Why is it so difficult for companies to provide an amazing customer experience?

While I agree that some companies don't care, I also see many organizations that don't understand the importance of the business units that interacts the most with their customers. Many organizations incorrectly think that contact centers and front line personnel are simply cost centers and don't recognize the value of these interactions in the customer process. Contact centers and front line staff are so much more than a cost center - they are the touchpoint that sets the tone of your organization with your customers.

I am not saying that cost doesn't matter - because it does. Let's face it - most business are in business to make money. But, if you do not consider the impact your customer facing staff has on your customers and just look at the salary and technology cost, you are making a HUGE mistake. Cost AND Quality are important factors in Customer Loyalty and Revenue Generation and the full impact of these very important people must always be considered.

I agree with the statements in this discussion thread, and would like to add a couple points, based on findings from the ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Benchmarking Study, which was conducted last November:

1) Company-wide implementation of any customer experience program has been achieved by less than half of companies: 'silo' treatment of customer experience means systems thinking (holistic connectivity between processes) is missing, and issue prevention is missing. 'Lack of cross-organizational cooperation' was cited as the number one obstacle to achieving customer experience goals, followed by 'lack of CEM strategy' and 'weak follow-through on CEM strategy'.

2) Revenue is emphasized more than profit: profit growth is more than cost-cutting, if it's meant to be sustainable; profit growth means your culture mirrors customer experience -- all employees and executives truly live the brand promise, to prevent wasted time and money on things unrelated to the brand promise as perceived by customers. Contact centers are only as successful as the rest of the company enables them to be; they shouldn't be viewed as cost centers nor profit centers, but rather, as strategic centers, as they are actually one of the best sources of strategic customer information (I'd say more valuable than formal surveys), not to mention critical liaisons in the overall customer experience.

3) Weak understanding of what customer experience really is: among 9 characteristics of customer experience, none of them are fully practiced by more than 5% of companies. The best understood tenets of CEM reflect aspects of customer perception measurement. The lesser known tenets describe the customer’s high degree of control in characterizing customer experience, and the need for organizations to maintain insatiable curiosity and uncanny adaptability for delivering superior customer experiences.

4) Self-serving emphasis in customer metrics and programs: net-promoter and satisfaction surveys ask more about the company than the customer; loyalty and reference programs are more about the company than the customer, ... etc. I don't know of any long-lasting healthy human relationship that is so self-centered.

The statistics shared at SugarCon should be compelling enough, and I think many companies believe they're on the path to realizing those results. Certainly the companies listed in BusinessWeek Customer Service Champs may be the best examples. For sustainable ROI, the 4 pitfalls listed above are essential keys.

Senior Management believes that "amazing" service is expensive, difficult to implement consistently, and delivers uncertain returns for the investment. Further:

1. Senior Management already put "delight the customer" in the mission/vision statement. Management's job here is done. "Customer Service" isn't really a priority if it's not funded and measured/reported/rewarded. Nobody's annual bonus is tied to customer sat scores.

2. Those employees with the most customer contact have the least authority to make independent decisions. They are generally the lowest paid, least trained/educated and have the highest turnover. You won't get outstanding service from average employees with no authority.

3. Employees will treat customers the way the boss treats them. You won't get outstanding service from workers who feel unappreciated and replaceable.

Great question Caty. I think it comes down to a very simple issue. While a company’s executives may pay lip service to wanting to provide excellent service, how does each and every representative of the company showcase the brand? Our experience is almost always based on interaction with people. It is a human who put you on hold indefinitely… it was a sales person who ignored you in the department store… it was a flight attendant who screamed at you for not putting your cell phone away fast enough. What companies who do customer service extremely well is that they embed it into their culture. Look at Southwest Airlines or Disney. Their front line is not only trained, but each person believes they represent the brand through and through. This is a choice made by these companies to focus on customer service – not just by a quick training course or by creating a department, but by making it their top priority which they invest in and every employee lives and breathes.

It's a combination of misunderstanding and ignorance. Katy, you start with the question: “Why is it so difficult for companies to provide an amazing customer experience?” And then your response focuses totally on customer service, which is not what makes an amazing customer experience. Customer service satisfies a basic expectation customers have when they spend their money. It's a rare business that provides the service customers expect.

But an amazing experience has two qualities: Brand Delivery and Memories.

Brand delivery means that employees believe and live the brand's promise. That means they have to be trained that way. While companies mostly provide functional, technical and operational training, they rarely provide brand training.

Memories means providing more than a product or service. It means creating memorable moments in the experience that end up being part of the customer's story for that day. It's also a story then can later re-tell to friends and family.

Wouldn't that be amazing?

I think many companies know what the "stellar" customer experience is, but the following situations are stopping them.

1.) They are satisfied with revenue streams
2.) They have huge market share and aren't motivated to enhance the customer experience
3.) They are so focused on internal objectives
4.) The problems or costs to providing the customer the best experience are too great

I think it's because most businesses aren't acting with intention. Great customer experience doesn't happen by chance. If a business isn't actively pursuing the goal of providing truly exceptional service, then it just isn't going to happen. Too often the people with the first (or most) customer contact are the employees who are the most poorly trained. This is especially true in retail, where the contact is made with a store clerk who's had little training beyond the basics.

Caty, everyone wants excellent customer service but few of us are willing to or able to give excellent customer service all of the time. Customer Service Reps (CSR) that are well suited to their jobs are able to give it all of the time. For the rest of us we can provide excellent customer service...
1. most of the time
2. some of the time
3. seldom
4. never
Employers seldom know how to identify future CSRs who will provide excellent customer service all of the time so they hire the other 4 types as well as hoping to make a good hire every now and then.

A client told me that it cost $72,000 to replace a $48,000 per year customer service rep. which is a lot of money especially since he was replacing 200 CSRs per year.

Is there really Customer Service these days.

You call your cell phone company for a simple question and they put you through the ringer hoping you'll hang up.

You call your local store and are put on indefinite hold.

You go to a major department store and just wait and wait for a sales person.

You call your credit card company and get outsourced with the person who answer having no clue what they are doing or you are talking about,

It comes down to value, and many many companies feel they don't get any value from Customer Support. They are so so wrong...and it will come back and bite them with vengeance one day...

Good points made by Laureen and Jay .. and I wonder what you both think of the Ritz Carlton - and their use of employee empowerment to improve experience. You've likely read the infamous case study - where employees are given a discretionary fund (maybe a $1000 per quarter) to spend any way they want as long as it's done to enhance the experience of a guest. Other than that, there are no approvals, no pre-requisites, no forms to fill out, no one to even ask. It's ultimate employee empowerment.

For example, a woman checks in to a Ritz Carlton and mentions she's in town for her niece's birthday but hasn't had time to buy a gift - and she's in a panic. So the guy that checked her in gets the scoop on the niece, runs out and buys her a gift, beautifully wrapped. The guest is beyond thrilled (especially since the checkin guy won't take a dime for his trouble, including the cost of the gift).

Of course, this isn't the only thing that makes the experience at any Ritz Carlton amazing, but it's a piece of their customer experience program that has paid off - since to Jay's point - if gives guests tremendous storytelling fodder. The woman in this example can't wait to spread the story to her friends (who by the way, also stay in five star hotels). And to Jay's point about memory - she will likely tell that story for years to come. People love to tell these types of stories. And the loyalty factor? The woman from that case study wouldn't dream of staying anywhere else by the Ritz whenever she can.

So employee empowerment is powerful stuff. But of course it won't work without a culture of service - and executives leading by example. If the CEOs treats people well, employees in turn treat customers well. When I worked under David Packard, he treated his sales people like royalty. We in turn treated our customers the same way. And customers in turn gave us their loyalty.

I think most companies just don't understand how it can truly impact profitability and more importantly build their brand.

Most companies will spend thousands to attract new customers instead of using some of that capital to wow! their existing customers who can effectively promote their products/services to potential customers.

First they must empower employees and emphasize Customer Service/Experience and make their employees happy. Customer Experience is reflected from Employee experience.

Grind for Greatness!

My husband works for an amazing company which does believe spending $$$ on their employees.. To educate them, provide them the best in benefits, to provide the best in motivation training and so on.

This company - utc, is one of the finest companies in the World, and is also one of the most profitable and most productive.. they have seen the correlation not only in happiness and employee retention and happiness, but also in Customer satisfaction as well

You have to look at how service is provided amongst various business verticals in order to understand why it may be good or bad.

Consider auto insurance for example. Service matters most when you need to file a claim. In this model, better service means spending more money that doesn't generate more revenue.

Strategic reasons: as fat clogs a person's arteries, so can a company's service arteries become clogged by organizational cholesterol. It comes in three forms: puffery about "commitment," inadequate technology and/or people to provide customer care, and hidden but deep resentment about having to provide service at all.

We advise companies to put attention, effort, energy, and money where their service mouths are. And never view customer care or product/technical support as a cost center. Fund it and operate it as a profit center. If it is not profitable, you'll likely find the blockage elsewhere in the organization's arteries.

Tactical reasons: the rapid and universal growth of self-service technology lets companies bypass attentive, personalized sales and service transactions. Indeed, some firms seem to believe that having interaction technology automatically means they are providing service. Not so. Also, companies too often hire service people with little or no experience receiving or providing real service. One can hardly expect such people to distinguish poor service from good, or to care that there is a difference.

We urge our clients and others to provide service with a human and humane touch. Automation is fine, as long as customers can get to a smart, nice, live person right away when they need to.

... ich kann nur deutsch ;)

Ja, läuft..

Well, I will discuss this critical issue from a social media angel.

In spite of the excellent social media tools that can be easily leveraged to enhance the customer's experience, few companies seem to realize that and put it into action.

Branding is almost always the number one priority of social media marketing. But if you come to think about it, branding and customer service are inseparable. One negative review from an unhappy customer can "trash" a company's online reputation in a heartbeat!.

In spite of this simple fact, studies have shown that many businesses are using social media primarily for "broadcasting" purposes and most of them "listen" to only 1% of what customers are saying about their brands.
This article discusses this issue in details:
http://garious.com/blog/2011/03/yes-you-may-be-listening-to-1-of-what-people-...

Why are businesses overlooking customer service on social media?
There are two main reasons in my opinion:
1- They are unaware of the importance of creating an outstanding customer experience
2- They don't know how exactly to create and implement a coherent customer service plan on social media.