There is a tremendous opportunity to innovate the customer experience with digital or social technology. One of my favorite examples is Tesco’s virtual subway store in South Korea. Shoppers see a virtual display in the subway, order by mobile phone, and the store delivers! Really cool stuff. However, time and time again, when I ask people to recall a “memorable experience” they rarely speak about technology. After the initial rush of excitement, technology fades into the background—like the ATM that always works or easy-to-use online banking. People are what customers talk about most often. This was confirmed for me once again at a Chief Customer Officer Forum in San Francisco, organized by Bill Price of Driva Solutions. In a group exercise, I asked executives to think about recent “memorable” experiences, good or bad. Out of twenty people, twelve recounted positive experiences and the rest were negative. About 80 percent of these memorable interactions were about how an employee handled a situation. Here’s a sample of three positive experiences: During routine car maintenance an Infinity owner was informed that her car had a small ding. She declined to spend the one hundred dollars to fix it. The dealer fixed it anyway, for free. A Saks customer bought a new dress for an important event. After getting it home, she found the security device still attached. She called Saks; they sent someone over immediately and removed it. A Bank of America customer was amazed when a rep offered to help her reduce the number of accounts and eliminate monthly charges. This was a personal touch she didn’t receive at a small hometown bank. The results of this exercise were remarkably consistent with other meetings I’ve conducted over the years. A major 2006 CustomerThink research study found human factors accounted for about 70 percent of memorable experiences. In that study we learned that friendly, helpful and well-trained employees were essential to firms that delivered “consistently excellent customer experiences.” My take is that technology tends to be better at enabling “easy” experiences. People excel at delivering memorable experiences to delight customers. In the rush to automate, don’t forget that your people are more likely to leave a lasting impression.
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