The Pendulum has Swung and Customer Success is Essential
I’ve had the privilege of working for a great e-commerce company for the past 8 years. This isn’t just my opinion either. They’ve made it on the Fortune 100 Best Companies a few times now.
When I started with the company in 2012, I wasn’t customer-facing. I was on the opposite end of the customer experience which was Supply Chain & Logistics. Having come from a customer service role previously I knew what good service was, but I learned so much more about customer success from this first role. The customer relationship was paramount and this was understood even at the end of the line where our team never interacted with customers. I learned that we would sacrifice profit if it meant a customer’s event would be disrupted due to our error. Mistakes happen, of course, and we owned it. When UPS missed a delivery or lost a package, we didn’t blame them, we replaced the order and would make sure the customer had their order in-time for their event. We even couriered orders across states to make the impossible happen. This company put their money where their mouth was regularly.
The principle we see in action here is true customer success. We can lose customers when they aren’t able to use our products efficiently and to their fullest value. We also lose them if we fail on our delivery to meet what we promised. In turn, we lose not only the present value of the customer but the lifetime value that the customer represented. When there is a breakdown in our service or product that’s an extremely valuable opportunity to wow them and reverse the negative experience. Moments like that are when we can create loyal fans and influence them to be champions for our brand. Even more so than when everything has gone well.
Authentic customer service is authentic human relationship. We are our best when we are responding to the needs of the customer like we would if it were a family member or friend asking for assistance. When we over-train our people to know every guideline and to also follow them to the letter of the law we lose the essence of human relationships. It’s like we create little corporate robots. They look and sound human, but when you have a problem and you get the same response as you would a FAQs page on a website it can be very frustrating. We at least expect things like empathy and understanding.
When working through a resolution with one of my customers they once said, “it would make us feel whole again.” I know they didn’t mean literally, but think about that for a second because there’s a lot of truth to that. When we experience the failure of a good or service we paid for and receive less than what was promised to not have it resolved is like having a piece of your humanity disregarded. Does that sound dramatic or a bit extreme? Maybe. If you would, consider the anecdote that when a customer has a bad experience they’ll tell at least ten people about how bad it was. Why? If it’s not an affront to our human decency then why do we need to tell anyone who will listen how poorly cooked our eggs were at brunch last weekend? Are we that passionate about huevos rancheros? Obviously not, it’s likely deeper than that. On the flip side, when you treat customers how you want to be treated there’s a powerfully positive effect.
Cell phone carriers provide some of the best case studies on what to do and not do. I made the switch from one of the “big two” providers 4 years ago because of the excessive fees and poor customer service. When I made the jump to T-Mobile they were still considered to have not so great reception in some areas. However, their focus on real customer appreciation and gimmick-free service sold me. I was willing to take a perceived step down in quality for overall service and value. Plus I felt heard and valued as a customer. Now, 5 years after they launched their rebranding as the “un-carrier” they’ve “overtaken AT&T as America’s #2 Wireless Provider” and have “industry leading customer growth.” The reason for their success is evident. They made their customers the primary focus.
When your customers are well taken care of they take care of the business. Simply focusing on profits and being okay with merely transactional interactions with customers is an antiquated approach. The pendulum has swung and customer success is essential to any company’s growth.
