Creating the Delighted Customer Part 1

The next topic is broken into TWO parts. Each includes a list of 12 Customer Commandments. This first part features Customer Commandments 1 through 12.

The current buzz topic in business and on the speaking circuit is how a business can continuously and effectively reinforce customer relationships. Generally, this activity is called customer service. 

The term customer service is incomplete, failing to communicate the depth of the relationship that excellent organizations develop with customers. Moreover, customer service is a self-perception, a view of how the business thinks it's serving the customer. Indeed, the business may perceive the customer as well-served, but so what? It means nothing if the customer disagrees. 

We shouldn't confuse customer service with service effectiveness. When we get our report card, our customer won't define the relationship's strength by how well we serve but how effectively we helped them in reaching their objectives. In other words, our customer style can be terrific, but we may still flunk the effectiveness test if we're not offering the substance needed to meet needs or expectations. 

Winning and keeping customers requires we provide value that propels the customer's life forward. That's good cause to elevate our thinking from providing mere customer service to the next higher level, customer satisfaction. At this level, the customer relationship focuses on the perspective of the customer, not the provider. 

While customer satisfaction is customer-defined and represents a level of customer relationship that's praiseworthy, there's an even higher level of performance that wealth-building entrepreneurial achievers seek. I call it customer delight. 

When customers are served, providers fulfill their own expectations. When customers are satisfied, customer expectations are fulfilled. However, when providers exceed expectation, they delight customers. Delighted customers become proactive supporters, our vocal cheerleaders. They become "employed customers," members of the team. 

Since 1983 I've collected thoughts that I call Customer Commandments. They create customer loyalty and delight. Here they are: 

1. Stay close to your customers. Sales people too often lose touch. Stay close. Don't contact a customer only when you have something to sell. Visit in person or by phone at other times when your purpose is simply to reinforce the relation- ship. Share a piece of pertinent information or just check to be sure all is going as planned. Practice the sales-stutter–one call to sell, then one to satisfy, then another to sell, etc. A non-selling contact is important to the health of a delighted customer relationship. 
2. The most important customer is the existing customer. We become so charged up opening new accounts we too often forget to serve delightfully those most important to us.
   A couple of years ago I encouraged a friend to open an account at a different bank. He did. Recently, another friend of his, who had been a customer of the bank for more than 25 years, found out the bank offered his new customer friend an interest-bearing checking account. The customer of 25 years hadn't been offered the same opportunity. Irritated by this omission, he changed banks.
   It doesn't pay to build a business on the backs of your existing, loyal customers. Make your deals available to all customers–not just new ones. 
3. Don't advertise–surprise. You don't develop relationships with delightfully satisfied customers with fanfare and promotion, but with action.
   Advertising stimulates business by promising a lot, then often delivering less than promised. A delighted customer results when we determine what the customer needs, promise it, then deliver more than promised.
   We're besieged by advertising promises. When it comes to the delightfully satisfied customer, however, there is no room for advertising hype. What counts is delivery. Effective organizations don't overpromise when forming their delighted customer strategy. But they do overdeliver. 
4. Be genuine. The delightfully satisfied customer can only be served by someone genuinely wanting to help. Someone focused more on the needs of the customer than his own. Genuine, caring people are givers, and in giving they achieve– for themselves, their customers, and their organization. 
5. Customer delight begins during the sale. The signing of the agreement or writing the check doesn't end the sale. That's when the sale begins. The customer's lasting impression begins during the sale and is molded after the sale. Follow up by phone, letter, note and inquiry are critical to develop- ing repeat business–and a delighted customer. 
6. Pretend you're going to lose every customer. Imagine the positive energy put into customer delight when we assume we are at risk of losing every customer after every sale. That assumption will motivate us to delight our customers. 
7. Promises are made to be kept. Making promises is easy. Keeping them isn't. The number of promises we make is less important than the number we keep. Relationships are built on expectations. It's far worse to make a promise and not keep it than not to have promised at all. Don't disappoint. 
8. Plan your style. The successful entrepreneurial organization invests time in planning. Delivering customer delight requires a planned, unique style that has the potential to become a visible service trademark. 
9. Anticipate customer needs. Demographics, which suggest who is buying, and psychographics, which tells why they are buying, are constantly changing. Anticipating the needs of tomorrow's delighted customer requires an insight into these market characteristics, as well as a willingness to change. Strategic planning and continuous customer inquiry are opportunities effective leaders use to gain access to the leading edge of market trends.
   
10. Creating delight is unconditional. We can't choose the circumstances we wish to exist when delivering customer delight. There are times when creating a delighted customer will come at great cost–even an unprofitable transaction. Nonetheless, our commitment must be uninterrupted by convenience or short-term profit consideration. 
11. Customer delight begins and ends with employees. It's a chain reaction. Extraordinary customer relationships result from extraordinary commitment to the employee. In turn, the employee commits to the delight of the customer. Only delighted employees create delighted customers. 
12. Empower the employee. The employee closest to the customer creates customer delight. The person on the firing line is key. The employee closest to the customer must have the authority to do whatever is necessary to provide customer delight. Throw out the wordy manuals and guidelines. They don't allow enough flexibility. Creating customer delight is intuitive, relying on the individual interacting with the customer to make the call on the spot.
    Empower employees on the front line–those answering the phone, working the delivery dock, and tending the sales desk-to anticipate and respond to customer wants. Check the length of your customer delight leash. Give the employee enough room and flexibility to create the delightfully satisfied customer.