95% in no time. Spiderman was a happy man again!

After 6 months, Spiderman’s trusted CFO (Chief Financial Officer) “Aunt May” came up with some bad news.

The Cashback, Discounts & Gift Vouchers had burnt a big hole into the company’s finances and she advised him to stop it immediately OR be ready to close shop in next 3 months as they were about to run out of cash.

To make problems worse “The Sandman”, Doctor Octopus”, & “Green Goblin” had built their own food delivery apps with robust funding and were offering double the Discounts & Cashbacks compared to Spiderman’s WEBBY App. They were working with the joint objective to bring Spiderman's WEBBY App down.

Spiderman eventually realized that now he was stuck inside the “MULTIVERSE OF CORPORATE MADNESS“, and decided to turn to his trusted investor & guide “Doctor Strange” and asked him for a magical solution to win back his customers, WITHOUT BURNING CASH.

‘Doctor Strange’ advised him to first listen and then act.

He advised, “Peter, first carefully listen to your customers (not market experts) & observe their behavior, they have a lot to tell you how to win”

“Doctor Strange” designed a Magic Spell called the NPS (Net Promoter Score) :), that not only captured customer preference for the WEBBY App on a rating scale of "0 to 10", but also smartly asked customers to rate the best and worst things which they found in Spiderman’s WEBBY App.

The Judgement Day (NPS results were out):

• 93% of customers rated WEBBY App between just ‘0 to 6’ – these are known as “DETRACTORS” (customers who have already left WEBBY, OR are going to leave soon if product/services are not improved, and worse - they could also discourage potential customers to turn away from WEBBY App, through negative word of mouth).

• 5% of customers rated WEBBY App between ‘7 to 8’ – these are known as “PASSIVES” (customers who are neither very happy, nor very unhappy about WEBBY and they lie somewhere in between, but they are?also very close?to becoming “PROMOTERS”, if you give them what they actually need)

• 2% of customers rated WEBBY App between ‘9 to 10’ – these are known as “PROMOTERS” (customers who love WEBBY and shall prefer to stay with the App i.e. loyal customers, who are likely to act as brand ambassadors, through positive word of mouth).

The top reasons for DETRACTORS were:

1. WEBBY App Customer Service team never responds
2. Delayed delivery
3. Untrained staff

The top reasons for PROMOTERS were:

1. Wide range of food options
2. Lowest delivery charges

GUESS WHAT WAS THE MOST JARRING REVELATION HERE? Not even a single customer talked about ‘CASHBACK & DISCOUNTS’, despite Spiderman spending millions on it daily for the last 6 months.

This is where the change started to happen! Next day Spiderman reduced the cashbacks (but did not stop them completely, as you always need to gift the loyal customers to make them feel special) and he invested more money into setting up processes, policies, and people, to improve Customer Experience based on the top reasons given by the “DETRACTORS” (those who rated between ‘0 to 6’).

In the next 3 months, WEBBY’s cash burn on discounts was down by 90%, yet the ‘Repeat usage’ done by new customers was at an impressive 70% (compared to 15% earlier).

Spiderman thanked ‘Doctor Strange’ for his NPS spell and the valuable revelations that it gave to his business, and promised him to KEEP LISTENING.

The CONCLUSION (5 Important takeaways):

1. As business owners and process heads, the most important person that we need to listen to is the “CUSTOMER”. They keep saying a lot of things to you over a call, chat, email, or social media. Get a system in place (Analytics backed CRM) to turn these words into numbers so that you can see which number is most important and what needs to be fixed, where, how, and to what extent.
2. Reward repeat customers for their loyalty and find ways to create a WOW experience for every interaction that your customers have with your business. Rather than throwing Cashbacks to ger new users, use Cashbacks minimally for promoting loyalty.
3. The 2nd most important person worth listening to (after your customers), are your EMPLOYEES (many of them may have even been your customers too at some point in time). That’s why I say, EX (Employee Experience) is the sister of CX (Customer Experience) – A happy employee is your best asset. Ensure that employees have necessary systems in place which make their work easier and have options to work from home when needed. Such small acts of care towards your employees, make their work more efficient and help them deliver better. Empower your junior Customer Services staff to give you regular inputs. The junior-most employees have the closest encounter with customers AND THEY ARE YOUR LIVING NPS SURVEY FORMS. Ask them to speak and they will tell you things that even market experts can’t tell you about your business, because they daily speak to your customers more than anyone else in the organization. They have seen it all - the Good, Bad & Ugly!
4. NPS is NOT THE ONLY success formula for any failing business. It is just one of the tools that help you build a resilient business that is able to fight competition by keeping your eyes & ears open to what customers are saying. Being said that, after doing NPS, everything boils down to - how you use NPS results and how you implement the findings on a regular basis, to improve your brand positioning in the minds of your customers.
5. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE & EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE > HEAVY CASHBACKS

“If you’re competitor focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” - Jeff Bezos (Founder & CEO at Amazon)