Finding the Pain: How to Start Improving Customer Experience – Part 1
The other day I wrote about Virgin America’s customer experience and how customer experience can make a huge difference in your company’s success. I’ve received a lot of great feedback regarding that post so thank you the people who commented, e-mailed or even tweeted it to someone else.
In response, people have noted that the best customer experiences seem to be in high end markets. True, largely there are the hotels that cost $500 or more a night or the airlines that cost twice as much as the others. But there are many companies who are improving customer experience regardless of their price point. Believe me when I say that customer experience doesn’t have to be expensive. It just has to be thoughtful.
Recently I’ve given a lot of thought to the idea of customer experience specifically about how I could improve it within my own company. Like anything in business, starting is the hardest part.
So how does someone start to improve the buying experience for their customers? It’s easier than you think.
Finding the Pain
Starting Your Customer Experience: Finding the Pain
The easiest way to uncover a possible area for improvement is to find the pain. What area is the biggest pain in the @$$ for your customers. You may be saying “our customer like us, their coming into our stores aren’t they?” Believe me when I say that it doesn’t mean anything.
If they are coming into your store then your marketing works. If they are telling everyone about your store and going out of their way to stop by, then your customer experience works.
Here in Southern California there are three, of many, stores that I’m obsessed with and always like to stop by. Note: I’m obsessed with them and I always like to stop by. Read the above quote, then read this paragraph again. What do you think makes me want to do that? Customer experience! Sure, product and price play a role from time to time but trust me, it’s the experience.
Store One: IKEA Now, there are a lot of things about IKEA, and I could devote a whole website to this brand, but I’ll just give you a couple examples of “finding the pain.” First, they have successfully implemented a supervised play area for children. Basically, a daycare. Customers at IKEA, usually couples or parents, spend hours walking the large display floor trying to decide what items they want to purchase in order to decorate their home. The display floor alone is a big part of the experience but it would be ruined if you had your toddler hanging on your arm; begging you to leave. The play area alleviates this pain and allows parents to shop and even have some quiet time together. When I was a kid, you just cracked the window of the car but I guess things have changed.
The second pain they’ve alleviated is my favorite (probably because I don’t have kids). Everybody has been to a store and had to deal with the shopping cart with one crappy wheel. The worst is when you get one where the whole cart vibrates and rattles. Not at IKEA. They spent extra money on shopping carts and it shows. Each wheel is heavy duty and rolls as smooth as possible. I’m not kidding when I say it drives smoother than my car and I’m positive these are the carts we’ll use in Heaven.
Simple pains but, if alleviated, these can make a huge difference.
Store Two: Whole Foods Whole Foods is amazing for many reasons. They always have the freshest produce – and what about the meat? I used to think words like “organic” and “free range” were used so they could charge more but it tastes way better. So, besides product, where’s the experience? It’s in the people. Everyone who works at Whole Foods is very friendly. It is as if they actually want to be there. When I’m running errands I am not much of a people person. But, regardless of the mood I’m in when I arrive, I always leave Whole Foods happy. It’s just a vibe you get. Again, it all comes down to experience.
Store Three: Apple The grand champion of finding the pain. Their products have always been about experience. They’ve found a number of problems and solved them all better than their competitors. There is even this legend where, the night before the first iPod launched, Steve Jobs was frustrated with how stiff the “click” was when you inserted the ear buds into the jack so the team had to spend the entire night filing them down. True or not, that is how much they care about experience and satisfaction.
For the sake of this article, the area I’m going to discuss is not their products, but their stores. Like most people my age, I live on the internet. I buy all my gifts online and most of the stuff in my home was bought online at some point. I’m even trying to convince my wife to let us buy our groceries on the internet so I don’t have to leave the couch on Saturdays. However, the one store I will willingly choose to buy from in person is an Apple Store. In fact, I’m sure I can find some of my Apple products cheaper online but I always make the 20 minute or more drive to my nearest Apple store. Why, because I enjoy the experience.
One of the many pains they’ve alleviated is the whole checkout situation. When buying electronics, or any product that has a personal sales cycle, the frustration is when you work with a sales rep and, once you’ve decided to purchase the product, you’re sent to a checkout line where you are forced to wait even longer. This is always a pain, especially during the holidays. The Apple store has removed this all together. If anything, it’s just like an online checkout process: decide to buy, purchase, leave. How do they do this? Once you have decided to buy a product, the rep grabs a handheld (I think they’re using iPod touches now) device and checks you out. You pay right there in the store without ever waiting in line. Again, they found a pain and took care of it.
Ironically, Starbucks made it big because of their customer experience. However, their grand size has now altered the experience. When I think of Starbucks now, I think of waiting in line. Maybe, if Starbucks implemented a similar ordering process to Apple, things could be different.
In tomorrow’s post, I’ll discuss ways you can find actual pains in your customer’s experience. Stay tuned…
