I had the pleasure of chatting with my colleague, Bob Thompson, on my July 25th podcast! What a great show. One of the biggest points that we chatted about was that it often takes so little to delight the customer – it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money for the company; yet it adds incremental value for the customer. Secondly, the human factor matters and it has to be baked in. Technology can be a tool to delight customers in conjunction with a human touch. In fact, Bob asked Intuit how they measure delight? Intuit says – “with a smile.” That’s human!
How do you create a better customer service experience?
Without having service baked into your company values and your DNA, technology alone is not a sustainable differentiation – unless your entire ‘value-add’ (minor jargon alert!!) is unique IP/ tech (Apple, Google…etc). That means having a human-centered focus is key (score for “keeping it human”!). His point: technology can automate what humans don’t do well; however, technology alone can’t scale that critical human touch (I didn’t pay Bob to say that. He just knew that I was right!). Finally, Bob mentioned that marketers need to think about differentiation more than they do delighting; that’s one of the 5 habits of successful companies. The little things can make a huge difference.
Bob’s new book on customer-centric companies is out later this year. Bob is a blast and we’ll have him back on the show.
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