Have you ever asked yourself the question, “What is the key to
McDonalds success?” Now you probably aren’t thinking it’s because they make the
best burger in the universe… or that they provide above and beyond service…. or
that they have comfortable plush seating and surroundings….
It is, in my opinion, not the best burger in the universe, the
service is good, if not a little basic and the restaurants are built for speed
and not necessarily comfort. So, why are they so popular?
Consistency.
It doesn’t matter where you go on this planet, visit a
McDonalds and you can guarantee the same experience, every time, served by
16-19 year olds. If you were to ask those same 16-19 year olds to tidy their
bedroom, it isn’t going to happen.
In the post today, I received a customer service survey sent by
my Dentist who I experienced the pain of visiting recently. The questions were
all what could be called ‘ego’ type questions ‘how good are we?’ There were no
questions asking what my experience was like. As surveys go, it will be a waste
of time for the Dental Practice because it will provide little or no relevant useful
feedback and therefore the issues that could make a real difference to the
practice will not be addressed. As with a lot of customer feedback, it is
designed more to tick a compliance box rather than hold the mirror up to
uncover the true issues in a business.
Most of my family and a great deal of my friends use the same
Dentist, so I playfully carried out my own survey based on one question “What
is your biggest frustration when dealing with this dental practice?” You might
expect that I would get answers like being unable to book appointments or
dealing with unhelpful staff; there were some, but they were definitely the
minority. The number one issue was that appointments rarely happened on time
and up to an hour could be spent in the waiting area to see the dentist.
An interesting distinction here is that because this is a
constant, it always happens, most of the friends I had spoken to just accepted
that that’s the way it is, so they made allowances for the delays in the time
they set aside for the appointment. I couldn’t help wondering what the feelings
would be like if there was an inconsistency to the appointments, on time
sometimes, 30 minutes to an hour late at other times?
It would seem then, that we are prepared to accept poor
service, so long as it is consistently poor!
The challenge is, in a commercial environment, customers will
eventually be lost to a slightly better competitor.
In other words, if you are not aware of how your customers
truly rate the experience of trading with you, it is really easy to get
complacent because they stick around for a while and that can lead to thinking
you have got it right. When they leave
you, it is all too easy to enter into the thinking that they have left for a
cheaper competitor, you blame it on price.
In business, particularly during periods of growth, it’s all
too easy for delivery to become erratic as resources become stretched. Your
team may feel they no longer have the necessary time to provide the same level
of service and it gets pushed down the priority list for the more urgent
demands of the day.
It is really important at all times to monitor customer
experience. Step into your customers shoes and see how you do business from
their perspective. Do the ‘customer walk’ through your business, become a
customer of your own business you will be surprised at what this exercise can
bring to light.
If you want to stay ahead of your competition, whilst they are
in the mindset of customer service, change your focus to your customer’s
experience and have the infrastructure in place to constantly update your
systems to provide at the very least a consistent experience. Do this and your competitors will always be
playing catch up with you.
One last interesting question you might like to ask yourself,
“Are customers willing to pay a premium for a better service experience?”
If you would like to learn more about this subject
take a look here……
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