Customer Experience Makes ALL the Difference
My newest “Twitter Friend” @izliz wrote a brief article on her experience with Virgin America that’s worth checking out. Note: You have to watch the included video of Virgin’s safety presentation as it is a much needed breath of fresh air for those of us who travel enough to know the normal ones by heart. Yes, I am aware that my nearest exit may be behind me, now let me turn my iPod back on.
I’ve never had the privilege of flying Virgin. They don’t cover a lot of the areas I fly to. But I have found myself looking on their website in order to see where they fly and what excuse I can have to go there. Cheesy, but it’s true. I’m not alone in this. With airlines like JetBlue and Virgin making that extra effort and airlines like Southwest trying to decide if they can make an extra buck by adding more seats in the baggage compartment, it’s no wonder people are wanting to fly the “actually friendly skies” instead.
I’m so attracted to companies that clearly spend more on customer experience. It seems like every company I run into won’t focus on that aspect of their approach. I understand why, you can’t always get a clear cut ROI from the added investment. If you hire “Jim the Sales Agent” and he sells enough of your product to pay his salary plus increase your profits then you know Jim was a good investment. But, if you add nicer couches in your waiting area and spend more for nicer magazines you won’t know for a fact that it will increase your bottom line. I get it. As a marketing consultant, I see this every day and I can empathize with a company’s predicament.
But let’s think about this. In the opening paragraphs of this post, I mentioned that I was searching for an excuse to fly Virgin. In fact, in my head, I was having the inevitable conversation with my wife where I have to sell her on spending more for Virgin and flying in to San Francisco instead of in to San Jose to visit her family the next time. It will be a tough sell indeed.
Why do I bring this up? Well…
Who do you know that is trying to come up with an excuse to use your brand? Who do you know that is figuring out what they’ll say to their bosses when they sell them on using your company? Who is writing blog posts about how unique and awesome their experience with you was? That’s my point. Customer experience doesn’t always have a quantifiable ROI but it does actually have an ROI so don’t forget that.
I can’t say this enough. Customer experience turns eager “try-ers” into loyal buyers.
So how do you do this? You don’t have to have a swanky Virgin-esque waiting room but there are things every company can do to make a better experience.
To start, just offer things that your competitors are not. But be sure to keep it within the scope of your company’s image. A termite company is probably not going to want to offer warm face towels and champagne to it’s clients. It doesn’t really make sense. But they could make an effort to make sure that their inspectors are dressed nice, clean shaven, don’t smell bad and even provide them with FAQ brochures to better serve their clients.
Again, it’s all about a little extra effort.
If you know of a company that is providing a great customer experience please send me a comment as I would love to know about them.
