Customer Awe
by
Sheena TV
WIPRO LIMITED Company
It was the 16th of February, 2018. My flight was scheduled to depart at 10:30 AM from Bhubaneshwar Airport, to Bangalore. With my cab running late,I had to rush through all the airport formalities to get to my boarding gate. I hurried past the check-in counter on to security check and simultaneously dropped my back pack for screening. As I stood in line waiting for my bag to clear screening, I realized that a lot of people who were behind me, had already picked up their belongings and moved on. As minutes passed, I could feel the cold rush of air running down my spine, my heart was beating faster and my stress levels were skyrocketing – my bag was nowhere to be seen.
Having watched my restless manner, an airport security personnel walked up to me, and in his gentle, polite voice asked me, “Ma’am, can I help you?” I was glad to have a source of comfort during those moments of panic. Having heard the story of my missing bag, he told me not to worry, and assured me that it would be handed over safely to me before my flight took off.
There was just something about this officer that made me trust him blindly. I had no clue how he would get my missing bag, but one thing was for sure, I felt so much calmer after talking to him. What happened next is the main crux. Even before I stepped into the airbus, the officer handed my bag to me along with a Make My Trip gift voucher. I was left speechless with gratitude. This was in fact surprising and unbelievable. Before he left, he said something that will stay with me forever–‘We’re not just here to give you the best services but to create the most incredible value you’ll ever experience’
I’d like to call this experience ‘an incredibly successful journey for me as a customer’
Do customers today look at tactics that focus on fixing problems only? Or do they look at proactive engagements for solving their problems? Or do they look at creating an incredible experience all in one go?
We in the service sector need to break away from traditional habits and build great consumer experiences into every facet of our business model.This is possible only when we have success stories with incredible experience.Few tips that would help us develop incredible value throughout the journey are –
- Foresight to anticipate customer needs and in the long run build customer confidence
- Urgency to solve problems
- Empathy to create incredible experience
- Proactiveness to meet unmet and un-articulated needs
Foresight to anticipate customer needs and in the long run build customer confidence
Toyota has been developing Mirai Hydrogen FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) since the early 1990’s driven by the belief that hydrogen will become the key source of energy. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe and stores more energy than a battery of equivalent weight. It is lighter than air and highly pure. When used in a fuel cell, it is highly efficient and leaves no carbon traces. The best part is, it is virtually everywhere.
One of the biggest problem faced by most of the countries is tackling pollution caused by burning fossil fuels, Toyota visualized a bigger picture of substituting hydrogen fueled fuel cells where the only by-product at point of use is water. Toyota is cranking up for the next generation of its Mirai Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle after their first launch in 2014, the new Mirai FCV with further development is expected in early 2020’s.
Foresight is our ability to visualize future outcomes. It is a long-term, “bigger picture” view of how few events will unfold over a period of time – and how we can act to influence certain outcomes in our lives. By looking into the future, we will have an idea of how future events may unfold so that we can better plan and coordinate our actions to be prepared for any consequence. This in turn will help the customers build confidence in the long run.
Urgency to solve problems
One of the online retail customers ordered for a Barbie set for his little girl for Christmas. The delivery was expected on 26th Dec. The customer called up the online retail customer support and requested if they could deliver on the 25th and also requested if the delivery boy could be dressed as Santa since his little one expected the Christmas gift from none other than Santa. To his surprise, the gift was delivered on time and as desired without any shipping charges.
Sense of Urgency is acting promptly and decisively. Understanding the urgency and solving customer’s issues means going overboard and doing something above and beyond. These experiences stick out most of the times in the customer’s mind. Incredible experiences will be remembered for a life time and would be spoken about forever.
Empathy to create incredible experience
Suzi got a collection call on her phone from a telecom company for non-payment. The executive was slightly irked because the call had gone unanswered for a month continuously. The executive asked her to make the payment immediately, failing which the number would be barred. Since she did not hear any response from Suzi, she kept repeating the scripted sentence. All of a sudden she heard Suzi gasp for breath and in a feeble voice she said‘my husband is dead, I don’t know what to do’. The executive was shocked and extremely empathetic, she immediately apologized to Suzi and asked her to take care. She wrote an email to her upper management and waived off her bills for the next 3 months. This experience to Suzi was empathy at its best.
In simple terms empathy is the ability to understand other’s perspective and walk in their shoe. It is about being mindful of others and relating to another person in a way, that you see the world as they see it. Any business culture that emphasizes empathy is sure to stand out for the right reason.
Dale Carnegie, in his famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People, writes that empathy starts with this simple statement:“If I were in your position, I would feel just as you do.”
Proactiveness to build customer confidence:
A little while ago, my friend Tara and her husband had planned to travel to Delhi. Just before the date of travel Tara’s husband met with an accident and they had no choice but to postpone the travel plan. So, Tara called up the airlines and informed them about the unfortunate incident, after a long discussion they agreed to move the dates and not charge cancellation fee.
What happened next is a great example of Proactiveness and shows how a personal touch can truly change the experience to an incredible one.
Two days before the travel date a staff member from the airlines called up Tara and informed her that the airline had upgraded her seats to the front row with extra leg room. The call made was not scripted at all, but was a normal free conversation. This act created an incredible value and impact to Tara as a customer.
Proactiveness is an approach where you make the first move and go out of the way to find potential problems and resolve them even before it becomes a problem. Proactiveness presents the opportunity to meet and exceed customer expectations, strengthen customer relationship and boost customer value which in turn helps in developing immense confidence and ultimately give them an incredible experience.
Improving the experience for the customers is the key to increasing the business success rate.By and large customers these days care more about the experience they have with the company than they do about price or product. Let’s not forget the point, it’s easy enough to find a great product for a decent price these days along with good customer service. What’s harder to find is a seamless, customer-centric brand experience with incredible value.
So, how about being a part of this incredible value and experience? Wouldn’t it feel great to become a part of Customer Awe Journey?
