Dare I Say It? Customers are not Transactions

The Scene
Think through your last purchase, the typical check out experience. You put your purchases on the counter. Your purchases are scanned. You swipe your credit or debit card while your purchases are bagged. The cashier hands you the receipt. In most cases, this transaction is handled efficiently and quickly.

But Something Is Missing
In the case of this common scene, if the company measures employee performance on speed and economy of interaction, then most likely the company’s metrics are met and the cashier is perceived as performing their job well. However, the customer and the company are losing out.

Interacting with customers,   in this common purchasing scenario:
•If done well, can provide an experience around products and services, and can
•Provide a wealth of information about the customer (their needs, wishes, and wants).

Does That Purchase Come with a Smile, Eye Contact, Anything?
The usual response to adding customer interaction to the purchase transaction is that it will cost money or reduce efficiency. And our reply is: how much does it cost to have an employee speak with your customer or at very least give them a smile and thank them for their business?

Let’s stay with the scene described above and put it in the context of a regular trip to the grocery store. “Grocery retailers, focused on lowering costs and increasing convenience, do little to reduce the drudgery associated with the weekly food shopping. Some companies have discovered the competitive advantage of injecting fun into traditionally neutral consumer environments.” Source: “Making Routine Customer Experiences Fun” by Ivor Morgan and Jay Reno, Mt Sloan Management Review.

What Do We Mean By Transactional?
A “traditionally neutral consumer experience” can be a non-experience in that it is only about a point-in-time process versus an interaction intended to establish an on-going relationship. Scanning, bagging, and taking payment is considered a transaction. A call to a customer service number regarding a problem is termed a transaction. Companies look at these transactions as disconnected, siloed, and isolated actions with customers. Companies that excel in moving past the transactional level with their customers deliberately gather, absorb and utilize customer preferences and feedback. They apply that knowledge in designing and delivering a customer-personalized interaction or experience that builds an on-going relationship.

Ritz Carlton is a prime example of a company that learns about its customers through interaction, and careful observation and application of that knowledge. Check in once and your preferences for pillow type, for example, are noted. Check in another time and your favorite type of pillow is miraculously on the bed in your room. In addition, the front desk staff recognizes and acknowledges you as a valued “guest”. There’s nothing like being known by name and thanked for your patronage.

Customer Service Champs List

You may be saying, well that’s fine for an upscale hotelier. Well, let’s get back to our example of shopping for groceries. Trader Joe’s has built an absolutely devoted customer base by taking what is normally a dull chore and making it a fun experience. How do they do it? It is based on the simple fact that they hire people who want to, and are good at, interacting with customers. Your purchase “transaction” is altered to a lively (yet still efficient) and engaging conversation about the products you’re purchasing, perhaps giving you a menu suggestion, and asking what else you might be looking for that they could carry in future.

BusinessWeek’s second annual ranking of Customer Service Champs concludes companies who make the list “know how to keep employees happy, make tech investments that help rather than hinder consumers, and elevate leaders who make service their mantra.” Source: BusinessWeek Special Report, March 3, 2008.

Trader Joe’s ranks an admirable number 5 on the BusinessWeek Customer Service Champs list. “CEO Dan Bain pokes fun at supermarkets that have flat-screen TVs at checkouts. His customers can entertain themselves by ‘actually talking’ to employees.” This not only meets customers’ expectations of developing a relationship with the company and its employees. Trader Joe’s has evolved and profited by learning about, and catering to, their customer’s preferences. Building devoted, raving fans as it does so.

To give you some food for thought: most commonly we see company metrics that are so inwardly-focused that the customer is completely left out of any company priorities. Even in the best companies, metrics can continually hold the customer at the transactional level.

Sue Morgan
Senior Consultant for Beyond Philosophy

By Sue Morgan | Published: September 17, 2009