And, customers experience your company in a lot more ways than you realize.

Every day, and via multiple mediums, customers receive some kind of experience, ranging from positive to negative;  with customer experience being defined as the sum total of conscious events/experiences.  A company’s ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its customers serves to inspire loyalty to its brand, products, and services.

People are customers without yet having purchased or used a company’s product or service; word of mouth (both good and bad) is a very powerful influencer; it takes a lot of future customers to a new product or service “the new, new thing;” only a few unhappy ones can and will deter  4x as many others from trying/buying.

I was an extremely unhappy Hyundai owner during the first years they were sold in the US; fifteen years later, I still won’t consider ever buying another.  I replaced way too many defective rubber engine seals on that manual transmission car, each time at an out of pocket cost of $500 (in 1990’s $$).

On the other hand, my aunt loves her Lexus, and my cousins adore their Hondas; each which incurred very minimal maintenance expenses.

Hmmm.  The only way I’ll ever own another Hyundai is if it was free *AND* came with a free 100% parts and service warranty for the first 10 years of ownership.

Similarly,  several years ago a friend was in the market to purchase a new Volkswagen.  The dealer nearest her house assured her over the phone they had the exact model, color etc. she sought, and that car was available for her to drive home that day as she went with a certified bank check in hand to pay for the car in full.

After arriving, she discovered the sales rep did not have that model or color in stock, that day or even recently.

Even worse, that sales team strung her along for several hours, first trying to locate that desired car from other dealers; then trying to persuade her to purchase one of the cars that was in stock, but not at all comparable to the model she’d researched and already selected.

End result?  She purchased her new Volkswagen from another dealer, and also spent exactly the same amount of time sharing her experience with that dealer with her friends, co workers, and others.  Including travel time, the dealer had wasted approximately 3 1/2  hours of her time.   And, she knows a lot of people.

I used to work in corporate staffing orgs as a recruiter, almost always in the role of headhunter/outbound recruiter.  Depending on the company I worked for, I sometimes faced substantial resistance from potential senior candidates, who ten years before had worked together on an Industry Standards committee with several of that company’s employees.

Their interactions with those folks were so bad ten years later it was a serious uphill struggle to persuade them to consider a job opportunity with a totally different, and really good team.

Similarly, I already know my next smart phone won’t be the same brand I currently own; not because of a bad customer experience with the product, but because of an unprofessional experience I had while being recruited to work for that company.

People think elephants have amazing memories; but unhappy customers do too.  And sadly, too few companies realize how broad  and how powerful a customer’s experience is or can be; or understand almost all of us are customers in some way – either past, present, or future.

Thoughts to ponder, compliments of Customer Focus Inc.:

• 95% of senior business leaders believe that the next competitive differentiator is customer experience.
• Eighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience. But only eight percent of their customers agree.
• Only 22% of respondents agreed that companies “currently provide an excellent customer experience.”
• Almost every U.S. consumer surveyed (96 percent) had a negative service experience in the past year, with 80 percent subsequently severing the relationship.

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