3 No-Cost Ways to Positively Profit from Changing Your Customer Experience

June 3, 2013 - PRLog -- A friend of mine told me about his customer experience with an oil change. He arrived before the shop officially opened, simultaneously with another customer. She tried the door, found it open, and walked in. He followed.

The two chatted, waiting for the attendant. When he arrived from the back, he gruffly said, “What are you doing in here? We don’t open until 7:30,” turned and went back.

My friend assured me he will find a new oil change shop.

If you’re the owner or manager, how do you find out about such experiences?

When business drops?

Maybe, but how will you determine what changes to make to positively profit?

Implement these 3 No-Cost Ways to Positively Profit from Changing Your Customer Experience:

Dig into the Customer Experience

How do you know what your customers experience? Do you ask?

You can have a “Comments Welcomed” box in the waiting room. Or, randomly pull contacts from the customer database and survey them by email with a “thank you” gift card to a favorite local restaurant sent following completion. Or, have them complete a quick survey—spoken or written—immediately before they leave.

It costs you nothing to dig into your customers’ experience by asking. It costs you everything to ignore them.

Discover Positives and Negatives

Most owners and managers are ecstatic to have customers waiting at the door before opening. So that’s a positive, right?

To them, yes.

To attendants, not so much.

The positive is eager customers.

The negative is a very poor customer experience.

As you dig into the customer experience by asking, you discover positives and negatives.

Listen to the results of your digging and asking. Note carefully the positives and negatives.

Deliver More Positives

Your inclination is to tell the attendant, “Don’t do that ever again!”

How has such negative reinforcement worked in the past? Positive, profitable change?

I doubt it.

Instead, deliver more positives.

First, listen to your discoveries and ask, “What are the strengths of the current customer experience?” Deliver more of them. Put the attendants who get it right in charge of training.

Second, transform the negatives and ask, “How can we do this better?” This attendant lacks an incentive program that bonuses him for productivity or else he would have treated the two early birds better. While it’s easy to blame the attendant, what kind of system is in place to encourage best practices? Your imagination is the only limit.

You create higher profit margins by retaining and enhancing your current customer relationships. You lose money by inviting them to go somewhere else.

Implement these 3 No-Cost Ways to Positively Profit from Changing Your Customer Experience today and keep your customers coming back.