Making it easy for the customer to interact with your business has been a principle of customer service for many years. But focusing on making things easier might not always be the most effective approach, according to Rick DeLisi, co-author of The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty.
DeLisi, senior director of advisory services for the sales and service practice of advisory company CEB, recently spoke with me for MDM's monthly Executive Briefing, available now.
"The 'do' side of effort is actually only one-third of how customers perceive customer effort," he says. "In fact, the other two-thirds is the 'feel' side, how the whole experience makes them feel."
So while you may not be able to actually do something about what needs to be done in a given customer interaction, there may be steps you can take to change how the customer perceives those steps.
For example, how frustrating is it when you call a company and enter your 16-digit account number via the phone keypad, only to be asked to repeat it again once a live rep answers the call? Simply changing the request from "Could you give me your account number?" to "Could you confirm your account number for security purposes?" changes how the request is perceived even though the action is not changed at all.
Click on the video below to hear how “experience engineering” can improve customer loyalty.
DeLisi shares more on how to create effortless customer service – and in turn increase customer loyalty – in the latest episode of MDM Executive Briefing, available now.
Also featured in this episode: 7 Minutes With Judy Wojanis, president of fluid power distributor Wojanis Hydraulic Supply Company in Pittsburgh, PA.
