Surface Ripples

Customer Perception = Reality

Kate Zabriskie coined the above term which neatly encapsulates what is often the main cause of tension between customers and suppliers.

We’ve all heard phrases such as “The customer is not an interruption of your work, they are the reason you have work,” and so on but it was only when I saw this that light dawned for me.

Many businesses are organised “Around themselves”, that is, they produce goods or services according to processes that they have designed to deliver those goods or services.

Only a few think about how the customer may want to obtain or access those goods or services.  This is where the “customer experience” concept comes in.  Its objective is to make life as good as possible for customers using the following criteria:

• The product or service must meet the customer’s needs. 
• It must be easy to use.
• The customer should enjoy using the product or service.

The problem is that, if we’re lucky, the product or service will meet our needs.  

Easy to use?  How do we have to fill in?  How many fields do we need to complete online?  How many steps to complete the process?  Does our password need a minimum of 8 characters, at least one of which should be an uppercase letter, one a number and one a "special symbol"?

Enjoyable?  How do we feel after completing endless forms and waiting in a queue for 30 minutes?

Very few organisations can achieve all three.

Once we know what the customer wants, and how they want it, we’re on our way. The only way to get this information is to talk to customers themselves.  Unfortunately, the way many organisations do this is to use “focus groups” or “market surveys” that aren’t designed to elicit what the customer wants so much as to reaffirm that the processes are “right”.  Even the use of the latest trend – “persona” that are meant to represent the “typical buyer” (there’s no such thing, buy the way) of that product or service look at the buyer from the business’ point of view rather than the buyer’s.

Once we get our heads around the difference that’s needed, we can start to understand how customers want to engage with us, what products they need to do what, and how they want to access them.

Until business leaders realise this, there’ll always be a conflict between their perceptions and those of their customers.

 I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website  provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  

Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Selling, Strategy

posted by William Martin @ 10:18