How Easy Do You Make It For Your Customers?

Research shows a customer is four times more likely to have a customer experience that encourages them to defect than one that encourages them to be loyal. This is because poor customers service is only one of three drivers of loyalty (product quality and brand power are the other two) but poor service is by far the major driver of defections.

If you want to keep your customers, therefore, you must eliminate the causes of poor service before you add in incentives for customers to stay. The best way to eliminate these problems is to make it easy for your customers to do business with you. 

Isn’t that a refreshingly simple focus to have?

Is the Customer Always Right?

I am often asked whether I think the customer is always right.

They are and they are also often wrong!

Customers buy because they have a problem or want to avoid having a problem. They are always right about their problem. They know they have one and they know what it is. Admittedly, they may, or could have, other problems they don't know about but they do have at least one problem they know about or they wouldn't be in the marketplace.

What customers are often wrong about is the solution to their problem. They don't understand your business as well as you do and so they may, and often do, come in and ask for the wrong solution. They don't know what other solutions are available and the pros and cons of each.

Our job is to look past the customer's request for a particular solution and ask questions to understand the problem they are trying to solve. Then we can affirm their request or suggest a better alternative.

If we don't ask questions, we are just order-takers.

It’s Not Complicated

Business is tough but it ain’t complicated!

I have recently being doing business with Imago Print Centre a digital printing company in Parnell, Auckland.

They are an absolute pleasure to do business with. So much so, that I actually look forward to the experience.

Driving back from their place the other day, I thought about what it is they do that creates such an outstanding customer experience.

The first thing that came to mind is their “can-do, will-do” thinking. Nothing is ever a problem. If I want something done, I just ask and they do it. It’s that simple!

Second is how they put the customer first. When I pick up something that has been printed, I always offer to pay. “Don’t bother about that now,” they tell me. “We’ll send an invoice.”

Thirdly, they are so friendly. By the third visit – and I don’t go there that often – they had learned my name and now they always greet me by name and with a smile.

Thirdly, when things go wrong they put it right quickly and to my satisfaction. I once went in at an agreed time to collect some printing I needed to take overseas the next day. I was told it wouldn’t be ready for another 30 minutes. They then offered to courier it to me Sub-60, which would not have been cheap. True to their word, it arrived at my office 90 minutes later.

This is all pretty simple stuff but they are very effective ways to impress customers, retain their business and turn them into raving fans. Imago Print Centre was actually referred to me by a colleague because he enjoyed doing business with them so much.

All this raises the question, why doesn’t every business treat their customers like that?

Could it be that we are trapped in an out-dated paradigm and therefore keep doing things a certain way because we have always done them that way?

Could it be we are just too lazy and can't be bothered giving our customers - who pay our wages -  a great experience?

Or could it be that we don’t realise that no matter what industry you’re in, it’s about the customer, always!

Unhappy Customers Threaten Profits

Research by my colleague, Paul Linnell of CTMA, (paul.linnell@ctmaworld.com) indicates the problems customers experience, and the way many companies handle customer complaints, can place between 8% and 12% of a company’s annual profits at risk.

Only about 5% of customers complain when they experience a problem with a product or service and there are three reasons for this:

• They don’t know where or how to complain.

• They don’t think anything will be done as a result of their complaint.


• They are afraid their complaint will back fire on them.

“Although many organisations do check back with the customer to make sure “everything is OK”, very few provide their staff with appropriate training to handle customer complaints effectively,” says Paul.


This is a serious problem when you think it usual for as many as 50% of an organisation’s customers to have experienced a problem or concern with the service they receive.

How easy do you make it for your customers to tell you they are unhappy?

Or do they just tell everybody else?

Some Key Differences

The difference between the service you deliver and the service your customers get is what you do.

The difference between the service your teams deliver and the service you want them to deliver is how you treat them.

The difference between the service you think you deliver and the service you actually deliver is your customer.

The difference between service and wasted effort is what your customer needs.

The difference between you and your competitor is the value you deliver to your customers.

Can you think of any other key differences?

Email them to me: ian@ianbrooks.com

Ask and Learn

I have been doing some mystery shopping lately and I have discovered an interesting pattern. Even in the places that are, comparatively speaking, very good, there is common weakness. People are great at answering questions but very few ask any. On the weekend, I went with a friend to look at a $90,000 boat he was thinking of buying. We spent over half an hour talking to the salesman because he was so knowledgeable. But if my friend and I hadn't asked any questions, the sales call would have lasted less than 5 minutes. The salesman didn't ask one question. How could he possiibly understand his customer's needs without asking questions? As Stephen Covey wrote in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, seek first to understand and then to be understood.

You Don't Want Customers

You don’t want customers. You want Believers. Customers make a decision with their head to do business with you and it is just as easy for them to make a decision to do business with someone else. Even if they are happy, they might think: “Let’s try somewhere else.” Believers, on the other hand, have an emotional attachment to your company. They feel part of your business and think you are an important part of theirs. Believers are very upset when a company they believe in goes out of business.

Why try to turn customers into Believers? Believers buy. They don’t just browse. Believers pay the prices you need to charge. Price is never the issue for them. Believers will buy just about anything you have to sell. Or, at least they will have a very serious look at it and listen carefully to what you have to say. Believers are loyal. Customers aren’t - not even satisfied ones. Over 20 years ago, Xerox research showed that “Totally Satisfied” customers were six times more likely to be loyal than “Satisfied” customers. But most importantly, Believers will be your advocates and recommend you to everyone else. Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth advertising. Research from the London School of Economics found companies having a lot of people saying good things about them and very few saying bad things grew four times more.

So don’t set out to make a sale. Aim to turn a prospect into a Believer. Are any of your existing customers Believers? What did you do to turn them into Believers. How many more customers would become Believers if you treated them the same way?

Remember, the difference between having a customer and a Believer is what you do.

Are Your 'Eyes' Too Close Together?

Are Your ‘Eyes’ Too Close Together?

I was talking to a woman the other day who said she had been interviewing real estate agents to sell her house.

She told me she rejected one man because his eyes were too close together.

I said I thought that was a bit unfair. He can’t help the way he looks and I didn’t see how that would affect his ability to sell her house.

“No,” she said. “Not his’ eyes’. His ‘I’s. When he spoke it was too much I did this, I did that, I can do something else.”

She then told me she expected that the conversation would be about her and her needs since she was the customer.

How close together are your ‘I’s?

Today I Fired My Insurance Broker

Today I Fired My Insurance Broker. 

He doesn't know it yet because we rarely have any contact. I only hear from his office if I forget to pay a premium.

The exception was the other day when he left a message on the phone to say they had forgotten to send out two premium notices for insurance on rental properties and these were now overdue. I think the intent of the message was to say I shouldn't worry because the properties were still insured but I'm not quite sure I have this right because the two overdue notices arrived on my desk with no covering note or explanation.

To add insult to injury, the premiums are nearly double what they were last year. Of course, I understand that's because of the Christchurch earthquakes but some kind of explanation or even acknowledgement the premiums had skyrocketed would have been nice.

I meet with my new broker on Monday. The old one probably won't know he's been fired until the underwriters tell him he will no longer be getting any commissions on my business.

I guess that's what happens when you don't look after your customers!