Beyond Being Satisfied

In this blog and this book in progress we are advocating from a very strong point of view of customer service - clearly, that the outcome you must create for your customers is a very positive and very memorable experience. It's the "Wow!" factor. It's "wowing" your customers! And the "wow" is always positive and memorable, and to be positive and memorable it must be a positive, memorable and emotional experience. That's a lot of wows, positives and memorables - and it's the only outcome that makes a difference in terms of your business results.

Satisfying customers is not enough - it never has been. In some organizations that have made great strides in measuring customer satisfaction there is a growing dilemma: Survey says our satisfaction index is improving; but our rate of churn or defection is increasing as well. How can this be? Why do customers who appear to be satisfied, or tell us they're satisfied, defect to the competition?

There is a growing body of research on customer decision making and loyalty that supports our very strong point of view.

In Human Sigma published by Gallop Press, John Fleming and Jim Asplund present the results of several fascinating studies that illuminate customer behaviour. They have analyzed customer satisfaction ratings and found that those customers who are extremely satisfied can be classified into two distinct groups - rationally satisfied and emotionally satisfied. They report that the rationally satisfied customers, although extremely satisfied, lack a strong emotional attachment to the company. And just as we might all predict, emotionally satisfied customers outperform rationally satisfied customers on all dimensions - average spend, frequency, loyalty, rate of defection, etc. One of the most fascinating findings however, is that, (and please read this slowly), rationally satisfied customers behave no differently than dissatisfied customers! Wow! Interesting findings.

In a study of "advocating" the authors report similar results. Rational advocates, who report that they are extremely likely to recommend a company to others, ultimately behave very similar to non-advocates. And course, passionate (emotional) advocates deliver far superior performance on all dimensions. Wow! Human Sigma is an excellent book if you need more data to develop a strong point of view about service.

So, the only outcome you should strive to create for your customers is the 'WOW", the positive and memorable experience - the emotional experience.

Nothing else really matters!