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16 Feb 2012

Create a “Wow” Experience for your Customers

For today’s Growth Coach blog, we are fortunate to have Glenn Smith as a guest blogger. Glenn Smith is a Growth Coach Franchise Owner from the Houston/Sugar Land Texas area and is a highly regarded business coach, prolific blogger, an accomplished marketer, and has recently been recognized as “The 2011 Coach of the Year” by The Growth Coach System.

You can learn more about Glenn, his credentials and his coaching services at www.TheGrowthCoachhHouston.com.

 

Create a “Wow” Experience for your Customers

What differentiates us from our competitors usually has less to do with our products or services, and more to do with how we treat people! The best companies in the world get this and place a major emphasis on the customer experience.

I have come to appreciate and use what author Fred Reichheld calls The Ultimate Question. From extensive research Reichheld has concluded that most customer satisfaction surveys are mostly ineffective. He wisely advocates that we can know everything we need to know by simply asking our customers the “ultimate question.”

The ultimate question is quite simple. It is quick and easy to ask, and through research Reichheld and his team have created a scoring system called “The Net Promoter Score” (NPS.) The ultimate question is simply this, “On a scale of 0-10 (10 being high), how likely are you to recommend our product or services to your friends or colleagues?”

From research what we have learned is that if our customer gives us a “9” or “10,” they are a promoter. If they give us a “7” or “8,” they are neutral. If they give us a “6” or less, they are a detractor. The goal is to prevent “detractors” and to turn every customer into “promoters.” We do this by creating a “Wow” experience for our customers.

I use this tool all the time and it is amazing how helpful it is (and challenging.) But as a business coach and executive coach, I’m commited to delivering the most outstanding customer experience possible to my clients! How do we do this?

Now it is not enough to just satisfy your customers. We must find ways to exceed their expectations. This is what creates “Wow!” Numerous other research projects reveal common factors that contribute to “Wow.” They include:

  1. How company employees engage and interact with prospects and customers – polite, courteous, positive, caring, and most of all being a good listener to understand what the customer needs.
  2. Execution – identifying and offering the best solution to solve the customer’s need, then providing that solution with quality, speed and excellence.
  3. Problem Recovery – resolve and fairly compensate the customer for any problems; companies should have a clear, simple problem resolution process, and the frontline staff must take responsibility to solve the problem in a positive and efficient manner.

Once I get my NPS from the client, I start looking for what we did right or what we need to do better. It almost always boils down to one of these 3 factors. I hope you will make a commitment today truly create a “Wow” experience for your customers!

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