I had interaction with Bernd Schmitt recently regarding customer happiness. If you don't know the guy he is the author of Happy Customers Everywhere, Big Think Strategy, Customer Experience Management and Experiential Marketing and is a professor of International Business of Columbia Business School. He have very good insight and of course real world cases about customer experience and customer happiness. Anyway his view is that customer happiness can be achieved using various methods such as "feel good", "values and meaning", and engagement. I highly recommend that you read his book "Happy Customers Everywhere" especially if you are in sales and marketing, customer care/support, brand manager, entrepreneur or general management.
Being in the Telco Customer Experience Management (CEM) field, let me relate a few things that are relevant to Telcos. The basic premise is making customers happy so they keep using the services provided by their service provider. But how do you define customer happiness? Is it customer satisfaction? Let's go back to Bernd Schmitt for a second, according to him Customer happiness focuses on the positive emotional aspects of purchase and consumption. Customer happiness results from joyful, meaningful and engaging experience executed in creative and innovative manner. In my little Telco world Customer Happiness is a result of good Customer Experience. But why should you care about Customer Happiness? Does it have a big effect on the bottom line or the dreaded churn? Customer happiness stems from customer satisfaction and customer delight. Customer satisfaction is where customer feels content while Customer delight is the joy they feel or the "WOW" factor. With happy customers you get loyal customers who helps promote your products and services. Think Apple… they managed to capture very loyal customers, almost fanatical even.
Its not easy to make and keep customers happy. The hardest part to deliver to a any customer is delight, the WOW factor. Usually that comes from a surprise, a very strong positive reaction arising from the unexpected. An event that a customer will never forget and will share to others. Having said that happiness can provide a tremendous value to a business, especially in this day and age of social media when customer feedback are easily shared and travels faster than wild fire. In the world of marketing there are 3 distinct ways to make customer happy namely pleasure, meaning and engagement. But how does that translate to real Telco world?
To make a customer happy they must feel good about a product or service. In terms of CEM, how can this be delivered? How can their experiences be enriched? How can they savor such experience? And how can do you expand that for your customers? The Customers experience can be enriched by increasing touch points and attention to details. For example in the Telco world a customer touch point is limited to phone calls, messaging and data connectivity then the occasional interaction with customer care, this can be enriched by increasing the customer care touch point such as apart from providing a simple customer care hotline, also provide a one touch portal on their smart phones. Let customers savor that experience by providing call centers and customer chat lines that are friendly but efficient. Expand that with new services that are targeted, tailor made and specific to a particular customer, making them feel more special. This can be achieved with a very good knowledge of the customer's behavior, preferences and usage.
Why targeted, tailor made and specific services to individual customers? Because the key to customer happiness is the core value of using a client-centered approach not only in managing customer relationships but most especially in the services that are being provided to them. Remember a customer's experience is personal, emotional and motivational…. threat every customer with a personal touch then they become happy and loyal.
The most powerful ace on the deck of customer experience is engagement, that is engaging the customer to the point that the experience is a pleasant surprise. Think about the Coca Cola Open Happiness campaign which is one of the most successful customer engagement campaigns ever. Its not only about having a good insight of the customers behavior and preferences but also going the extra distance to give a pleasant surprise the customer when they least expect it. For example giving the customer a rebate for experiencing degraded service performance without the customer complaining about it. An engaged customer is a customer that shares those pleasant experiences to others, especially as mobile communications becomes more data centric, sharing content and experiences becomes more common.
Having said this what are you doing today to improve your customer's experiences? Are you dedicated as a service provider in making your customers happy?
Being in the Telco Customer Experience Management (CEM) field, let me relate a few things that are relevant to Telcos. The basic premise is making customers happy so they keep using the services provided by their service provider. But how do you define customer happiness? Is it customer satisfaction? Let's go back to Bernd Schmitt for a second, according to him Customer happiness focuses on the positive emotional aspects of purchase and consumption. Customer happiness results from joyful, meaningful and engaging experience executed in creative and innovative manner. In my little Telco world Customer Happiness is a result of good Customer Experience. But why should you care about Customer Happiness? Does it have a big effect on the bottom line or the dreaded churn? Customer happiness stems from customer satisfaction and customer delight. Customer satisfaction is where customer feels content while Customer delight is the joy they feel or the "WOW" factor. With happy customers you get loyal customers who helps promote your products and services. Think Apple… they managed to capture very loyal customers, almost fanatical even.
Its not easy to make and keep customers happy. The hardest part to deliver to a any customer is delight, the WOW factor. Usually that comes from a surprise, a very strong positive reaction arising from the unexpected. An event that a customer will never forget and will share to others. Having said that happiness can provide a tremendous value to a business, especially in this day and age of social media when customer feedback are easily shared and travels faster than wild fire. In the world of marketing there are 3 distinct ways to make customer happy namely pleasure, meaning and engagement. But how does that translate to real Telco world?
To make a customer happy they must feel good about a product or service. In terms of CEM, how can this be delivered? How can their experiences be enriched? How can they savor such experience? And how can do you expand that for your customers? The Customers experience can be enriched by increasing touch points and attention to details. For example in the Telco world a customer touch point is limited to phone calls, messaging and data connectivity then the occasional interaction with customer care, this can be enriched by increasing the customer care touch point such as apart from providing a simple customer care hotline, also provide a one touch portal on their smart phones. Let customers savor that experience by providing call centers and customer chat lines that are friendly but efficient. Expand that with new services that are targeted, tailor made and specific to a particular customer, making them feel more special. This can be achieved with a very good knowledge of the customer's behavior, preferences and usage.
Why targeted, tailor made and specific services to individual customers? Because the key to customer happiness is the core value of using a client-centered approach not only in managing customer relationships but most especially in the services that are being provided to them. Remember a customer's experience is personal, emotional and motivational…. threat every customer with a personal touch then they become happy and loyal.
The most powerful ace on the deck of customer experience is engagement, that is engaging the customer to the point that the experience is a pleasant surprise. Think about the Coca Cola Open Happiness campaign which is one of the most successful customer engagement campaigns ever. Its not only about having a good insight of the customers behavior and preferences but also going the extra distance to give a pleasant surprise the customer when they least expect it. For example giving the customer a rebate for experiencing degraded service performance without the customer complaining about it. An engaged customer is a customer that shares those pleasant experiences to others, especially as mobile communications becomes more data centric, sharing content and experiences becomes more common.
Having said this what are you doing today to improve your customer's experiences? Are you dedicated as a service provider in making your customers happy?
