“Customer Experience is in the Air”
Customer Service is in the air.
It is the feel, the vibrations those radiate through the welcome, the smile, the gestures.
It is the feel that permeates through our
senses; the music of interpersonal behavior - the sound,
the tone, the voice – the small little intangibles.
It is a kind of a mute Orchestra playing around you. It is
happening, it is there - on the terrain of visible and invisible. Slowly and smoothly you become one
with it.
Things
settle to its rhythm and you experience yet another HIGH.
Creating the right air’: The real Challenge of the Marketer is to create the right Air. The air that
involves all the elements of Marketing mix and beyond. It begins with selection of the right people.
Remember wrong people cannot deliver right service. Attitude is an important ingredient of the right
blend in marketing mix. Imagine a Retail store where you enter and find that Salesperson is busy on
her mobile; which is fine. But does she immediately A. Pays attention. B. offers a welcome sign. C.
Expresses a subtle apology. D. Shows genuine interest and E. Begins positively in ‘Helping you buy’.
Put Passion in 7 Ps: Is it possible to embed passion into your offering? Let all the Ps have an halo
of Passion. How? Imagine a Process designed in real customer centric manner. Say you are in a
Museum and audio guide really guides you. The movements are traced and tracked using technology
and you feel like a companion guiding you, hand holding you into the past and explains you the
heritage in a story telling manner. This will help you experience the inseparability; you and the
experience become the same. Passion delivers. Passion propagates.
Being Creatively different: It is important to find the meaning in what you are offering and ways
in which you can be meaningfully different. Relevant to the Customer. Think of a regular business
visitor to a town who has decided upon a particular hotel to stay with. The reasons are following:
1. She almost always gets one out of her preferred rooms.
2. She is gets a welcome at the reception and occasionally manager also wishes her with
personal name.
3. She gets her type of ‘strong coffee’ without any special requests and follow-up.
4. She invariably gets her favorite newspaper and weekly magazine to read without asking for.
5. She gets a very special discount on the room rent, discount on food and also on the taxi she
hires for her business or personal visits.
6. Occasionally, she gets her morning tea with deep red rose – her favorite - as a surprise.
7. The receptions, room boys, bellboys all are very courteous and respectful in their behavior.
Of course, she knows that the hotel uses technology to remember her needs and requirement. But,
she is happily surprised to see that they regularly update that database. And most importantly use
it, in a meaningful way.
She is a businesswoman and she loves the professionalism and the personal touch of the service
she gets at this hotel. Do you see any reason why she will ever want to discontinue this bond with
that hotel?
When things go wrong (and sometimes they will): Let us imagine you are champion of
Customer Care. However, it is possible that in spite of your best intentions and supreme efforts
things may go wrong. You know that you have spoiled it. It is sour. You are yourself not happy forget
customer. Because surely he is upset. Alright. How do you deal with it. Avoid, neglect and ignore? Or
A. Take Ownership, B. Listen, C. Empathize, D. Apologize, E. Escalate (if need be) G. Resolve, H.
Communicate back to the Customer, I. Welcome him back. And do not forget to offer Service
recovery. Offer him something extra or free over and above. All this has to have a meaning and
happens in the context of your business, your offering and the type of Customer you are dealing with.
You need to earn WOM: Word-of-mouth: By doing all the above do you think you deserve a
positive word of mouth? Of course yes and you will get it. Best is when you get it without asking.
Like after a successful training program your client sends you the cheque along-with a nice
testimonial and follows up with a valid reference for you. Connects you with the person / organization
who may find value in your offering. Look Customer also wants to reciprocate.
So make Customer participate in your business. This will happen only when you play your Orchestra
right. Each instrument is tuned and each performer is in-synch, the acoustics is right and of course you
are lucky to have the right audience. All the best!
abhay kardeguddi
CEO and Chief Consultant-Trainer
NIVA Growth Consultants
Pune | Dubai | London
www.nivagrowth.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhay-kardeguddi-4b02216/
( Published in BINGE 5.0 by Marketing Society of SIBM Pune )