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What does it mean to be your customers’ “first choice” and why is it important?
Customers buy products or services to solve their problems, and they have more choice than ever about where to go and who to buy from. They do extensive research on products, prices, online reviews and who might be shortlisted before they even head out the door. This applies to almost all services, be it purchasing a sofa or selecting a caretaker or assisted living facility for aging parents. If you’re not on the shortlist yet, you’re out of the game.
Customers want to know what they are buying, how much they will pay and who they can trust to give them the right advice to solve their problems. Being your “first choice” means you can stand out from everyone else and meet all of the above requirements.
In our 25 years of global experience rolling out customer experience (CX) improvement programs, we hear from customers that first choice companies offer higher levels of empathy, take a proactive approach to building strong customer relationships, and treat their employees very well. Customers see employees who are inspired and committed to delivering exceptional service experiences that provide an unmatched competitive advantage.
Here are three tips on how they do this and how their CX programs help them manage the process.
Related: 5 Actionable Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience
1. Listen and learn
The traditional CX approach is to measure customer satisfaction and sentiment about a product or service. “Best practice programs” (focused on being their customers’ first choice) take a different approach. They focus on understanding customer expectations and train their teams to anticipate the type of experiences a customer expects when it comes to an exceptional experience.
A simple way to explain this: Traditional CX programs measure how likely a customer is to recommend them. Best practice CX programs already know that advocates recommend them – instead they focus on the knowledge Why and repeating this experience to attract more and more customers who consider them their first choice. This, in turn, creates more advocates who promote it on social media, visit more often, and spend more. Their CX strategy is about driving growth.
How do you do that? They tailor their CX feedback questions to each customer profile. You understand the details to take action (e.g. what, who, why, and how to improve).
Asking the right questions tells customers everything they need to know to listen, learn and take action. Team members move from a reactive to a proactive stance and try to anticipate customer needs. For customers, it feels like team members understand everything they need and genuinely care about finding the right solution for them. You feel like you’re being heard, it builds trust and makes you better than your competition… and that’s why you’re their first choice.
Related: Do This to Up Your Customer Experience Management Game
2. Personalization
Best practice CX programs make personalization key. Personalization in the context of your CX program refers to the way sales reps solve unique customer problems. In your CX program survey, you can branch specific questions for specific product groups to learn more about how the seller featured key products and accessories. So your CX program is “personalized” in terms of what questions are asked to track the exact purpose of your visit and understand what was discussed. For your customers, the branching of questions will be absolutely relevant because it only asks what happened related to the products and needs that attracted them today.
But best of all, because you know who operated them, when and where, you can diagnose what worked and what needs improvement. So you “personalize” your skills development plan for your teams.
Here is an example of why this is important. One of our customers launched their CX program and quickly discovered that some team members were cutting corners when presenting the product range and not mentioning many relevant accessories. When comparing average transaction value results, they found that team members who provided the full demonstration received 64% higher value ($648 per transaction versus $396 for those who did not provide the full product demonstration).
It was the personalization of the survey that uncovered the skills gaps and allowed the client to immediately increase sales results without having to spend a penny more on marketing. Customers also commented on the improved service and increased NPS scores.
Related: Your online customer experience is more than a buzzword – it’s the backbone of your business. Here’s how to optimize it.
3. The right size
Management guru Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed.” Best practice CX programs recognize that by measuring the right things, teams take the right actions.
The specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will be different for each industry. For example, if you are a retailer, you can measure “average transaction value,” while if you own a veterinary clinic, you can measure “refurbishment rate.”
Our recommendation is to focus on your rate of improvement and closing the performance gap between your top 10% and your bottom 10%. Wherever each team member starts, set a goal of closing the gap between their results and proven best practices (i.e. top 10%) in the coming quarter – if they are significantly behind, aim for a 10% improvement in the coming quarter .
Your ultimate goal is for every team member to deliver experiences that create advocates. Recognizing and rewarding improvements and reinforcing best practices will keep your team members focused on action and reinforce the right behaviors.
To summarize: First, try to understand why certain experiences delight your customers and position you as their first choice. Next, anticipate what they expect and personalize each experience. Finally, think about how you want to measure success. We recommend you focus on “improvement rates.” Remember that your team members determine your success or failure. Therefore, your CX program needs to be easy to manage, motivating, and empowering them to take ownership of improvements and celebrate successes.