I planned a meeting, set an agenda, and asked if attendees could commit to a 2 hour meeting instead of the usual 90 minutes because it was so meaty. We all had time to think about the agenda.
How do we provide an even more extraordinary customer experience in areas that we can control. For this group, it means every touch except for the sales touch. We look after accounting and purchasing and item information and distribution and all computer systems and installation. We were asked to put on our customer hats and concluded (we should still ask customers) that what matters is reliability and helpfulness.
Be consistent, ship complete, be dependable with delivery times and dates. Be accurate and timely with communication and paperwork. Be proactive, caring, understanding, friendly and listen.
Not rocket science here.
And the moments of truth are when customers call about their accounts, when we deliver furniture or office products, when they use our on line ordering system (MyClips), when they are standing in front of our POS system in the retail stores and when they receive products or paperwork or communications from us.
What do we or should we be doing at each of these customer points? Is there a revelation or an epiphany? Is there something we should do that we are not doing, that will put us over the top and wow our customers? That is what I thought would come from this meeting. Six people with different perspectives sitting in a room to agree on what to do next to wow our customers.
What we concluded is that we need to be reliable and helpful ALL THE TIME. Complete consistency in terms of fill rates, delivery dates and communications.
This is not what I had expected, but I see now that it makes sense. Find out what customers care about; decide what we can do and what we cannot. Agree on what we will do, and then do it, consistently. Then measure the result and ask customer how we are doing.
Once this is accomplished, change the rules and move the bar up until that is done consistently. Simple, right?
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