THE ULTIMATE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE!

It is no secret that I am a huge proponent of being of service to others, especially in our businesses. Of course, there is a time and a place to be of service to others for no other reason than simply to serve. But in our businesses, it is my belief that we should always be on the lookout for ways to be of service to our customers and clients and that those people and businesses that are, become the standouts. When you are always on the lookout for ways to be of service to your customers and clients, you are forced to find unique ways to do so and, ironically, sometimes what is considered unique in 2019, is actually age old and simple. The kind of service that was likely commonplace many years or decades ago but has somewhat gone the way of the rotary and corded phones. In the digital age that we live now, good (really good!) service is rare, and I’m here to tell you that is a good thing! When something becomes rare it becomes valuable. When something becomes valuable it becomes sought after. And we people go on a search for something they typically find it. And when they find it, they talk about it. In the age of speed, digital connection, and social media that we live in today, having somebody singing your praises often means a whole host of things, almost all of them good. What was once expected and considered typical eventually became not so common and was a business differentiator for many years. Many businesses focused on speed and ease of use, ease of ordering, and not having to deal with a human being as their reason for being.

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For those of us who have been studying, writing about, and podcasting about business for many years, despite the move  toward speed, efficiency, 2 day shipping, and a customer or client experience that often removes almost all human interactions, what has never gone out of style as a business differentiator is killer service. In fact, with the push to more digital interactions, there has never been a better time to be a standout business when it comes to customer and client service. What has changed in that time, however, is the move toward customer and client ‘experience’ over just killer service. Great customer or client service can sometimes be difficult to define and is somewhat subjective. Making sure your customers and clients have had the absolute best experience they could possibly have with a company like yours is a whole other level of doing business. Of course, what this means for your particular business and industry will vary, but just thinking about the kinds of experiences you talk about, both positive and negative, will give you some clues to what that might mean.

I’m going to give you two experiences in this episode to describe what I think goes beyond customer or client service and moves into the realm of great client experience. One of them is from Todd Duncan’s book, The 10 Golden Rules of Customer Service, and the other is an experience I had recently that stuck out to me.

The first story, as told by Todd Duncan in his book, and I’ll summarize it for you, is about an experience he had just before leaving for one of his annual coaching retreats. He was going to be flying out the next day and decided he’d better get a couple pairs of casual pants for the event. He meets a sales lady named Mona at Nordstroms who helps him find the right ones and get them fitted for the tailor to then do their thing. Being concerned about his short time frame he asks, ‘How soon can we get these hemmed?”, to which Mona replies, “how soon do you need them?” He explains his dilemma to which Mona responds, “the tailor is here until 5 tonight so it shouldn’t be a problem.” Delighted that he’d be able to pick up his new pants with more than enough time before his flight in the morning, Todd was about to leave when Mona says, “Todd, you’ll probably be busy packing and getting ready for your trip tonight, how about I run these over to your house when they’re done.” He goes on to explain that she actually arrived at their house an hour earlier than promised with the newly hemmed slacks and waited while he tried them on to make sure they fit. She assured him that even if they didn’t, the tailor was on duty until 9 that night and she would get it taken care of for him. Wowed by this over the top customer service, they thanked Mona and walked her to her car. They noticed she drove an expensive Mercedes with a license plate that simply said ‘SERVE” on it. He ends that story by saying when they arrived home from their event they were met with a hand written card from Mona that said, “Todd, I know you asked me if your slacks were going to go on sale and I told you no. Well, they did. Please find attached a credit to your Nordstrom account in the amount of $110. That is the difference between what you paid and the sale price. I look forward to your next visit.” Now, if you know anything about Nordstroms, this isn’t necessarily a big deal. They’ve built their name on high end service and quality product. However, the point of the story is that this was not only over the top service, but an amazing customer experience. From the moment they walk in the door to a week after the home visit from the Mona with a hand written card with a credit to their account. They’re left with a memorable experience reminding them that someone actually cares and is looking out for them.

The final story of what I would consider excellent client and customer service is a recent experience I had with a well known company called Sweetwater which is a company that sells music gear and sound gear like mics, amps, mixing boards and anything to do with music and sound. They’re located in Ft Wayne, Indiana and I have purchased some things from them over the years. Just recently I purchased some gear for our recording studio and, without realizing it, apparently I had bought from them back in 2011 because they told me so. I kind of remember buying something but I couldn’t tell you what it was. However, after making my purchase last week, and it was only a $200 purchase, I receive a call 10 minutes after I press the buy button on my computer. I know it’s Sweetwater because it comes up as that on the caller ID on my cell phone. I answer and it’s a gentleman named Nick and he says, and I quote, “Hi Blaine, this is Nick over at Sweetwater and I saw that you just bought XYZ from us, so I wanted to give you a call to say thanks and welcome back. I see you bought some other XYZ from us back in 2011 and we’re just thrilled you decided to come back to shop with us. I see you bought the XYZ’s, can I ask what you’r recording with them?”, I say, “hey Nick, yeah, thanks for calling and yes, I do some podcasting and we’re always trying out new gear to get the best sound so I figured we’d try these out.” Nick says, “that’s awesome Blaine, whats the name of your podcast?” I tell him and he says, “just a second, I’m writing that down, I’m going to take a listen to it, that’s really awesome that you do that!” At this point, I am feeling a real affinity with Nick because he’s making me feel really good about myself and the decision I made to buy from them again. In fact, I was about 2 seconds away from asking Nick if he was the owner or maybe the owners son because he sounds like he’s really into making sure very single person who buys from them knows they’re appreciated and how small must the company be if they can do that.

As it turns out, Sweetwater is one of the largest music and gear retailers in the world with over $750 million in sales in 2018, almost 1600 employees, a 400 page catalog sent out 3 times per year to tens of thousands of subscribers, a website that has literally 63,000 pages of content on it, and their hand in the philanthropic side of things reaches over 600 organizations that they give millions to each year. I didn’t know any of this until a man named Nick Huskins over at Sweetwater gave me a personal phone call to thank me for my purchase. That’s his real name and he has no idea I’m saying it in this podcast but that’s what happens when you do business the right way. Your business becomes remarkable, which means worthy of remark. In this case, Sweetwater is my go-to from here on out for everything gear related. They had good prices and the stuff was in stock. That was good enough for me. Their website had very good instructions on how to use the gear, how to get it updated, how to tweak it to make it work perfect, this was more than was expected. I was going to buy no matter what. But as my sales history had proven, I may not have come back for another 9 years. They changed all that with one simple act: a phone call from Nick. A guy I feel is. My friend now. I’m quite sure he’s forgotten about me and my $200 sale after he’s made 1000 more calls to much bigger sales since last week. But I’m blown away. I have a hard time getting some people to hand write a thank you card to some of their best clients and customers and here Nick is picking up the phone to call 600 miles away and say thanks for buying from us and call him personally if I need any help. That, my friends, is what creating an amazing customer experience is all about.

What is doing business with you like? Is it just like everybody else who does what you do? What is your great differentiator, and please don’t say the quality of our work! Its such a tired old trope trotted out by the lazy and the scared. Maybe your quality is good, but its not what keeps people coming back if they actually are. If they’re coming back it’s because of something in their experience that they can count on. The customer and client experience is the business differentiator in the 21st century. Technology has made it so. We can do things faster than they’ve ever been done before and we can choose to do them with no human intervention required. But without a human involved, whats the overall experience to the client or customer and how can it become that much better by having a human involved, even if the humans job is just to say thank you? Think about it. Nick’s job in the whole transaction was simply to say ‘thanks’. But it was the defining moment in a seamless transaction that, up until that point, hadn’t involved one other human being besides myself and my laptop.

I’ll chat with you all again next week.