Your mind is already wandering…do I know Jeff? Is he famous? Was he memorable? Did he do something important? Was that the first name of a teacher that I only called by last name? How was he when it came to serving ice cream?
There are some customer experiences that stand out. In this case, “Jeff” (his actual name) was one of the most memorable – for my daughter, for me and my family. What did he do? He served ice cream on a cruise ship. Yet my teenager, even four years later, remembers Jeff. Over the course of a few days on the ship with hundreds of people, he learned her name, likes/dislikes and other preferences. If there was ever a line, he would see her in line, get the staff to build her dessert creation and call her to the side to pick it up. Some special treatment. On days when she did not like the featured flavors, he would go downstairs to the walk-in and get a flavor he knew she would like.
As you look across your customer journey map, do you see any places where you can deliver on service like this in any of your customer experience touchpoints? It seems like a little thing, but when you have a shy teenager that practically befriends a service worker during the course of a vacation, you know that person had a different level of service. When they continue to bring it up by comparison to all her other service encounters, you know it was special.
LEARN ABOUT: Service Recovery
A Step Up From An NPS Promoter
Delivering on any customer experience strategy can be difficult. Even with the best CX Enterprise Software like QuestionPro, there are so many variables that can impact the customers’ perceptions of the service. First, when you consider the challenges within the organization to make for simply a positive experience, you need the facilities to be in top shape, have the appropriate level of staffing, everything wanted by the customer be available, the staff in a terrific mood because they are having a great employee experience…just to name a few. Then consider all the other factors that can contribute to that experience. In just getting there consider weather, traffic, a working vehicle. Then also consider the fact that your competitor has filled the head of your customers with ideas about your offer and perhaps some exaggerations about their own capabilities. It’s a wonder that we can even keep a small percentage of them happy, let alone being promoters.
When assessing the Voice-of-the-Customer, is satisfaction enough? Certainly, you are not in the best position to maximize the opportunity with a customer if they are a detractor. Even if you push them through the entire customer feedback loop and have a detractor recovery in place and still not be enough. Even with a passive, when we analyze them in our QuestionPro exclusive QuestionPro NPS+ question type, they are viewed in the same way as a detractor – that there is room for improvement.
However, with a promoter, they are a special type. They state that they are willing to advocate for you – but will they?
Delight is Key, But What is it?
Ultimately, if you are going to make a true advocate out of a customer, a 10 out of 10 is not always enough. It has to be a 10 out of 10 across the entire customer journey. It has been shown time and time again through a financial linkage analysis that it takes Delight to make a difference in both the customer spend and likelihood to advocate for you. If you look at a social media analysis through a tool like CX Reputation, you’ll find those advocates almost always have a common element…there was something that stood out as extraordinary during the experience. Something that delighted them. Something memorable.
Measuring that can be difficult, sometimes you’ll pick it up in sentiment analysis, though it probably wouldn’t stand out among all the other responses. You might be able to find those Delighted customers if you were B2B focused with a small population of clients, but much harder to do with a larger set of customers. That is why our customer experience software platform will soon provide tools – along with our customer journey mapping template software – that will help you assess Delight. And just like fixes you discover in Detractors, it is also necessary to enhance your overall experiences on the positive side with Outer Loop tools. The way to make Delighted experiences – it has to be positive and you need to deliver on something unexpected that is good. Of course, unlimited ice cream will help.
Looking to deliver an exceptional customer experience with QuestionPro CX? Discover more about how to delight your customer at every touchpoint and turn them into brand advocates.
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