Creating a better experience

The other day I went to the store to look around the clearance racks and see if I could find a few bargains. I ended up getting a pack of new athletic socks. Obsessed with the frustration of waiting for anything, I was dreading the checkout line. As I approached it, there were four people ahead of me. After a long sigh, I decided not to abandon my socks, but rather to dig in and wait until it was my turn. There were two clerks, so I was cautiously optimistic.

However, within 2 minutes it became apparent that something was horribly wrong. The line hadn’t moved at all and so I turned my attention to the activities taking place at the two registers. It was hard to tell what was going on at first because it looked like nothing was happening. I was perplexed. I thought that buying things was supposed to be quick and simple: Scan items, swipe debit card, sign paper, get receipt, go. But I didn’t see any of this going on. The transactions finally concluded and the line moved forward. But once again, the checkout process for customers in front of me was taking forever. My internal expected-wait-time calculator was totally off because the length of time that each customer was spending with each clerk was completely erratic.

I was finally next in line and I was able to get a glimpse of the problem. The customers were taking extra time because they were filling out credit card applications. The clerk was just standing there watching and waiting for the customer to finish.  When the application was complete, the clerk had to type the information into the system and wait a few more moments for the approval and credit limit to be established before finally resuming the activity of actually buying and selling things. It was aggravating to watch. Was this the right time to be up-selling? There were four more people behind me in line and none of them looked happy about the slowness of this queue. Why didn’t the clerks recognize that they should put their up-selling to the side for a few moments until they worked off the queue of anxious customers? They could resume their up-selling when there wasn’t a queue. Perhaps they weren’t trained to recognize it. Or maybe they get a spiff for each customer they get signed up for a new credit card and are therefore financially motivated to let the queue of customers with product in hand to grow and allow their frustration to build. It should be intuitive to the clerks that working off the queue is a higher priority than signing up customers for new credit cards. The check out process is one of those “moments of truth” in the business process. If it goes poorly, then customers may never come back. Stores want you to sign up for credit cards because stats show that people shop where they have cards. This would hardly be considered a loyalty program with much benefit to customers in the long run. It mostly benefits the store.

It was finally my turn and when I walked up to the register, the clerk scanned my socks. Then she asked me if I wanted to save 10% by filling out a credit card application. Hmmmm…an enticing offer indeed. No wonder the take rate was so high and the queue was so slow.  I looked behind me and still saw four incredibly bored customers in line. Then I turned back to the clerk and quietly declined her offer. When she said, “Are you sure?” and I told her “no” a second time and she was slightly stunned that I spurned her so quickly. Perhaps she was disappointed because she wouldn’t be getting a spiff. Who knows for sure. But what is certain is that I’ll take “no waiting” over a measly 10% off and another evil credit card in my wallet any time, anywhere. What about you?

Price isn’t everything, and a study proves it (emphasis mine):

The Parsippany, N.J.-based Strativity Group surveyed nearly 2,000 consumers in North America and found that 40% of loyal customers said they are willing to pay an extra 10% or more with businesses that exceed their expectations.

At VHT, we know how important the customer experience is to loyalty, and it’s cool to see research backing it up:

The difference in loyalty between companies in the top quartile of customer experience (when measured against industry averages) and the companies in the lowest quartile:

• 14.4% more customers willing to buy another product
• 15.8% more customers reluctant to switch
• 16.6% more customers likely to recommend

Read the entire blog post.

I’ve had a lot of cable problems lately and it’s been quite a disruption at the house. It made me think about how important technology is in my life…TV, DVR, High speed internet.  It’s all fixed now…I think.

So, over the past week and a half, I probably called the cable company 6 times, which is more than the number of times I called them in the last 3 years. Throughout the troubleshooting ordeal, I couldn’t help but observe the following: the business process that customers follow today is pretty much the same as the business process they followed 3 years ago. When I had this revelation, I had to pause.  A moment later I realized something even more astonishing… that it’s been pretty much the same business process for a lot longer than that!

Can it be true that there’s been little to no evolution in how customer phone requests are handled? Every time I called I heard the same announcements. Every time, I had to enter my phone number.  Every time, I pushed 1 then 2. Every time, I spoke to a rep who asked me for my phone number, name, address and the last 4 digits of my social security number. Every time, I described the problem to a different person. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day…

There was one exception, however. One time I called in and the system actually demonstrated a little intelligence by saying, “Are you still having trouble with your…cable TV?” After pressing 1 to indicate “yes” the system bypassed the typical troubleshooting steps and transferred me to a rep…where the rest of the story repeats itself.

But this business process intelligence gave me a little hope that change is on the horizon. I know the technology is out there. I hear about it everywhere I go, especially at trade shows and partner summits. But I rarely see it. Why is that? Perhaps its too difficult to deploy and support. Maybe everything at trade shows is just vaporware and if I looked behind the booth I’d see a wildman pulling levers and pressing buttons.

Actually, I do think that good, intelligent technology exists out there. But it does us no good unless we start integrating our thoughts before we try integrating systems.  Business process and customer experience must become “one” before we connect a single box to another box in a call flow diagram.  What I propose is difficult.  These two forces are at odds with one another.  The goal of a good business process is to be efficient and reduce waste. However, the goal of a good customer experience is invoke a positive emotional response regardless of whether it’s efficient for your organization or not.  Therefore, successfully integrating the two concepts requires a new way of thinking.

My suggestion is to design the user experience first, then optimize it for efficiency. I think one of the problems we have today is that we are trying to inject positive experiences into existing processes…yielding mixed success. Reverse your approach and try again. It will be tough because you’ll be faced with changing age-old processes. But the final results will be worth it. Positive experience will be integrated with optimal efficiency and it will mark a leap forward in customer service that will differentiate you among your competitors.