Page 26 - Print21 Nov-Dec 2019

Business
Scott Telfer
Simple things
you feel welcome and give you good advice with a friendly smile. I noticed a couple of times once we got into a bigger centre, like Alice Springs, our dealings become more business-like.
The more I thought about it, this didn’t really make sense. In the remote locations where there is no competition, where else are you going to go for petrol or food? It’s the only stop for hundreds of kilometres, you need them more then they need you. So what is the deal?
• Is it because we just lucked it?
• Is it because the grey nomad
season had started and business
was picking up again?
• Were they just plain happy to see us? • Or they really understand that
treating the customer in the right way, they will tell other fellow travellers at rest stops what a great experience they had?
Being genuine about what you are doing goes a long way to making a good customer experience. When employees are told to be customer centric, however, and their heart is not in it, and it’s just not authentic, customers can see right through it.
I recently had an experience something like this. We purchased
a property, and while dealing with the estate agent wasn’t hard, they never seemed genuinely interested in us. They mimicked being customer centric, however, in reality I don’t think they were. Maybe it was me. Then the principal agent who was away on leave when we did the
negotiations and subsequent deal, sent me an online survey from RateMyAgent wanting a testimonial. How could I, having never met her, and only ever spoke to her once. It was like, ‘what the heck is this about?’.
Businesses need to employ the right people with the right attitude. This has to be the number one prerequisite for hiring any new staff members. How often have you heard horror stories of companies hiring high flying executives, only to find out they don’t match the company culture. Years ago Telstra hired a CEO who just didn’t cut it; more recently QBE and Myer had senior execs depart for poor attitude. The old saying ‘you hire on ability and fire on attitude’ is so true. You can have a team of champions, but not a champion team.
Your CX is the most important difference between you and your competitor. Everyone in the company from the bottom rung to the top needs to be in the right mindset when it comes to ensuring the customer is looked after in a positive way.
Understanding and being mindful of the customer is simple. Making your company simple to deal with means getting the basics right. Think about all the touchpoints in your company from the beginning to the end, and ask yourself if you are talking their language, or yours?
Back in March, Forbes stated customer experience should be simple; fast instead of slow, and fun instead of boring. Maybe the outback roadhouses already knew this. 21
For more information about how you can improve your internal culture please contact Scott Telfer at Customer CX (www.customercx.com.au) on +61 413 382 528 or scott@customercx.com.au – member of CXPA.
make the difference
Scott Telfer says the customer experience
is what separates the wheat from the chaff, Iand getting it right is a simple business.
n our industry we have many pressures. Pressure to deliver on financial returns, pay suppliers within credit limits and time frame, meet staff financial
obligations, and on top of all of this is dealing with customer expectations. We have strategies in place to
handle all these situations and mostly everything goes well. When
it doesn’t, we don’t need staff who
go into meltdown mode. What we need is calm and controlled staff who know what to do, and go about it with a minimum fuss. It is at this time that we sometimes over-complicate how we deal with the customer. We do this because we think we have to cover all the bases. We don’t want to miss any touchpoints.
Last year I had some time off
work, and travelled through central Australia, and across some remote areas. Every 250 to 300 kilometres there was a roadhouse where you could buy petrol or food. The one thing that stuck me was the politeness of the counter staff at just about all these centres. I am sure they were not trained in the latest CX techniques, let alone have any idea what CX is.
They all had one common attribute; to serve the customer correctly. Pretty simple stuff - make
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