What Have You Done for Me Lately?
The Future of Business Is in Giving More.
“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary.” ~ Sam Walton
As we move it a world of less and less human connection the problem for all business is building and maintaining strong personal connections with both clients and team members. Actually the days of the personal face being connected to a business have long past. It was only 20 to 30 years ago people knew the cashier at the local grocery store by name, or the butcher, or even they guy who sold you a car. With the rise of technology and online business, we have become ever more distant from even our own friends and family let alone companies.
Technology has allowed businesses to grow larger and serve larger global markets, but with that they have become more impersonal. After all technology and online services made it easier to reduce staff and not bother with customer service. Automated phone answering still rules the day at your mobile provider, and if you can figure out the magic sequence of digits to speak to a human you have one up on me. Not surprisingly hitting zero doesn’t work anymore as they want even less people to connect to the human whom they have to pay a salary to.
With the prevalence of mobile apps, there is almost nothing I can think of that can’t be done or ordered from the home or office without speaking to anyone. Even the food delivery from Uber or Deliveroo results in a mere “hi”, passing of the food, and a “thanks”. In the b2b sector this has also become the current form of business. Nobody wants to leave their office, and email is the easiest, although not most effective ways to get in touch with your clients.
No doubt the ease of use in these services and technology is great and convenient. The problem for me is, there isn’t much I love anymore. I don’t love Facebook, Instagram, Google, Starbucks, Uber, Deliveroo or Amazon. I use them because they are convenient and work. But I wonder if they didn’t have all that money backing them to force it in our face, would we still use them? They actually as ideas only work at scale. If they were small, we wouldn’t use them. Not because they aren’t useful, but because there is no personal connection that creates a desire to be connected to it. After all none of these provide any sort of exceptional personal experience for me, and I don’t get any joy out of using them (well ok, except when a package arrives from Amazon). So for the real world of business that aren’t unicorns and dragons with billions to spend in obtaining users, how can we still build such devoted user/client bases?
The answer lies in the Customer Experience. This experience encompasses all of the ways people connect to you, how you engage and the emotions that go into your services. As we move more into a connected world we are losing the human touch. This trend will continue and worsen over time. AI, and Virtual Reality aren’t about to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about a brand and will likely distance us further.
“The answer lies in the Customer Experience. This experience encompasses all of the ways people connect to you, how you engage and the emotions that go into your services.”
When we think of the brands that are most connected to us, it is the ones we have a personal connection to. The local cafe, the local gym, local markets, our favorite restaurant, any place where I feel I am welcome and recognized. We not only use these services as often as possible, we root for their success against the larger more impersonal brands.
The Future Is in Giving More
I’m not a millennial, and not a diehard fan of musical.ly and snap. However I am interested on how to connect with them and build relationships with them as future clients. Millennial's have come to expect a smooth easy process to everything, and any friction results in a negative brand attribution. This generation is heavily based on technology and what I feel are very impersonal brands. This though I predict will pass with time. At the end of the day they still have deep needs for personal connections and those brands that are able to execute both on technology and customer experience will win.
As this generation with massive amounts of their parent’s money to spend ages many of them will likely find themselves in economies and job roles soon to be redundant or better done by AI. Sadly the education system and many parents do nothing to prepare kids for this future when having a degree in traditional roles is pointless. As money becomes scarcer and people more conscious on what they spend money on such as quality of food, quality lifestyle etc, the service they receive will likely become a major priority in those decisions. So too in many parts of the world, populations are entering senior years. Therefore businesses that focus massive energy into making both before and after the transaction an exceptional experience will lead in their sectors. Those who choose solely to focus on cost cutting, basic services and staff reductions will ultimately lose as the human connection diminishes.
As leaders assess their businesses to be future ready there are 4 key areas to focus on to ensure exceptional customer experiences.
1. Build Communities
Whatever it is your make or provide there is a related community you can build. Most people we connect with on social media will never use our services. However, I can create a community of design lovers and those interested in entrepreneurship and building great company cultures. When my ideal client sees my communities it supports the value of my message. Further creating communities is a great way to give back. At LIMAH we regularly hold events in our studio for the local art community which are simply a means of encouraging artists and young entrepreneurs to grow.
2. Build a Brand and Live it
Most companies don’t actually have a brand. They have a logo and that’s about it. There’s a big difference between having a vision and living it and being mediocre and copying other companies with solid brands. Sadly the branding agencies of the last 20 years did more damage than good. Brand is not your logo and your tagline, your imagery and the nonsense buzzwords, despite your branding agency selling you on that. The best firms involved in that space know it’s about your aura, your presence, your culture, your image, your language, your vision, your confidence, and your customer experience. Most companies are boring. We use them because it’s the lowest price or raises some false expectation. More often than not, the experience wasn’t memorable so the next time we need that service we go looking again, hoping to find someone new. What we are really looking for a connection, energy and a shared vision. That is your brand.
3. Build Cultures
Every company has a culture, the problem is most of them are cultures we would want to avoid. The single biggest reason is there is a disconnect between the person we are dealing with and the company’s brand. When those become aligned it is the magic moment. When we begin to associate any person working in the company with the company as a whole in a positive light and feel the energy from them, we start to love the brand based on that connection. Do it multiple times across the whole journey and you’ll have a raving fan. You can read more on Culture where I discussed how to build high performance cultures in my last article.
4. Build Your Social
Very few businesses actually understand the purpose of social media as it relates to their company growth. The vast majority use it to show only their work, their latest products, promote sales or just largely talk about themselves. Social for me is about adding value to people’s lives. Look at any company or brand, and the ones killing it on social are giving you information for free every day. They never ask you to buy anything. Rather they simply share their journey, the things they love, and the people they love and hope you get some value from that. Introduce people to your team members, drop the corporate posed photos and show your team with ice cream on their face. Share the successes and the failures. Deeply connect and engage. Sell them rarely if ever and simply tell personal human stories. The last here if done correctly will contribute to all of the above points.
For me the real customer experience comes from helping your customers succeed, give them the win. Your clients should root for your success. They should want you to become better and become more because they feel part of that journey.
“For me the real customer experience comes from helping your customers succeed… Your clients should root for your success.“
The Value Economy as some call it forces customer to ask “What have you done for me lately?” As company leaders we need to ask ourselves “how am I enriching lives?, how am I adding value? That’s a deeper question than “how can I increase sales?” Most companies never ask these questions. It can be as simple as making people’s lives easier, making them smile, saving them money, give them a better quality of life, helping them to help their customers, improving their teams. Start asking yourself how can I enrich my customers lives. Once you find out what that is, which can be one thing or hundreds of tiny things, you will build a devoted raving fan base.
As we move into the future we will see the best companies offering more value than ever. Former Chief Information Officer for Dell, Jerry Gregoire put it “ The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.” This of course will only benefit the end user, and we will see the end of those companies who currently hurt markets and the best products/service providers by offering low prices with no value.
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I’d love to talk with you and know your thoughts on this article. Can I help you create an exceptional human experience for your customers? Get in touch.
Learn more about our work in experience design, wayfinding and public art at @ limahdesign.com
