Tres maneras de hacer que tu cliente te recuerde de por vida

Service providers are trained to respond to customer needs. Experienced service sector specialists, ranging from waste collectors to Ferrari repairers, see their jobs as procedural, and preferably invisible. It’s a good start: no one likes reckless taxi drivers who dispense unsolicited parental advice throughout the ride. But there’s a problem: customer-facing employees must be either terrible or spectacular to earn a place in the customer’s memory. And, in today’s market, earning that place is synonymous with differentiating themselves from competitors in the same sector, but also along the value chain, and in lateral and perhaps seemingly unrelated sectors. Pharmacy operators surely never feared what appeared to be an online bookstore like Amazon, and yet here we are.

Companies that approach their core functions in a purely reactive way soon find they’re fine-tuning superfluous details that no one cares about. They train people to answer phones before the third ring. Or they win price wars. They make sure they escalate complaints to top management. But eventually, they reach what Michael Porter calls “the productivity ceiling,” and marketing guru Seth Godin defines as “the race to the bottom”: there comes a point where it can’t be done any faster or cheaper. There are no more budgets to squeeze, hours to add, or tasks to expedite. The pedal is already hitting the metal from so much squeezing, and the resulting speed is rarely fast enough.

But people don’t choose airlines for their punctuality or software for its server uptime. Emotions influence even the highest-value purchases, which is why promoting military helicopters can be as dazzling as launching cardiovascular drugs. Facts are easily forgotten, but surprise is easily remembered. Memory, studies show, is a function of emotions. I want to propose you play a mental game: by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll remember the retirement date of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch for the rest of your life, because we’ll embed those facts in a context of emotions you already possess.

A simple example of the influence of emotions on service is when hotels place chocolates on our pillows, an act that isn’t necessary: ​​no one does it at home, nor does anyone call room service when it’s out. The fact that chocolates aren’t necessarily part of the pillows is the crux of the matter: the guest sees something unexpected in a spotless bed, realizes it’s chocolate, and feels happy. A hotel room like any other becomes one that surprises you and, subsequently, a happy memory. Of course, we’re not saying that companies selling automation or auditing services should send candy with orders. But is there a way to turn your service into a memorable experience within reason and at an affordable cost? As is evident time and again from the implementation of our Total Customer Focus™ program, there are many ways to achieve this.

1. Observe the “unnoticed difficulties”

Los agentes de servicio al cliente no deben dejar pasar las frustraciones residuales que los clientes ponen sobre la mesa, ya sea que provengan de la alta dirección de la compañía o de una charla informal de café. El contexto de esas “dificultades inadvertidas” puede tener un gran alcance. En su autobiografía Jack, el admirado súper ejecutivo Jack Welch se lamentaba, aún años después, de la inesperada cancelación de su fiesta de retiro el 11 de septiembre de 2001, cuando el ataque a las Torres Gemelas. Pocos casos comportan tal peso emocional, pero lo cierto es que las empresas de servicios pueden agregar un valor significativo al detectar y eliminar un sinnúmero de irritaciones que estaban ocultas, haciéndolo además sin un costo adicional remarcable. Piense en el primer establecimiento que bajó un poco la posición de un urinario en el servicio masculino, añadiendo un memorable ‘¡wow!’ a las visitas a los lavabos de los niños y, reconozcámoslo, también de algunos adultos. Perforar agujeros cinco o diez centímetros más abajo no cuesta nada, pero hace que te recuerden mucho tiempo. Los fabricantes de equipos añaden extras basados en la empatía cuando complementan los manuales en papel con copias digitales que se pueden buscar online, o proporcionan a los clientes grabaciones de vídeo de procesos de reparación.

2. Anticiparse a lo que viene después

La observación es una gran forma de comenzar, pero tiene sus límites. Si quieres vencer a tu competencia, frecuentemente debes satisfacer necesidades que aún no han surgido. Las cortesías en las almohadas apuntan a esas necesidades futuras: los chocolates gratuitos hacen que los huéspedes tengan más paciencia con las contraseñas de Internet o con las esperas al servicio de habitaciones. Para generar servicios de forma pro-activa, las empresas deben entender al cliente de la misma forma en que los hoteles saben que la mayoría de la gente les llega cansados del viaje e irritables. Pero una vez que un departamento de servicios desarrolla el hábito de meditar, discutir y modelizar el comportamiento del cliente a lo largo del ciclo de vida completo de los servicios prestados, pueden abrir una nueva dimensión de satisfacción, compromiso y lealtad del cliente. Mi ejemplo favorito es el fabricante alemán de camiones y autobuses M.A.N. y sus asientos de conductor hinchables, que ahorran a los chóferes un montón de aburrimiento y de problemas de espalda. Las soluciones basadas en la anticipación pueden costar más que las basadas en la pura observación, pero con el tiempo dan unos frutos muy valiosos.

3. Saber algo que no saben, y compartirlo

A decade of training and working with tens of thousands of service professionals using our Total Customer Focus programs has taught us many things about typical customer service mistakes. One notable one is what we call “assuming information symmetry”: thinking that if something is obvious to the specialist, it will also be obvious to the customer. This isn’t the case: few hospital patients have medical degrees. Mapping what experts call the “knowledge gap” and sharing what customers miss is a powerful way to add value beyond their expectations. Travel agencies that bundle travel advice with airline tickets know this, as do pharmaceutical companies that invite customers to online knowledge bases. Collecting, organizing, and publishing such information undoubtedly takes time and money, but the rewards are considerable. Reading this blog might be a good example.

If you want to explore how to wow your customers so they’ll remember you forever, sign up for our upcoming webinar : “ The Secret to Service Selling: Make Your Customers Exclaim “Wow! ”” and discover a methodology that will help you build systematic proactivity into your service organization .

[Live Webinar]
The Secret to Selling Services: Make Your Clients Exclaim “Wow!”
December 12, 2019 @ 9:30 a.m. Central Europe Time

Click here to register for the webinar

Written by:
Gabor Holch, Associate at Global Partners Training

Translated by:
Jose Luis Montes, Associate at Global Partners Training