At Twiggal we are fortunate to work with a lot of creative and inspiring businesses and we believe that all business owners have lessons that will benefit other small business owners. The guys at Jones and Co and Seen opticians in Manchester have dedicated themselves to figuring out how to deliver the best customer experience on the planet, and Conor Heaney, one of the owners has been kind enough to let us in on some of the most valuable lessons he’s learned about gaining loyal customers who love you. Conor says “It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it”…
“Successful companies with happy, loyal customers truly understand this. Virgin Atlantic believe they are in a commodity based business. They are in the business of taking a massive metal tube, filling it with 300 people and a lot of jet fuel and launching it across the Atlantic in the hope it will arrive on the other side in one piece. They use the exact same planes as their rivals, they buy the exact same fuel, they fly the same routes, they have the same costs. They believe the only way to differentiate themselves is to offer a distinctly different experience to their customers. They inject the Virgin personality into everything little they do. They really believe that ‘it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.’
There are 3 parts to every customer experience:
1. The Product or Service (what do you do)
2. The Process (how easy are you to do business with?)
3. The Engagement (how did it feel?)
Most businesses focus on 1 & 2 but not on 3. Engaging the customer is the part that creates a memorable customer experience. Engaging the customer creates loyalty. You can do 1 & 2 perfectly and still the customer may not come back to you next time unless you start a relationship with them and engage them by being memorable and showing some personality. The challenge is doing it consistently. When the experience delivered by your team is consistently good, the team become the brand in the eyes of your customers. That’s what creates loyal customers – “raving fan” customers who tell their friends about you.
In order to make the customer experience consistent you need to make it part of your company’s culture. You can’t train it. You have to lead it and support it.
There are 6 steps to delivering this experience:
1. First you must decide what you want to be known for… and write it down!
2. Measure what you are trying to achieve – Use surveys. Use employee surveys to find out if you have created the right culture, ask your team if they enjoy coming to work? Creating a great place to work is a very important step.
Use customer surveys to find out how they rate their experience with you; what score would they give you on a scale of 1 to 10? Find out if customers enjoyed dealing with you.
3. Communicate the vision for your brand to your team. Constantly remind them “why we are here” and “what we aim to do”. You can do this through team meetings, face to face dialogue, spending time talking about your brand and your vision. Don’t just write it down and put it in a drawer; share it. Success only happens when everyone’s noses are pointed in the same direction!
4. Leadership - The leader needs to give a highly visible example of what the business is aspiring to achieve. I’ll say that again, you must lead by example. Are you leading people, or are you just managing tasks? It is important to talk to your team – lead them!
5. Recognition, reward, appraisal – Develop a culture of frequent feedback in your organisation. Catch your people doing something right! You may find the Employee Appraisal System in the Twiggal small business toolkit useful for this.
6. Recruitment - Hire for attitude… fire for attitude. If you get the first part right you won’t need to do the second part! Be prepared to hire attitude and train skills, you won’t regret it. Hire people who like people. Business is all about people.
If you follow these 6 steps you will be well on your way to creating an amazing customer experience and collecting loyal customers who love you. If you want to make a difference in your business immediately you can start to harness the power of habits - good habits – today. You’ll be amazed what happens to your business if you only do two things every day:
1. Make the day customer focused, not task focused.
2. Catch your people doing something right twice every day ( and tell them!)”
Try Conor’s recommendations today and let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below!