Customer Experience – Consistent vs. Personal
We always talk about the importance of providing consistent customer service but isn’t making it personal better? Don’t we all want to feel validated as individuals?
They might have excellent service, but it doesn't look personal...
For most companies, consistency equates to process, and they, in turn, dehumanise the experience.
Recently, Dennis Snow posted Customer Service Wows – It’s About Consistency. I agree but recently I’ve been wondering about the importance of personalisation.
Now, I’m not criticising Dennis, I appreciate his work and agree with what he says. I believe his point is that we should be making the level of service consistent.
But delivering a “Wow!” experience while allowing employees to connect personally with customers is even better.
If I take Dennis’ story and then add that when he returns the hostess remembers that you prefer a quiet corner table away from the kitchen, wouldn’t that make the experience better. Won’t the customer feel important?
Which is more important? Being consistent or personalising the experience? I think you must deliver consistency but don’t define the details, don’t turn it into a procedure. And, then allow and encourage your employees to make a personal connection. That’s how you create Customer Excellence.
So, have you thought about this? How do you think consistency and personalisation should be mixed? Should they? Is one more important?
Cheers
Eric
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maitre d
photo credit: gbergin
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Comments
Rich has it right. Consistently personal is the winner. I would add that “personal” means mapping to what the customer wants.
There are customers that like formal a bit detached etc… Map to that. There are customers that like effusive, personal, attached — map to that.
If not, we make the mistake of thinking everyone wants super touchy feely and in the end we have done exactly what we are speaking out against — consistency.
Nice post Eric.
Kate
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach´s last blog ..The Best Language for Superior Customer Service
Well Eric, I believe both Consistency & Personalization are important. But we cant say one is more imortant than the other.
Personalization alone leaves the organization dependant on people reactions and responses to different situations.
I am more geared to the consistent approach, where the process is consistant across all the customers’ touch points (expecially if the process is designed based on customer expectations). Customers become aware of what to expect, and accordingly would always experience the same level of service.
Nevertheless, employees should always be training & empowered to walk the extra mile and add a personal touch to the process, all the time.
I conclude that both Consistency & Personalization are very important, but Consistency comes as a base.
what do you think?
I have to agree with Rich. While consistency is valued, we are NOT robots! We are humans and a personal touch is always preferred, especially when it comes to creating loyal customers who come back for that special feeling.
Nicole´s last blog ..The Online Shopping Guide for the Trendy Online Shopper
Great post Eric, thought provoking as always! For me, I find it very hard to separate the two and pick a most important. Personal service is all about engagement, which is vital for a “Wow” service, so is extremely important. But there is no point in delivering an exceptional service which isn’t consistent, because your service will get found out sooner or later and customers will be dissatisfied.
I’m sitting on the fence with this one and saying they are both equally important!
Thanks for getting me thinking!
Cheers,
Jed
Eric,
Great post & good food for thought.
I think both Consistency & Personalization are extremely important.
Personalization is definitely a prerequisite if we want to create a WOW experience with our customers.
Next to that Consistency in delivering a high level of service is very important, especially in this rapid globalizing business world. As a global service provider dealing with global customers you really can’t afford that your customers are served differently in different parts of the world. When dealing with global customers inconsistency in service delivery can kill your business
Bart.
Yes, indeed I want both. But I may not be your customer.
I was keynote for a leader meeting a while ago, and well into the conversation someone in back raised his hand: “What do you do if your customers don’t want a customer experience?” He shared that he was a sales leader for a packaging company, and that increasingly customers were turning away from the personal (and consistently personal) experience his company offered — and had begun putting their business out on reverse auctions on the web.
Those customers wanted an experience that was consistently IMpersonal, consistent and price driven. So I think YES – consistently personal is most often the best answer, but to truly know we must understand what needs we’re solving for which customers.
Thanks Eric for igniting a great discussion! LCI
Linda Ireland´s last blog ..Stat of the week- What does success look like
I’m not seeing the conflict, exactly. Reminds me that when I worked in consulting company, I pushed hard to ensure that each company we worked with, regardless of who the contact was, would always be routed to the same consultant to allow for both CONSISTENCY and PERSONALIZATION.
We found that we’d sometimes end up with two people consulting with the same client doing things that could be related to each other, but were not because the old way was impossible in that respect. Is it the same in a restaurant or other environment? I don’t know. You guys would know better.
Robert Bacal´s last blog ..B2B Firms Failing at Customer ServiceResearch
Good thought provoker! I think it needs to be consistently personal. While I agree with you that consistency means processes, and that is usually perceived as impersonal, we need to design into our processes the ability to put the personal touch whenever possible. If given only one option, then the personal touch wins every time. I love it that my hairdresser knows that I like lime in my water instead of lemon and has it waiting for me when I arrive for my haircut. I love it that my preferred bank teller knows that my kids like the mango flavored lollipops and gives them automatically. I love it that the place I buy my running shoes from ALWAYS sends me a thank you post card and makes some reference to my training schedule and tips we discussed. Those will always win me over. AND, I do believe that they design those personal touches into their processes.
Kristina Evey´s last blog ..What Responsiblity Does the Customer Have in Service
This is an excellent post, Eric, and a very interesting discussion.
I don’t think we have to choose between consistency and personalization. Doing so would jeopardize the success of any business.
In my opinion, organizations can only be truly successful if their performance consistently meets (and/or sometimes exceeds) the customer’s expectations. The key here is consistent delivery of great quality of service. This can only be achieved when the organizational structure, business processes and KPIs are streamlined with the customer AND the organization in mind.
By allowing minimal variation in the underlying business processes AND by hardwiring the customer in these business processes (through excellent CRM for example), organizations can consistently deliver personal service without many extra costs. Think of IVR systems that automatically identify customers, take them to the appropriate agent and show all relevant information on the agent’s screen so that the agent is able to provide a warm welcome and a personalized, effective and efficient experience.
I would suggest to enable/hardwire personalization in the underlying business processes, since this will enable the consistent delivery of personal and efficient customer experiences. In addition, I would encourage customer representatives to align with the customer’s preferences as much as possible. As Linda illustrates, customers do not always appreciate personalized service. However, I dare say that most customers like efficient service. So, if we can guarantee the delivery of efficient service with an optional personal touch, I think we’re on our way to success.
Eric,
Great post and it has me thinking about this.
Consistency is developed over time, whereas the personal approach can have an immediate impact. The problem with many businesses is that they do not allow their employees to provide personal experiences to customers. Instead it is often scripted, policy driven, and not relationship building.
It is like cardboard cutouts of employees trying to make a human interaction personal.
Both combined will create stronger bonds and deeper relationships with customers. But the mission, leadership, values, etc… must be authentic in order to blend this experience.
Great post, Eric.
Brock
Nice post Eric.
I agree with Christophe: “In my opinion, organizations can only be truly successful if their performance consistently meets (and/or sometimes exceeds) the customer’s expectations. The key here is consistent delivery of great quality of service.”
To achieve this, you need to create a Customer Experience culture in your organisation. Also it helps to have staff has a certain degree of empathy. If it’s only done by training, It will never get authentic.
Cheers,
Ronald
Ripples Business Development
Eric,
Your comment about personalization is right on. In the spirit of keeping my video clip short, I didn’t go into detail about what I meant about the service being consistently excellent. But the staff at Seasons 52 does many of the things you mention, especially as they’ve gotten to know us.
But the key point I wanted to make with the video is that it doesn’t matter if we’ve never met the server or hostess on a previous visit; we’re absolutely confident that the service will be excellent. That’s what I mean by the power of consistency. The “wows” themselves are wows because of the personal touch.
Here are a couple of posts that address the personal touch:
http://dennissnowblog.com/service-analysis/wow-service-example/
http://dennissnowblog.com/commentary/the-power-of-presence/
Anyway, you’re post generated plenty of GREAT discussion, and I’ve gained a lot from your comments as well as those of your readers.
Dennis
Great post. What I have run into so many times is the misconception of not following up and providing a status when a solution is not readily available.
As you mentioned in your post call them back anyway. Reaching out to customers with a status helps keep customers at ease while letting them know you are actively working towards a solution.
Best Regards,
James
James Sorensen´s last blog ..Investing in Customer Service Starts with Employees
Hi Eric,
thanks for this post. I spend a lot of time trying to un-complicate and capsulize this message when explaining what we do (technology to help companies ‘consistently personalize the customer experience’ is a genius way to simplify the explanation of what we do.) Glad I stumbled upon this post this morning.
Oh, and I agree it should be both, and that many organizations DO struggle with the personalization point much more than just the consistency part of the equation.
Jenn
Swyft Technology
Hi Eric
Great points made here – I believe the two things can and should be combined. I call it ‘planned spontaneity’ and it’s about encouraging and empowering employees to proactively (even, consistently) spot opportunities to ‘personalise’ the customer experience.
For anyone interested, here’s an article about it:
Keep up the good work!
Andy Hanselman
Andy Hanselman´s last blog ..Are You ‘Plugged In’ To Your Customers
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Eric,
great thoughts as usual…………but how about if service is CONSISTENTLY PERSONAL? That’s my preference!