Want to increase customer satisfaction and build trust? Time to see RED.
I love mental models and frameworks. Some might say that's because they allow me to more effectively organise and communicate the wealth of ideas in my head, whilst others that they bring order to chaos ??.? Either way, I have always found them useful to effectively articulate and share ideas across organisations. So finding one, or creating one, is my go to whenever I want to get things moving.
The power of the model discussed below is that it?reminds us that customers are people, and in fact, so are we! It helps organisations to hold up a mirror to themselves and start thinking and feeling like their customers. The simple structure makes the output easier to engage with, and so more effective at creating and sustaining action.
The seeds for it were planted back in 2016 when I read ”The Elements of Value” in the Harvard Business Review.
I liked the fact that it pulled in many of the elements I might think about when exploring what drives customer satisfaction and value, and to boot, it built this into an hierarchy like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (HoN).
The HoN states that individuals must somewhat satisfy the lower levels in order to build up to being “self-actualised”, where true potential is realised.?
The HoN was something I was already thinking about at the time having read “Delivering Happiness” by the late Tony Hsieh, who referenced the even more Maslow inspired “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow” by Chip Conley.? These books tell very inspiring stories about putting employees and customers (i.e. people) first, leading to very successful businesses. Both use Maslow's HoN’s to map out models that underpinned the fundamentals of their business.
I was so excited by all of this, that I immediately spoke to the smartest customer thinker I know, John Sills (please check out his articles, they are excellent and often make me laugh out loud!).? He agreed it was a wonderful model.? But also? made a fairly compelling point, it was probably too complicated to be useful in real life.
This immediately rang true. I knew that anything that was going to be used to communicate or inform others, to roll out new thinking and change across an organisation needed to be much simpler.? This keeps things, well, simple for everyone to get their head around, meaning the approach can be tested faster, and the model, narrative or plans more easily adjusted to drive a bigger impact.
So, to the horror of my pipe smoking, slipper wearing, inner academic, when defining the customer elements of the strategy for a subsequent organisation, I decided to take the essence of the model, a hierarchy of customer value, and simplify it. What I came up with, by this point clearly nervous of moving away from triangles, was this:
It’s similar to Chip Conley’s “customer pyramid”, but has some important differences that I believe make it easier to digest, action, and directly link to the most important customer asset of all, trust.
It’s a pretty simple model, but this is its strength. Anyone, anywhere in an organisation can both understand, and more importantly empathise as a consumer with the three levels, and that broadly they build upon each other.? This makes it easier to hold up a mirror and take on board how customers are feeling when they use a product or service. It’s also very “programmatically” friendly, enabling improvement efforts to be prioritised based on their impact at each level. This means that once the strategy leaves the board room, it continues to be useful in explaining why things are being done in a logical, consistent and relatable way.?
Let's get into a bit more detail on these three layers.
Reliability - The Foundation
“I trust you to do what you say you are going to do”
The key to “reliability” is understanding and meeting customer’s expectations around doing what you said you would do.? If not, they are going to feel frustrated, mis-sold and will eventually leave. This sounds like a no brainer, but organisations sometimes forget that they don't get to decide where the bar is, their customers do.
Surfacing these expectations isn’t always straightforward. Even if the service or product offering has been clearly articulated to customers, it’s open to circumstance and interpretation. For those brave enough to ask, customers can’t always articulate clearly what they want (until the mark is missed, when they definitely will!), and it's entirely possible that there are? different customer segments, with different needs.
It can be tough to get the balance right between asking and annoying, so it's important to consider things like frequency of requests and where on the customer journey or sales cycle it makes the most sense to the customer to ask. There are also a plethora of standardised measures out there (NPS, CSAT, CES, ICS etc), but getting quality responses and teasing out reliability themes can be tricky.? Structured conversations with a selection of customers, coupled with observation of them in the wild, is the best way to get insight, but needs to be backed up by some empirical evidence to ensure these didn't just chance on the most relaxed customers!
The simplest place to look for reliability related data is in existing customer interactions - where there are consistent complaints and questions that sit within the core product or service offering.? If this comes up blank, then double check relevant metrics like revenue, churn, user numbers, session time etc - if these are tanking, and there is silence, then it’s likely that not only is reliability bombing, things are so bad customers have stopped bothering to mention it. This demands even more of an investment in customer engagement and listening.
Where customers request new features, then the scope of reliability can change, or a new product is born, with its own “Pyramid of Trust”.? Either way, it’s critical to ensure that customers’ expectations around reliability are gathered, and tested, as part of development and launch.
If there is evidence of two or more very different sets of expectations from customers, dig into this.? If it's possible to crystalise exactly what those differences are and why, products and services can be differentiated, or new ones created to both increase customer satisfaction, and create new commercial opportunities.
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Ease - An Opportunity to Differentiate
“I trust you to use my time wisely and keep things simple”
If reliability makes customers feel the product or service “does what it said it would”, then “ease” is defined as the “time and effort (physical and cognitive) it takes to use it.”??
The reason for the inclusion of this as a distinct layer is due to one of the most disruptive innovations so far this century, the smartphone. It has brought two important things to our fingertips:
This has massively decreased our tolerance for things that feel less easy to use than the average app on our smartphone, or if not a comparable experience, then at least the average level of ease compared to competitors or a similar product or service we use. As such, thinking about it as its own triangle slice is important as it is one of the easiest (excuse the pun) ways to both tick off customers, or keep them happy.
As customers, if we know a product is reliable, we might take a hit on “ease” to save some money, or because there is an effort to switch. But, over time, as everything else seems easier, we will eventually run out of patience and move on.??
There are a million examples of this, but banking is a great one - over the last 10 years, banking apps have gone from simple balance checking shortcuts with slow and clunky user experiences, to fully fledged account maintenance and service portals, with increasingly slick workflows and intelligence built in.? Anyone who still had a 2015 style app would lose customers, even if their app was now bullet proof from a reliability perspective.
So, if broadly keeping up with the average level of “ease” is the bare minimum to keep customers satisfied, then improving this comes from out performing the average.? For example, every additional second a website takes to load reduces customer satisfaction by 16%, and a site which takes 5 seconds to load has a bounce rate of nearly 40% vs 11% for 3 seconds.? So, in ecommerce, optimising load times past the industry average is a big deal as it will drive up satisfaction, traffic, and therefore return visits and sales.??
To increase customer satisfaction and trust then, it's necessary to have a good sense for what the average effort and time needed to interact with a comparable experience, product or service is (again, checking existing customer data and feedback will help here), and then look at ways to improve on this to differentiate and stand out? as easier.
Delight - Taking the Lead
“I trust you to know what I want before I do”
By now we have created the most bullet proof product or service, that is the most slick and quick to use on the market.? At this point, customers are going to be pretty happy.
To be a true leader in the market or industry though, it’s necessary to “delight” customers.
"Delight" here is defined as “giving customers something they didn’t even know they wanted”. This dials up dramatically the perceived utility and satisfaction provided by the product or service, and by definition means it’s providing something the competition isn’t, as if they were, customers would know if they wanted it or not.
More importantly though, this creates a deep level of trust, because to do this demonstrates knowing customers so well their needs can be anticipated. Henry Ford famously said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”' (there is actually no evidence he said this, and he didn't invent the car,? but let's roll with it for effect).?
In order to innovate and create this level of trust, it is necessary to take some risk.? While bigger bets can pay off when there is a locked-in customer base and/or lots of cash (hello Apple and Amazon), it’s safer and more economically palatable to innovate into a customer base that trusts you to get it right more often than wrong.? Customers are ironically more likely to accommodate some short term impact to reliability and ease if the payoff in terms of “delight” is perceived to be worth it.??At a minimum, they should at least give things a go before burying them for good.
Apple is of course the prime example of this, and whilst I personally find their take it or leave it approach (RIP headphone socket!) a bit grating, they certainly know how to use the trust they create with reliable and easy to use products to take risky leaps. Some of these have had a massive impact, like the touchscreen, interface and app innovations that sparked widespread smartphone adoption.
This doesn't mean customers can be ignored.? Far from it, there will be feedback from customers that helps identify where there are potential opportunities to delight. With today's technology, using customer segments/psychographics, minimum viable products and market tests, risk can be further minimised by trying ideas out on a small number of amenable customers.
Delighting doesn’t have to be for everyone. If "reliability" and "ease" are nailed, products and services are likely to be successful. The risk exists though of someone else that is focussing on delighting coming up with something new that renders existing business models redundant or shifts the bar on reliability and ease so high that today’s products and services struggle to compete (think Uber).? One way or the other, it’s essential long term to have at least one eye on where customer delight is going to come from and how you would respond.
In a nutshell…
Remember, customers are people too.? As so are you ?? I hope this model simplifies the process of empathising with and understanding customers, communicating this effectively, prioritising and taking action on any issues or opportunities discovered.
Once satisfaction and trust levels are increased, not will your customers be happy, but the space is created to do what few do, delight customers by giving them what they didn’t even know they wanted.
Really interesting - interested in your views on digital inclusion. How do we stop cohorts of people from being ‘left behind’ because they can’t keep up with the technology (maybe because of age, cost of tech/broadband etc)?
Managing Partner at The Foundation. Author of The Human Experience. Trustee of Young Enterprise. Part-time Writer, Professional Commuter.
2 年'Remember, customers are people too.?As so are you' - The simplest advice and the most easily forgotten. Loved it!
Retail Operations & Underwriting Director
2 年Great writing and thanks for including additional reading references. Love the simplicity of the model too!
Developing Whole system energy markets to enable Net Zero - EMBA Candidate Strathclyde Business School - IGEM board member
2 年I still use this model regularly, particularly when it comes to Decarbonisation! Getting everyone in the supply chain to think like this is key to delivering trials & pilots - having a simple model that everyone can relate to just works - and yes it will always be known as Ranjit’s triangle ??
Strategic Stakeholder Manager at Xoserve
2 年Thanks for sharing Ranjit - we still refer back to this from the early work you did at Xoserve (& subsequently Correla)! It's a great way to illustrate what's needed for exceptional customer experiences and assess what's needed to reach Ease & Delight.