When The Customer Speaks ...
Are you listening? BY JIM ASPLUND
DO CUSTOMERS CONTROL the fate of a company’s stock?
Yes and no. Whether a company engages its customers or leaves
them ambivalent determines whether those customers will continue to give the company their business. That has a direct impact
on the company’s bottom line.
But there’s more to the story. Customers’ expressed emotional connections to the companies they do business with
represent an important reality check on the “health” of the
brand. These emotional responses measure how well each
company delivers its basic promises and reflects the extent to
which it is building long-term relationships with its customers. Customer perceptions are thus an essential bellwether of
future company performance. Some would say that markets
are driven by emotional reactions—Gallup’s research suggests
that customers are too.
And companies would be wise to pay close heed.
Whether a company engages its
customers or leaves them ambivalent
determines whether those customers
will continue to give the company
their business.
« JIM ASPLUND
is Chief Scientist
of Strengths
Development at
Gallup, Inc. He and
John H. Fleming are
authors of Human
Sigma: Managing the
Employee-Customer
Encounter.
company. Those bonds must be honored and strengthened.
3GOOD LIFE = GOOD HEALTH.
Customer engagement describes the
health of the relationship between your
customer and your company. The quality of this emotional relationship determines the long-term financial success
you will have with that customer.
4YOU NEVER STEP INTO THE SAME RIVER TWICE.
Every time your company touches a customer, they become a little more—or a little
less—engaged. They never stay the same.
5VARIANCE HURTS. Although most companies strive to create a consistent customer experience from location to location, no company actually does. There is more variability in the quality of the customer
experience within your company than there is between you and
your competitors.
SIX PRINCIPLES AND THREE CRITERIA
So what has Gallup learned about customers’ connections to the
companies they do business with? Millions of customer interviews over the past 50 years point to six basic principles.
1SATISFYING CUSTOMERS IS NOT ENOUGH. Focusing on creating highly satisfied customers is a one-way ticket to mediocrity and poor business results. Customer
satisfaction is the cost of entry in today’s competitive and fast-moving marketplace, but it will not differentiate good from
great.
2EMOTIONS FRAME RELATIONSHIPS. Customers are not strictly rational; your most valuable and
profitable customers have strong emotional bonds with your
6POLITICS ARE LOCAL. Strong customer relationships cannot be managed solely
from the center; they must be managed locally. Everyone is responsible for the customer experience.
Any organization seeking breakthrough improvements in
customer retention, profitability, and growth must make it a goal
to engage their customers at the local level. Engaging customers means effectively addressing their emotional and functional
requirements.
Any metric used to assess the customer side of the employee-customer encounter must meet three criteria: 1) It must assess both
the rational and non-rational dimensions of the customer relationship; 2) It must provide reliable and demonstrable links to financial
performance; and 3) It must readily lend itself to meaningful improvement efforts at the local and enterprise level.
