Is Your "Customer Experience" Hurting or Helping Your Customer Retention?

By David Lazear

At the core of great customer service is the “customer experience”. When it's positive, it leads a dramatic increase in customer retention. Allow me to introduce this concept of customer experience by way of a story about when I purchased my first car.

I was in college. My parents finally agreed that I could get a car but I had to do it on my own; although they agreed to give me their advice along the way. It was the end of my sophomore year; however, I looked like I was a freshman in high school! I basically knew nothing about buying a car but I jumped into the process to learn by doing it.

This all took place before the days of the internet so I had to do my research via newspaper ads and just dropping in to used cars lots. One ad which caught my attention talked about used cars at great prices for the first time car owner. I decided that this was where I would begin.

I remember walking on the lot of the company which ran this ad. The first thing I noticed is that no one noticed! No one noticed that I was there; or rather, apparently no one thought that this young kid was a serious buyer. I wandered around by myself and eventually found a light yellow Corvair (a compact car made by Chevrolet back in the 1960s) which was in the price range I thought I could afford.

I had to go find a sale representative to assist me. In fact to get someone to help me, I had to interrupt a coffee break where several reps where sitting around talking with each other. I really felt like I was an intruder on some private club meeting.

Eventually a salesman joined me on the lot to talk about my desired Corvair. I had a number of questions about the car. The whole time he talked down to me as if to say, “Sonny, why don’t you come back when you’re older and know what you’re doing?”

I don’t know why I preserved. Today I wouldn’t. But I desperately wanted a car. I told him I wanted to take it for a drive. He said “Fine, but I’ll go with you. And I need to see your license first.” He had apparently missed the fact that I had driven my father’s new Pontiac Bonneville to the lot!

During the whole driving experience I felt like I was back in driver’s education just learning to drive. It was pretty humiliating. But somehow, I got us both back to the lot alive.

I told him I was interested in the car but wanted it for a lower price. (My father had told me to negotiate with them if I found something I wanted.) Finally we agreed on the price and we moved to the financing. From my experience thus far I’m sure you can guess what this experience was like. I had a job, a good chunk of money I had been saving for my first car, and I had established my credit-worthiness through a couple of credit cards.

Of course none of this mattered. Eventually my father had to come in a cosign with me on the loan. I got my car, but my customer experience was dismal. As I said earlier, being older (and hopefully wiser!) this company would never get my business today.

My guess is that no one in business today would treat a potential customer with such disdain. However, as you think back over my story, were you reminded of any areas where the “customer experience” in your organization needs some work?

Designing the “Customer Experience”

The customer experience involves every single moment of contact a customer has with your company or organization from the very beginning, through the actual sale, to the contact with the company after the sale into the future. In my car-buying episode my customer experience began with the newspaper ad that led me to the used car company in the first place.

Customer experience involves both the direct and indirect contacts and dealing with your company whether it be customer experience through your website, a print ad, FAQs you may have posted, forms which they fill out requesting further information, the experience of calling your 800 number, the “on hold” experience when this is necessary, the sound of the voice at the other end of the line, the first impressions they form in face-to-face customer service situations, what your body language communicates, and how your dress impact them.

Literally every single, minute part of a customer’s contact with your organization, regardless of how subtle, consciously and unconsciously creates the customer experience. This is why carefully considering your relationship marketing is so important.

The number one key to designing a great customer experience is to understand that each customer is unique. Each customer has different needs. They have different goals and dreams. They have different problems they're trying to solve or challenges they're trying to deal with.

The quickest way to connect deeply with your customers is to also understand that each customer processes information in slightly different ways. They’ll express their goals, needs, concerns, issues, problems, and challenges in ways that are unique to their “learning profile”.

When you can recognize how they learn best, how they process information, how they remember things, how they know what they know in their lives AND you tap into their uniqueness in your dealings with them, the customer experience suddenly becomes an experience of building long-term customer relationships, which goes way beyond the present moment with a given customer.

I'm going to follow up this article with several additional articles on how to assess and recognize a customer's learning profile AND how you can adjust your communication with them to address their learning profile. So return to this space over the next several weeks to get your copy of what I call "CustomerSmart Strategies".

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About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart).

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!

Contact information for David Lazear

Phone: 773-525-6650
E-mail: David@Home-Business-Smarts.net

CUSTOMER CARE: Deep Listening, Hearing, and Understanding

By David Lazear

In your customer care or care for your leads and business partners, how often have you thought you clearly communicated something to them, and you thought they were listening and that they understood, only to be surprised later to find that they seemed to miss the whole intent of your communication?

Hearing others’ words is one thing. Hearing and listening to what they are saying is an entirely different matter. And understanding the meaning of their words is a highly developed skill that cannot be assumed simply because one has heard and listened.

There may be no single customer care skill that is more important than deep listening, hearing, and understanding. This will shape your customer experience more than any thing else you might do!

There are at least three situations that often challenge our listening, hearing, and understanding abilities: listening when you disagree, listening when their communication is confusing, and listening in a meeting.

Following are three exercises to help you build your own customer care skills which are also the skills needed to care for leads, prospects, business partners and/or your business team.

The exercises deal with several levels of the hearing, listening, and understanding process in everyday situations of human relating.

Listening When You Disagree

One time when deep listening is very difficult is when you’re having a casual conversation with someone else and suddenly they are saying something that is at odds with your own perspective or that may in fact challenge some of your own cherished values and beliefs. What usually happens to our listening in this case?

A whole world of inner voices begins making such comments as, “I can’t believe she could really believe that! I thought she was an intelligent person.” Or we start planning our rebuttal; we look for flaws in their logic or places where they are contradicting themselves. Sometimes derogatory thoughts come to us: “Why does she wear her hair like that? It surely doesn’t flatter her.”

The upshot of this is that we have basically stopped listening. We are missing what the other person is saying because our own mind chatter drowns it out. We’ve got to train ourselves to listen.

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CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening When You Disagree

Place yourself in a customer care situation (or one with a lead or business partner) where you strongly disagree with the viewpoint of another person or other persons. Your goal is to understand his/her perspective thoroughly. It may be a conversation over a political issue, a religious belief, or something happening in the community.

1. Ask the other person to explain his/her viewpoint to you. Listen as deeply as you can to what they are saying, trying to understand where they are coming from. Consciously practice cutting off the mind chatter.

2. When the person has finished, ask questions to clarify, but do not state your opinions. Remember, understanding is not the same as agreeing. Following are some questions to try, but be careful not to ask them in an argumentative way:

• Who are some people who have influenced your thinking on this issue?
  What experiences in your life have led to your current viewpoint?
  What are the most common arguments against your viewpoint and how do you answer them?
  Are there any books or articles you would recommend that would help me understand your position more fully?

3. See if you can paraphrase what the other person has said and what his viewpoint on the issue is. Ask him to interrupt you and correct you if you have not fully understood what he was saying. At the end of the conversation, thank the person for sharing his views with you.

As soon as you can after the conversation, reflect (even write) on how your own perspective has been informed as a result of the conversation.

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Listening When the Message Is Confusing

Often when during our customer care and our communications with our leads, prospects, and business partners the messages we are getting are confusing or seem to be contradictory. We’ll often dismiss their thoughts and feelings simply because we couldn’t make sense out them. Again, this is a great occasion to train ourselves to listen!

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CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening When The Message Is Confusing

During the next month whenever you are communicating with someone and you feel the message is unclear, you feel you are hearing contradictory information, you don’t understand, or you feel the need to grasp the larger context.

1. As the person is talking, turn off your mind chatter. Listen as fully and deeply as you can, even though the communication is confusing (make mental notes to yourself about what parts are clear and what is confusing).

Do not accuse the other person of sending a confusing message. Do not look confused or communicate distress.

2. When the other person has finished a statement, begin by saying, “I’m not sure I understand what you just said. What I heard you say was. . .” and repeat as accurately as you can what you heard.

3. Ask the person if you have heard correctly. If not, ask her to repeat the message. Note what parts of your confusion are cleared up. Zero in on those parts that are still confusing using the following process:

• In your own mind, isolate the confusing and contradictory parts.
  In a non-accusatory way, try to explain what is confusing or what seems contradictory, asking the other person to help you understand.
  After the explanation, paraphrase what you heard and ask for confirmation or correction.
  In your own mind assess how the explanation has helped: What is still confusing? What still seems contradictory?
  In the same fashion, continue to work on gaiing clarity; that is, explain your confusion, ask the other to explain, paraphrase what you heard, and reassess your level of clarity or confusion.

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Listening In A Meeting

How often have you been sitting in a meeting and suddenly you’re no longer there? You’re off planning what you’re going to do after work, or you’re thinking about some problem you could be working on if you weren’t in this “so and so” meeting, or you’re thinking about a TV show you watched last night. Part of working and learning with others involves training ourselves to stay focused and to listen in this kind of situation.

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CUSTOMER CARE EXERCISE: Listening In A Meeting

During the coming month, every time you are in a meeting (even if it’s a customer care conference call!) take notes. Set up three columns on your note page: column 1 is for the content (what is being said); column 2 is for who said it and how they said it; and column 3 is for your observations of how this contribution affects others in the group. Include your contributions. (Note: You may not have an entry in every column for every comment.)

1. As in the previous exercises, practice cutting off your mind chatter so that you can deeply listen, hear, and understand the process that is happening. You’ll likely need to use the skills of the previous two exercises—namely, listening when you disagree and listening when there is confusion—to help you be successful in this situation.

2. After the meeting, carefully analyze your notes, trying to grasp the complex interpersonal dynamics that were involved in the meeting. Ask yourself the following questions, trying simply to understand these dynamics:

• Look at column 1. What were the recurring themes of the meeting? What points were made several times, maybe in different ways?
  Look at columns 2 and 3. Who were the key participants in the meeting? Why do you feel they were key?
  Reflect on column 3. Chart the mood shifts of the meeting. What was the overall mood of the meeting?
  When were people effectively communicating with one another?
  When were they not communicating?
  If you were to replay this meeting, what would make the communication more effective and affective?

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When you develop the skills of deep listening and hearing you’ll discover that your whole approach to customer care is transformed. You’ll find a new depth in your communication with customers, leads, and your business team, new levels of personal connection with them, and you’ll have a new respect for their opinions and feelings.

This will also change you. As you genuinely open yourself to others your own life will be enriched, your perspectives broaden, and your appreciation for others enhanced. This is at the heart of relationship and attraction marketing - giving without want and yet receiving without asking!

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About the author:

David Lazear is a mentor and coach for mentors, coaches, and trainers. He is an associate of Mike Klingler and Ann Sieg at the Renegade University and Renegade Professional.

David has written some 15 books and created numerous resources for home business entrepreneurs, coaches, and trainers. His expertise is training others in how to assess and address other’s “learning profile” using the research on “multiple intelligences” (a.k.a. The 8 Kinds of Smart). For more information please go to his website at Home Business Smarts.

David Lazear teaches how to turbo-charge any mentoring, coaching, and training you provide so you Reach Everyone, Everytime – Guaranteed!