Why you need to wake up to these 3 customer trends. Before it's too late.
I ended the call. Furious and starving, I cancelled my subscription. All that work and energy to get me to be a loyal customer, shattered by one interaction.
This was a recent experience with a food delivery company. But situations like this are playing out. All the time.
When we talk trends, it's usually about consumer behaviour. It's usually about strategy, marketing, product and other sexy things.
But we need to wake up. All the strategies, all the positioning and all the fancy campaigns are being flushed down the drain daily - by crap customer contact.
All the strategies, all the positioning and all the fancy campaigns are being flushed down the drain daily - by crap customer contact.
Pre-sale to post-sale - here are 3 trends that are shaping the way we buy and what we expect when it comes to customer contact. Ignore them at your peril.
1. The on-demand economy.
Ordered an Uber recently? Watched Netflix? Got Amazon Prime?
Everything, and I mean, everything, is on-demand. And that means everything is faster.
What does this mean for you?
Slow doesn't cut it.
Please hold, you're number 7 in the queue. Call back Monday - Friday, 9-5. Thanks for your email, we're busy so we'll respond in 48 hours.
With everything getting faster, expectations for everything are that it'll be faster.
77% of consumers rate "valuing my time" as the most important part of good online customer service.
Why can I order a cab in 2 minutes, but I have to wait 2 days for a response to my email?
I don't leave one set of expectations at the door and use another when I need something different. I don't differentiate anymore between the fact that you're a bank and Netflix sells movies.
I don't leave one set of expectations at the door, and use another when I need something different. I don't differentiate anymore between the fact that you're a bank and Netflix sells movies.
If they can do it, that fast, on-demand... why can't you?
Your customer contact needs to be just as fast. It's not good enough to make your customer wait at the highest touch experience they have with your brand after the product itself.
I'm as impatient as a 4-year-old who's eaten too many sweets. Get fast. Get on-demand. Especially when I need to speak to you.
2. Experience economy
What we experience creates the next person's experience. Recommendations and reviews aren't new. But they're becoming more and more important as they're an indicator of the experience.
70% of customers trust recommendations more than they trust brands.
What does that mean for you? You can say what you want. You can have the best ads. The slickest influencer endorsements. But if you're hitting 1 star on TrustPilot, then everything else might as well be junked.
Your customers experience actively influences the next person's likelihood to buy. More than anything you do.
What matters here is this - there is no more important part of the experience than when you speak to someone from the brand.
Why? Because we're human. Conversation has been at the heart of our species for donkey's years - which is a really long time. It matters. It matters more than what you promised it'll be like to do business with you.
Are you easy to talk to? Are you nice to talk to?
Are you helpful, or do you make me want to stand a pencil up on my desk and smash my eyeball into it?
But experience doesn't just mean that it's easy or painless when I talk to you. Great experience means it feels like you've kept your promise.
Here's an example. This is Oatly.
They're crushing it with their brand. I love their product. They are rebels. They have a manifesto for god's sake. And it's paying off. Big time.
So when I went to speak to them, I spoke to them in a way that felt right based on what they'd told me they're like. I was fun. I was unorthodox. I mean, I wasn't Kurt Cobain edgy, but I wasn't vanilla.
What. The. Hell.
This unique, quirky, passionate, principled, counter-culture brand gave me a response I'd have expected from my bank. Bar the love part.
This experience is way off what the brand promised. And you know what? I don't look at them with quite the same shine I used to.
Experience matters. The ease, the speed and resolution matters. But so does the style - from the channels you use, to the tone of voice.
3. Customers have (all) the power.
The customer is king. That old saying hasn't been much truer than now.
With barriers to entry lower than ever, the internet and smartphones, any decision I make is a comparison away. Switching has never been easier. Brand loyalty has never been harder to gain or more valuable to retain.
I use Deliveroo (a restaurant delivery service for my international friends). I use it a lot. Too much, but that's another story.
Instead of paying for delivery each time I order, I subscribed to a flat monthly fee. For them, this is where they want me to be. I am a loyal and regular customer. Or I was.
All of my Deliveroo hype was crushed in one, painful phone call. Something was wrong. I wanted a refund. Getting one was harder than leaving the EU.
Not only did they not refund me, they made those 5 minutes on the phone crap. I ordered food as it's easy. It's quick. And I'm hungry.
So when it's cold and I'm still hungry, I'm not going to be happy. But instead of the fix being quick, like the rest of the experience, it was slow, painful and aggravating.
I'm no longer on that monthly plan. All those successful orders over all those years down the drain. I now have the power so...
If you're a pain in the arse to deal with, I'll move.
If you do something wrong, I won't always even tell you. But I'll tell other people. And I'll move.
I won't complete your post-call survey or bullshit 6 sequence text message follow up request.
And if you're slow to get back to me, especially when I want to buy something, I'll take my business elsewhere.
I'll take my money, open my browser and bugger off. I'm not the only one.
Customers have all the power.
Does that mean they're always right? No. But it does mean that unless the centre of your universe is figuring out how to deliver a bleeding edge customer experience, you're setting wads of cash on fire.
We have to stop leaving service out of brand like it's the illegitimate child of a nefarious affair.
We have to stop leaving service out of brand like it's the illegitimate child of a nefarious affair. With the age of automation getting closer everyday, human contact will only serve to become more influential, more powerful, more valuable. So it can be the making of you, or the end of you.
Final thoughts
I'll leave you with this.
89% of companies say they compete primarily on customer experience.
80% think they do a good job of delivering superior experiences.
8% of customers agree.
Most companies are deluded.
It's time to wake up and smell the customer-centric coffee. Stop talking, stop pretending.
It's only going to get faster.
The experience I have matters more than ever.
And if I want a chance of delivering to these empowered customers, I better get it right.
Redtree Logistics Vehicle Movements
5 年The less enlightened ones don’t even attempt to deliver their brand promise.- so we walk away. The more enlightened attempt to deliver their brand promise but disjointly, so expectations can be breached, but we might stay. The very few & most enlightened have grasped Customer Experience Management, disrupt and lead the way.
Customer Support Team Leader
5 年All very true Jonny. Have contacted a reasonably well respected brand in the industry three times in the last week and a bit, using their "Request a Demo" form in an effort to learn more about their product. I'm still waiting to hear back from them. With that said, they haven't been shy in sending me daily newsletters on how fab their product is.