Comments on: What is your Best Customer experience? http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2009/10/26/what-is-your-best-customer-experience/ Planning, Nurturing and Reaping Profits Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:15:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Mark Price http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2009/10/26/what-is-your-best-customer-experience/comment-page-1/#comment-258 Mark Price Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:35:50 +0000 http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/?p=139#comment-258 Bill -- Your points are well taken. The first step in translating customer-centricity to the retail floor is to recognize your Best Customers. This recognition ideally requires the delivery of customer intelligence to the sales floor, which is no small deal for companies with a lot invested in their POS systems. But even if they can't drive the data to the level they need, retail associates can verbally profile customers to identify their segments and potential needs. Chicos, the women's retailer, does just such a thing. As women enter the store, they are asked if they are Passport members. If they are, they are then alerted to additional discounts that accrue to those best customers. The system is largely informal, but still has some impact in recognition. The next step is to create an experience for Best Customers that will differentiate the store and encourage repeat and referenceability. Architecting those experiences requires departments to work together to craft experiences and then empower the staff to employ those experiences when appropriate. Challenges are (1) coordination of departments and (2) staff empowerment. Lots of challenges to company structure and hierarchy, but with lots of benefits as well. Bill — Your points are well taken. The first step in translating customer-centricity to the retail floor is to recognize your Best Customers. This recognition ideally requires the delivery of customer intelligence to the sales floor, which is no small deal for companies with a lot invested in their POS systems.

But even if they can’t drive the data to the level they need, retail associates can verbally profile customers to identify their segments and potential needs. Chicos, the women’s retailer, does just such a thing. As women enter the store, they are asked if they are Passport members. If they are, they are then alerted to additional discounts that accrue to those best customers. The system is largely informal, but still has some impact in recognition.

The next step is to create an experience for Best Customers that will differentiate the store and encourage repeat and referenceability. Architecting those experiences requires departments to work together to craft experiences and then empower the staff to employ those experiences when appropriate. Challenges are (1) coordination of departments and (2) staff empowerment.

Lots of challenges to company structure and hierarchy, but with lots of benefits as well.

]]> By: Bill Self http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2009/10/26/what-is-your-best-customer-experience/comment-page-1/#comment-256 Bill Self Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:45:49 +0000 http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/?p=139#comment-256 Mark, You've touched on one of my pet peeves in loyalty: the ability to recognize your elite customers and treat them differently. Recognition really has two levels of meaning: 1. The organization's ability to recognize, as in 'reward' its best customers. This certainly does not have to take the form of financial rewards, although it could. I am a Diamond VIP member of one hotel chain and it would be nice for the person behind the desk to simply say, "Welcome back. Thanks for being one of our elite customers." But that never happens. All they do is send me more reward points to be used some time in the future. 2. The organization's ability to tell its employees who its best customers are, as in literally recognizing you personally and knowing that you are not entering the store for the first time. This carries over into cultural changes to demonstrate to employees how to, in fact, take care of these customers properly. I believe that the capability to recognize its top 5% of customers is the number one way to differentiate an organization in the next 3-5 years and that the first ones to occupy that "space" will rule their industry. -Bill Mark,
You’ve touched on one of my pet peeves in loyalty: the ability to recognize your elite customers and treat them differently. Recognition really has two levels of meaning:
1. The organization’s ability to recognize, as in ‘reward’ its best customers. This certainly does not have to take the form of financial rewards, although it could. I am a Diamond VIP member of one hotel chain and it would be nice for the person behind the desk to simply say, “Welcome back. Thanks for being one of our elite customers.” But that never happens. All they do is send me more reward points to be used some time in the future.
2. The organization’s ability to tell its employees who its best customers are, as in literally recognizing you personally and knowing that you are not entering the store for the first time. This carries over into cultural changes to demonstrate to employees how to, in fact, take care of these customers properly.

I believe that the capability to recognize its top 5% of customers is the number one way to differentiate an organization in the next 3-5 years and that the first ones to occupy that “space” will rule their industry. -Bill

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