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With the November 7^th election coming up, the negative campaigning and discussions of early voting made me wonder: do politicians consider the customer experience of their constituents? I realize that the word “customer” doesn’t really apply to the political world, but there are many “touch points” that politicians consider when campaigning. Politicians also consider how they acquire constituents and put in the time (and lots of money!) to retain those constituents as supporters in the next election. So, it seems that many of the customer experience concepts do apply to politics, which made me wonder further: are politicians improving each “customer experience” that I have with them and their campaign?

Check out Mike Baxter’s Customer Experience Blog for some of his thoughts on the matter.

All this talk about customers. It made me think, where does the word customer come from? Who cares you loser you say? Well, I see your point but hear me out: it’s interesting to know where words come from, especially ones that pretty much define what we do everyday. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the word customer as we use it today happened like this:

A customer is someone who makes use of or receives the products or services of an individual or organization. The word historically derives from "custom," meaning "habit"; a customer was someone who frequented a particular shop, who made it a habit to purchase goods of the sort the shop sold there rather than elsewhere, and with whom the shopkeeper had to maintain a relationship to keep his or her "custom," meaning expected purchases in the future. The shopkeeper remembered the sizes and preferences of his or her customers, for example. The word did not refer to those who purchased things at a fair or bazaar, or from a street vendor.

So there we have it. Even when the word began being used so long ago, customer did not just mean someone who bought something but also referred to the positive relationship needed to get someone coming back for the product. And we know it’s still true. Aren’t you dying to know where all of your words come from now? No? Oh. Well, at least you can dazzle people with this interesting fact.

If you lived your whole life in the U.S., you may be oblivious to some curious everyday situations that I, as an outsider, can’t help but to find amusing.

For example, everyday I tear money apart.

No, I am not saying that I spend more than I should on a daily basis. I am stating that I LITERALLY tear money apart.  EVERYDAY!

Before you start cursing some made up foreign habit of throwing money away, let me explain: Given that all my normal written communication with friends and family is done through the Internet, every time I check my mailbox I rest assured to find only bills and direct marketing. Additionally, I frequently find marketing pieces disguised as money.

Some are checks for pre-approved loans that I didn’t ask for, some are checks to transfer debts to one of my credit cards, and finally some are checks for refund on the first month fee of a new bank service that I don’t want to sign-up for.

So, after the revision of delivered mail, I often pick the bills to be paid and immediately tear apart all the  "checks", before I feel an urge to credit any of them.

That said, I can’t avoid the sense of wrongness when I think how I dutifully send my money to pay others and, at the same moment, I am throwing away any money that others send to me…
Maybe I am just crazy, but it helps me to think that if the global economy usually doesn’t make sense to me, why my personal one should? In any case, now I can understand a little bit why so many Americans are always in debt.

Ok, I have to confess: After my last post (Yesterday I almost bought a car…), I was tempted to come back immediately and close the deal.  Besides, the fact that the car was packed with all kinds of buttons, knobs and levers really helped to keep the whole situation fresh in my mind.

So, refreshed by the unexpected good experience*, I decided to extend the experiment and visit some other dealerships.

My undertaking began the next day, after I left work, at another large dealership, close to the first one.  I happily entered the dealership showroom and bluntly started to scrutinize the first car I saw.  After a few minutes of waiting without being interrupted, I scanned the store looking for any nearby salesmen stalkingly ready to jump on me at the first opportunity. 

There was none. 

I looked more extensively and finally spotted a few lumbering at the end of the show room.  I know it was late in the afternoon, but I can’t believe that I am the only one who does this kind of errand after work. And here I was, a willing customer clearly unnoticed in the middle of a store.  After a few more minutes, a couple of them spent staring directly at the idle salesmen, one (visibly annoyed) acknowledged my presence and slowly marched in my direction.

He asked me what I wanted (I don’t know if he was too dumb to realize why I was standing there examining a car, or if he was just trying to scare me away and continue doing whatever he was NOT doing before).  Patiently, I explained that I was interested on getting a new car and wasn’t sure of which model was best fitted for my needs.  He gave me an almost angry look and commented that the model in front of me was good choice and it was the only one left…

Can you believe that? I desperately looked over his shoulder, hoping to see a stunned manager ready to step in and save the sale, but no one was there.  I politely thanked him for his ‘efforts’ and silently walked away to never come back again.

The third dealership I tried (the next day) wasn’t much different. Truth be told, the salesman spotted me right away and explained all the marvels of his top-notch-dream-come-true car, but like the latter he wasn’t really interested in getting to know what I really needed.  He clearly just wanted to sell.  The experience was as bad as the one in the day before, even worse because it took me longer to get rid of him. I was still feeling the sour aftertaste of my wasted time when I got back home and, frustrated, tried to sleep.

I decided then to wait a few days to cool out and give it a last try on the weekend.

On Sunday, with renewed determination, I drove to CarMax for my final attempt to find another good dealership experience.  I was welcomed the very moment I walked in. Their huge car inventory was overwhelming, the prices seemed okay, and my car’s appraisal was fair.  But all in all, I still got the feeling that the store was like an internet site coming to life.  The salesman showed me a whole row of cars based on the year/make/model I provided and, while I waited for my car’s appraisal, he turned his computer screen to me and slowly repeated aloud each and every scripted line that was displayed in there.  I was not mistreated or misled, but I was not pampered either.   In the end, I felt as if I could go there and buy a car if I knew exactly what I was looking for.  However, they would never be able to convince me to change cars, unless I was already convinced to do that in the first place.

With that, I finally decided that there’s no such thing as good dealership experience and that my previously described incident was nothing but a fluke, some lucky occurrence that would never happen again.

So, today I returned to the first dealership.  Not necessarily to buy, but to review the car and the experience with a more skeptical eye.  And this time I brought my wife with me.  Unlike me, she’s very objective and very hard to convince.  I was pretty sure she wouldn’t fall easily for any dealer’s pep talk…  Then I presented her to the two people responsible for my sudden urge to buy a new car: Chris Petranech and Ralph DiGangi.

…

Well, my new car is bright red.

I don’t know what that says about me, besides the fact that it seems contrasting to every other car in my neighborhood. It makes me feel like I am piloting a spaceship and, at that moment, I really don’t care how much it will affect my budget.

After a few minutes, the feeling passed and life went back to normal.  The car was again just a car, a convenient tool to take me back and forth.  Bills and payments are again hovering above my head as old familiar ghosts. Nevertheless, a lingering sense of comfort and satisfaction, of worthy experience, stays with me.  I really liked that dealership!

Suddenly I caught myself thinking about my wife’s car… It is already quite old and it would be nice to trade it in before it hits 100,000 miles.

Well, maybe next year…
 

_____________________
*By the way, if you are wondering where in the world I found a dealership worth bragging about, here’s the inside information:

Rosen Honda Gurnee - www.rosenhonda.com (their website needs a little tweaking)
7000 Grand Avenue, Gurnee, IL – 60031
Phone: 1-847-623-7673 (Ask for Chris Petranech)

Diversity is defined more broadly than just race, gender and ethnicity. It’s about diversity of thinking, leadership, skill set and style.

When thinking about the total customer experience, companies should keep in mind the many different people and cultures that encounter their products and services everyday.

I found a great article on how the Technology Giant, EMC, was able to realize the critical link between diversity and delivering an exceptional customer experience.

I have a Roomba. For those of you who are yet uninitiated into the world of consumer robotics, Roomba is a vacuum that vacuums floors—all by itself. This is a wonderful invention. I adore Roomba.

Because of this adoration, I am a semi-regular visitor to iRobot.com, the maker of Roomba. Browsing the site, I saw a link on the home page that said simply “I love robots.” What could this be? I wondered.

Clicking on the link, I discovered a wealth of customer-generated comments, all gushing about how much they loved Roomba, Scooba, and other iRobot products. I was surprised at how many people voluntarily took time out of busy schedules to write gushing praise for a consumer product. There are dozens of reviews here—so many that they are sorted into specific models. The freshness of these comments resonate far more than any advertising copy ever could. For example: “.. .between the roomba and scooba you can’t tell I have 6 cats and one husband.“

How did irobot accomplish this? The steps are pretty easy to understand:

1. Have a great product or service. For iRobot, this is simple; it’s difficult not to like something that vacuums your house while you’re away. If your company doesn’t have a great product, then why are you here?
2. Continuously improve that product. The first generation Roombas broke easily. They got stuck on practically everything. Their batteries ran out quickly. They did not automatically recharge. Despite the initial charm, if iRobot had not improved Roomba, it would have become a passing trend, like a Rubik’s Cube. But, through continuous improvements, iRobot was able to meet and exceed their customers’ constantly-evolving expectations.
3. Oh, wait, improve that product using customer feedback. The people at iRobot did not lock themselves in a conference room and make a list of what features would sell more iRobots in the future and then release that product. No, they opened as many channels as possible for customers to tell them what they wanted. I, a first-generation user of Roomba, received a survey in the mail, and filled it out in order to receive a small reward of a roomba care kit. There are also newsgroups to join, and feedback links on the website.
4. I mean, lots of customer feedback. iRobot has a “post a review” link on their web site. Looking at the reviews, it is quite obvious that iRobot only posts ones that are overall positive. I’m sure they receive negative ones as well. But that’s okay, as long as iRobot reads—and responds to—the negative ones too.
5. Retain your existing customers by treating them well. Irobot realizes that their best customers are those that already own Roombas. That’s why it offers an ‘upgrade discount’ for owners of older Roombas. iRobot also builds in excellent troubleshooting support into its robots and website, so customers can diagnose and remedy dozens of problems on their own.
6. Give your happy customers a couple of customer advocate tools. Referral bonuses and the opportunity to post a testimonial are simple ways to make this possible.

What’s your plan for creating brand advocates?

A recent statesman.com article mentions that auto insurance providers are focusing on customer retention. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Every $1 spent on customer retention is thought to increase profits more than spending $5 on acquiring new customers. A recent report from the Database Marketing Institute says retention is the top issue when it comes to profiting in auto and home insurance.”

Last week while on vacation, I had the privilege of going to a spa for a few days with my Mom and sister. While there, I thought about my work with the customer experience, and wondered how spas are so successful at making the customer experience so great.

Sure, it’s easy to make someone’s experience a good one when you’re offering lush towels, saunas, massages, and whatever else one desires. Yet, do customers at spas expect anything less than a great experience? When a customer walks into a spa, they expect everything to be perfect.

This does not apply when walking into a bank or a car dealership. In these cases, customers lower their expectations. The demand for employees to deliver a good experience is not as high.

How then, with so much pressure, do spas succeed? Shouldn’t the same expectation be held at banks and car dealerships? Shouldn’t customers have the right to expect and receive the best customer experience possible? If customers demanded a better experience, as more and more are, would standards be raised?

I was at Dominicks the other night picking up items for the dinner that I was going to make for the night. After 4-5 attempts at asking various Dominicks employees where I could find Grade B Maple Syrup, I was pretty much directed everywhere but where the item was. Then when I got to where I needed to go, I noticed that there were several types. I asked what the difference was and got the response “What do you think this is Whole Foods?”

I was shocked!

I promptly went to the nearest Whole Foods, which was completely out of my way. Upon entering the Politically correct arena, I asked the first Whole Foods employee where I could find grade B maple syrup. And guess what, she knew exactly where it was! “Should I push my luck,” I thought to myself. Sure! So I asked, “What’s the difference?” A smile came across her face and she went into this discourse on the benefits of this that and the other. She even knew what I was planning on using the ingredient for!

Talk about great customer service and adding value to my shopping experience. I am normally a price sensitive shopper, but after this experience I am more than happy to pay the premium price for a little help and a lot of knowledge!

I wasn’t planning to. It was late, I hadn’t ate anything at all, and I definitely wasn’t in the mood to hear any sales pitch. However, since my wife is traveling and I had nobody waiting for me at home, I decided to make a quick stop at dealership just to have a glance on the new 2007 models.

Like most men, I love cars and I hate dealers. So, I silently entered the dealership premises, inconspicuously walked to the exposed cars, and was undoubtedly interrupted by a grinning salesman.  Like fish caught in the hook, I resolutely tried to break free, but it was already too late. The more I squirmed the more I entangled myself. When I finally realized it wasn’t possible to escape (at least not without seeming a bit crazy), I grinned back and lied that was considering to trade my car.

Almost 3 hours later, still without food and with no customers but me in the store, I was still happily chatting with the salesman (and his manager) about life, travels, work and, of course, cars.  By then I had already done a couple of test drives, filled out an application to calculate loan and lease rates, appraised my old car, and considered several scenarios in which I explain the sudden purchase to my wife.

I had my credit card in one hand and a pen in the other when I stopped myself to think that I didn’t want to buy any car in the first place. I excused myself, explained that my wife was traveling and I would rather not make that kind of decision without even talking to her first, and that I would give some more thought to it and get back to them.

Usually that would be the beginning of a enticing speech about the uniqueness of the car and how it might not be available for long, but they didn’t even budge.  They expressed their solidarity to my feelings and the salesman promised to keep the car for a few days, so I could talk to my wife.  He got my email and gave me his card. We were the last ones to leave the store.

I got back home thinking about what I experienced.  Realizing my initial weird reaction, the guy quickly dispose of the sales role and acted more like a friend showing off his new car.  He understood my curiosity and fed it with even more information than I hoped for.  He led me with the right actions and attitude to a point where I was really considering the inconsiderable.  For a minute there, I was ready to buy…

Luckily, I was able to resist the temptation and buy some time to think about what I’ve almost done!

Now, if you excuse me, I have to end this story and call my wife.  I must talk to her before coming back to dealership tonight…