Level 3: At this level customers expect partnership. They want you to listen to them, to be responsive to them, to make them feel they are on the same side of the fence as you.
Service businesses have long realized the importance of this partnership expectation. That’s why Wal-Mart positions hearty senior citizens at their front door to smile a welcome and remember names. That’s why all airlines create loyalty clubs offering special treatment to frequent fliers. And that’s presumably why video stores offer a “staff picks” section: “We’re like you. We watch videos, too.”
But recently other businesses have zeroed in on the importance of looking at the world through the customers‘ eyes. For example, in the spirit of partnership, Levi’s now offers you the chance to purchase made-to-order jeans. Furnished with your measurements, the retail store relays them to the manufacturing plant, which punches out a unique pair, for your size only.
Snapple has also cottoned on to the power of partnership. To urge its target market, college students, to drink more Snapple, it promises prizes if you are lucky enough to buy a bottle with the special code under its cap. Rather than offering hard cash, Snapple decided to position the prizes to coincide with the priorities of their young consumers. Thus the first prize is presented as “Let Snapple pay your rent for a year. 12 payments of $1,000.” The second prize becomes “Let Snapple make your car payments for a year. 12 payments of $300.” Even the smaller prizes, with onetime payments, are described by the way a young college student might spend them—thus a prize of $100 becomes “Let Snapple pay your phone bill for a month.” Although few college students actually win, by presenting the prizes in this way, Snapple manages to communicate the same message to every young customer: “We understand what you are going through.”
Most businesses, whether in the service, manufacturing, or packaged goods sectors, now realize that a customer who feels understood is a step closer to real satisfaction and genuine advocacy.
Level 4: The most advanced level of customer expectation is advice. Customers feel the closest bond to organizations that have helped them learn. It’s no coincidence, for example, that colleges and schools are blessed with the strongest alumni associations. But this love of learning applies across all businesses. The big public accounting firms now place a special emphasis on teaching their clients something that will help them manage their finances more effectively. Home Depot, the home improvement retailer, proudly advertises their on-site experts who offer training on everything from plant care to grouting. And Amazon.com, the on-line bookseller, continues to build a devoted following, at least in part, because they offer customers a recommended reading list based upon what other customers, who have purchased the same book, are also reading. Everywhere you look, companies are trying to transform their tellers/salespeople/clerks into “consultants.” They have realized that learning always breeds loyalty.
Partnership and advice are the most advanced levels of customer expectation. If you can consistently meet these expectations, you will have successfully transformed prospects into advocates.
This is all well and good, but it does beg one question: How can you meet these higher-level expectations? The answer rarely lies with technology or steps. For example, customers will feel a sense of partnership only when employees are responsive. Therefore, to meet this expectation you need employees on the front line who are wired to find the right words and right tone for each specific customer. By its very definition, you cannot legislate this in advance. A sense of partnership develops in real time. It is in the hands of the employees.
The same goes for advice. Amazon.com may have found a technological solution, but they are the exception. Most teaching will occur between one employee and one customer. Realizing this, managers can certainly encourage their employees to help each customer learn something new, but teaching/learning is a very sensitive interaction. It requires a special kind of retail clerk or bank teller to find just the right time and just the right way to educate each customer. Technology can provide support. Suggested action steps can serve as guidelines. But the teaching/learning will happen, or fail to happen, based upon what transpires between each employee and each customer, moment by moment.
Gallup’s research confirms what great managers know instinctively. Forcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer dissatisfaction. If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step approach alone cannot get you there. Instead you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to teach, and then you must focus them toward simple emotional outcomes like partnership and advice. This is not easy to do, but it does have one decidedly appealing feature. If you can do it successfully, it is very hard to steal.
All of these rules of thumb help great managers decide how much of the role should be structured and how much should be left up to the employee’s discretion. But even though some aspects of the role will indeed require conformity to steps or standards, great managers still place the premium on the role’s outcomes. They use these outcomes to inspire, to orient, and to evaluate their employees. The outcomes are the point.
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