Customer Experience - Who Gets It?

I was at a cocktail party last week and met a number of people, from an outsource HR firm rep, to an IT consultant, to a custom wood furniture craftsman. The food was excellent, the venue (an art gallery) was stimulating, and overall I had a good time.

As usual in these events, everyone asked each other what their companies did. Again, as usual, when I explained that I helped organizations to improve their customer experience, I got a lot of blank stares. Interestingly, in almost every group, immediately after the blank stares, one person piped up with “Oh yeah, we do that!” and he or she proceeded to explain a practical example that dovetailed nicely with Vox’s work.

While a few of the largest companies have adopted customer-centric philosophies, I’m starting to see that a lot of smaller firms are waking up to the fact the “the customer comes first” is not an outmoded cliché. For instance, I met a guy who launched an executive assistant staffing firm. He attributes his company’s success to their focus on providing the best, most pleasant experience possible to their applicants.

When the time came to add headcount due to growth, he decided to hire a concierge for applicants rather than to just add another recruiter. The result? He’s getting more high-quality applicants, and even when they wind up being placed by another firm, they’re more likely to come back to his firm for their next job placement. And by developing a pool of talented, high-quality personnel, his ultimate clients, C level executives, keep coming back to him when they need quality personnel.

Ultimately, your best assets, and the only assets that don’t depreciate over time are people, either your employees or your customers. Focusing on providing a superior experience will win you longer, more profitable relationships with both. People have known this for a long time. The challenge is figuring out how to change organizations to do this consistently. That takes a special kind of mind-set.

Comments

[JR]

I like your comments that "Ultimately, your best assets, and the only assets that don’t depreciate over time are people, either your employees or your customers" This is so very true.