Customer experience – just good business sense

If there is one thing the last few months has revealed is our humanity, good and bad. Both have been shown in stark contrast. The bad as an alert that we cannot ignore our individual and collective wellbeing. The consequence of doing so could be deadly and devastating. The good: relief that there is still hope that we do have the empathy and caring to be better human beings; to treat each other respectfully and with consideration of each other’s individual circumstances.

Why is all this relevant to us as businesspeople? Because people buy our products and services.

Customer experience is at the heart of why consumers voluntarily engage with brands. The motivation to buy, as neuroscience establishes, is not a head decision but a heart reaction. In his book, Descartes’ Error, Antonio Damasio declares, “We are not thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think.” Buying is an emotional response justified by a thinking process. It is also why, in designing customer experience delivery, every engagement in the chain towards purchase must be considered. What people experience on your website tells a lot about how they will experience in-person service.

So, in an age of global shopping options (with some exceptions admittedly), delivering positive customer experience ought not to be an anecdote for a press release but a strategic imperative to strengthen both the business’s relationship with customers and future growth and profitability. Consider the cost of attracting and retaining customers against providing great customer experience that is shared. More so now, as social distancing has brought a craving for physical social interaction. It is an opportunity.

At the end of the day, treating people – your customers – with respect and dignity is not only just the right thing to do, it makes good business sense. Because they are ‘trapped’ or have no alternative but to transact business with an entity, does not diminish the onus on the entity to be respectful of their customers.

Weigh also the impact agitated customers have on employee productivity. For example, the length of time it takes to complete a transaction and the employee’s hesitance to interact with a disgruntled customer. Having to face that experience day in and day out, creates a whole host of negative consequences on the business. Hesitance to answer the phone, respond to an email, passing the matter up the line. You want employees as ambassadors, not detractors. Cumulatively, what is the cost of servicing disgruntled customers versus customers who enjoy the experience and share it? How much does the former erode margins?

Companies driven purely by a profit motive have to work harder in their marketing to attract and retain customers. Naturally, the expectation is marketing will deliver at least on par returns on invested capital. When every transaction is eroding margins and marketing budgets continue to rise in an effort to counteract declining sales, the effect on profitability is clear. Imagine the difficulty to upsell or sell new services and products. All of it mostly due to a lack of (sufficient) focus on the experience of the customer. The question remains: how do we continuously reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of acquisition and retention marketing?

For customer-centric brands, the selling work is mostly done through their reputation as a company that delivers positive customer experiences. Customers go to places they like being in; where the experience is a positive one. For example, "I like the doubles vendor as much for the lime and chat as the product itself, even if it’s not the best in town." The financial benefit of positive customer experience is obvious.

The Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce thanks Anthony M Inglefield, managing director, Ogilvy Caribbean (a TT Chamber member) for contributing this article.