How Does Your Business Measure Up?

February 19th, 2009 · No Comments

Most businesses claim to cater to the customer. They may make a strong point in their marketing and advertising. Unfortunately, many fall far short of that goal. Look at some of the experiences Mr. Merholz had with major airlines.

Where do we fall short? Usually in failing to have true customer service as a part of our corporate culture. We fail to train all employees in the skills and response we wish to have for each customer.

Don’t let this essential element in your relationship with your customers fall through the cracks!

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Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Business
by Peter Merholz
4:52 PM Wednesday February 4, 2009

2008 was the year I decided to no longer care about my frequent flyer miles on United. I’ve been Premier for about 5-6 years, and after finally reaching Premier Executive (having flown 50,000 miles on United in 2007), the only perk seemed to be exit row seating. After being charged $150 to change a ticket, and treated as little more than a nuisance onboard (they don’t even offer peanuts!), it became clear to me that “loyalty” is no longer rewarded. I’ve decided that, whenever possible, I would fly Southwest, JetBlue, or Virgin America instead.

This isn’t because of price — most trips my company pays for, and in the past I’m sure I’ve spent a little extra to fly United for the miles. It’s because these airlines demonstrably care much more about my experience with them. In Forrester Research’s Customer Experience Index 2008, Southwest is the only airline to rank in the top 25, whereas American, Delta, Northwest and, yes, United, sit in the bottom 25. Even though they are a low-price alternative, Southwest delivers the better experience. Why? Because customer experience is an organizational mindset. It’s not something a business buys, it’s something a business becomes.

Customer experience refers to the totality of experience a customer has with a business, across all channels and touchpoints. Southwest succeeds because of the care it puts into providing a satisfying journey at a reasonable price — from the simple website to their recently redesigned boarding queues to the friendly staff members who help you, it’s clear that Southwest considers how the customer will feel every step of the way. This even goes for their pricing, which, compared to the byzantine rules of the legacy airlines, is remarkably straightforward, and doesn’t nickel-and-dime you.

Though the business community increasingly recognizes the importance and power of customer experience to drive innovation and positive financial results (witnessed press coverage of such favorites as Apple, Amazon, Proctor and Gamble, and Nintendo), most companies have not successfully embraced it. This is because becoming customer experience-driven is not a snap. It’s more than just embrancing “The Power of Design”, or building empathy for your customers by observing them (though both of these things are important). Nor can you buy a technological fix, no matter what the CRM providers say.

Embracing customer experience is a process, one that requires fundamental shifts in how your business behaves and is organized. In my 15 years working in user experience, particularly my last 8 helping run Adaptive Path, a leading experience strategy and design firm, I’ve learned what it takes for a business to embrace customer experience, and I look forward to sharing this with you. As Southwest Airlines demonstrates, this isn’t about money — in my work, the biggest impact I’ve seen a customer experience mindset have is to help companies understand how they can better orchestrate existing elements to realize new value. I’m sure that sounds like some retread of the dreaded “Business Process Reengineering”, but there’s a key distinction — this isn’t about efficiency and effectiveness and reducing waste throughout your processes. This is about choreographing what you already have (technologies, people, offerings) to better respond to your customers’ needs and wants.

I’m thankful to HarvardBusiness.org to offer me this forum to share my experience. And, let me say at the outset, what I have to say is not definitive. I’m always learning, and hope you are, too. I’d love for this to turn into a continuing dialog about how to successfully change organizations so they embrace customer experience.

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To your business success!

Paul Elliott