Customer Experience is different than Customer Service

If you give Great Customer Service, it doesn't mean the Customer Experience is always good.

Granted, great customer services leads to customer experience, but it's not always the sole or single reason that a customer appreciates the service level you give them.

In our company, we are typically dealing with customers who are upset, angry and just plain frustrated.  I always tell our employees that "If the customer is mad at the manufacturer of their computer, then they are mad at you, because to them, you ARE the manufacturer of the computer."

When you have an angry or upset customer, then from the first minute you interact with them, you are behind the eight ball....

You can give the best customer service on earth, but sometimes customer experience starts even before you walk in the door!

So, how do we insure a Great Customer Experience!?!

1.  Empathy:  Truly thinking through how the customer feels is key; understanding their feelings; putting yourself in their shoes;  figuring out what You would want done if you were the customer.

2.  Communication: Simple statements, "Mr. Customer I understand how you feel, I would feel exactly the same way.....let me try and make this right for you! That's my job..."  Don't bash other people "Yeah tech support sucks, but I am much better than they are" or "Yeah you're dealing with an American boy now, not some Indian on the phone".  That's totally unacceptable!  Don't be tossing folks under the bus!  Ever....

3.  Look Good - Feel Good:  Customer Experience is also based on 'PERCEPTION'.  If a customer perceives you to be professional, then you are...if they perceive you to be a silly person who doesn't know what they are doing, then unfortunately, you are.  Seriously-remember-Perception is Reality.  So, dress the part, stand up straight, be confident without being arrogant, and be the professional that you truly can be!

4.  Customers Pay You to be there!:  I worked for a hospital system back in the day with hundreds of employees.  Periodically the Administrator of the hospital would grab ten or fifteen paychecks and sign them personally.  This was just a way for him to remind people "who signs their paycheck" and who they work for....I've done this before also, just to remind someone who the boss is....not really the best motivation....but, what if your Customer signed your paycheck?  What if the people who you service were the people who paid you each week?  Would you treat them differently?  Would you 'up your game'?  Would you make sure their Experience with you and your company was excellent in every way???   Yeah, me too!

Customer Experience is about Perception. 

Customer Experience is about how the customer feels after you leave.

Customer Experience is measurable, and never predictable.

Customer Experience is the most important part of our jobs.

Let's work hard to make sure our customers experience excellent customer service.

Because they really do sign our paycheck every week!

Re-Branding a company

I had always wished I had named our company something else.  I never really liked the name, and I didn't chose it, so since I am 'always right', I continuously harped on the fact that the company name doesn't even remotely describe what we do.

There were a couple of iterations over the years, adding "I.T." to the end of our name and replacing "Resources".    Then we tried a couple of variables on the Logo, but still....our company name didn't ever describe what we do or what we can do for our customers.

A brand is your most important and valuable asset.  I never felt like we were creating a "brand" with our company name.  If you google our company, we show up right at the top of the search results, but....we are also just under 'Adult Diapers'.  That made me crazy for the first year or two that we were in business.  And only two people ever really liked our company name, and both of them are very long gone!

So, how do you re-brand?

As a non-expert marketing non-guru, it seems to me that it may be rather easy.

As a non-expert marketing non-guru, it seems that there is a lot that I don't know, that I don't know.

So, here are the obvious things that must be done when re-branding:

1.  Logo Change
2.  Legal and Trademark issues
3.  Website re-design and brand
4.  Letterhead, office signage etc...
5.  Bank and Pay issues to resolve
6.  Marketing materials
7.  Customer Notifications
8.  Employee Notifications
9.  Prospect Notifications
10. Figuring out what you want your brand to be, in one month, six months, and at the end of the year.

 So....I know what the new name is, I know what the logo is going to be, I have the website finished, I even have a couple of marketing videos ready to go.

Now what?  We have hundreds of employees, in more than 40 states.  What about employee badges?  What about LinkedIn?  What about Facebook?  What about What about What about??????

Maybe this wasn't as smart as I first thought.

We'll see!   About to send out the first notification that 'something' is coming.