One of the best ways of explaining how CX works is by giving real life examples of Customer Experience Excellence. We have found genuine customer stories and shared insights into how these bring to life the Six Pillars in our CX framework.

The Six Pillars are based on creating emotional connections with customers and include Personalisation, Integrity, Empathy, Time & Effort, Expectations and Resolution.

Ireland waves goodbye to Hailo

Albert Einstein remarked that “a thing should be made as simple as it can be but not simpler.”

The handover from Hailo to MyTaxi has been one of the smoothest and most straightforward I’ve experienced with a mobile app. As soon as I downloaded the app and opened it, it immediately gave me the option to merge all my details with my Hailo app.  No inputting data, no redoing my credit card details. Simple

What is the least number of steps required for the customer to achieve their objective? A recent much publicised advert from Lidl dramatized how much easier they are to do business with than Morrisons. The ad listed the 44 steps you needed to undertake to achieve lower prices via rival supermarket Morrison’s loyalty card, or the ad said “you could just go to Lidl”. Our research shows that any more than three steps begin to irritate or confuse. NPS scores tend to fall at step 4. I counted a total of 3 steps from downloading the new MyTaxi app to actually ordering a taxi, which exceeded my expectations having been worried about making the switch initially.

 

Emergency necessities in a flash

For a price of between one and five dollars, students on Stanford University’s campus can now order an emergency delivery of essentials. Based on the idea that many of the items that people need while out and about are already at home, Letsjetpack provides travel sizes of 15 different products. Delivery is by fellow students, known as ‘Jetpackers’.

Rather than having to make an extra trip to the store, students download the app, select the products that are needed and within minutes, receive their delivery. From deodorant and energy drinks to painkillers and Kleenex, LetsJetpack covers most daily remedy needs. The founder of the company is planning to expand soon and bringing in the idea of selling themed kits, such as hangover cures or cold remedies.

Letsjetpack have built their business with the pillars of Time&Effort and Empathy in mind. Being students themselves, they understand the nightmare that can come from forgetting essential toiletries or cosmetics and are prepared to get them to whoever needs them, whenever or wherever.

 

The case of the missing textbooks

Is there anything better than a good mystery? This particular case involved a schoolbag full of GCSE textbooks being left aboard a train. As far as excuses go, it’s not quite ‘the dog ate my homework’, but it’s close. Harriet, a member of staff, could have handed in the bag to lost property. But instead, she imagined what a nightmare losing all of your GCSE work must be, and put on her detective hat. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many clues in the bag, so Harriet followed her detective’s instinct and took a look at the textbooks. She discovered the name of the student’s school, and then gave them a call. Then, with a little help from teachers, she tracked down the lucky student, and reunited them with their work. Case closed!

Resolution is an important aspect of The Six Pillars. Indeed, every brand should prepare for such an eventuality in their customer experience strategy as, even with the most refined processes, there is a high likelihood of something going wrong. For organisations, the art lies in being able to deal with problems swiftly and efficiently. And if a member of staff is willing to go ‘above and beyond’ to resolve a customer’s problem, the customer may end up with a better opinion of the brand than they had before the problem.

Story courtesy of Virgin Trains –to read more Virgin customer stories visit their site here

 

 

Pizza on command

Anyone can now place an order for Dominos with the Google Assistant on Google Home by saying, “OK Google, order Dominos.” At that point the customer is seamlessly handed off to Dom, Dominos home-grown voice-activated virtual ordering assistant. Dom guides the customer through the ordering process using natural-language ordering technology. And if a customer doesn’t have ‘Google home’ they can do the same with the app on their phone.

Key parts of the customer experience (often because they happen first) are the time we spend waiting and the effort we have to expend to achieve our objectives.

Managing waiting time and effort is therefore critical to positive memories of the experience. Now that customers don’t need to expend any effort other than saying a command to their phone or ‘Google home’, all that stands in the way of them eating their pizza is the delivery time, which can be monitored on the app.  Dominos Pizza is covering every aspect of the customer journey brilliantly.

Staff hold the key to remarkable experiences

A bank customer needed to withdraw cash from his account late on a Friday. Luckily for him the teller in the bank was willing to go out of her way to help a customer in need. Read the story below.

My wife and I had been in Florida when late on a Friday afternoon I got a call from my brother telling me that my mother had passed away. I started making arrangements to fly up to NY to take care of everything, and realizing that I needed a lot of cash, I quickly asked my wife to call the bank and see what time they closed at.”

“I got to the bank, and found it was locked, but knocked on the door, hoping someone would still be there. A woman came to the door, unlocked it and let me in, telling me that she spoke to my wife. She said she was sorry about my mother and that the vault was locked so she couldn’t get any cash. But she told me to sit down, and said “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.” She went back to the front door, went out, and locked me in the bank. There I was, locked inside a bank branch by myself on a late Friday afternoon. A few minutes later she came back to the front door, unlocked it, and came back in. She then gave me four $100 bills and said “I know this isn’t as much as you wanted, but I hope it can tide you over until you can get more.” I asked her where she got the money from, and she said “I went out to the ATM and took it out of my account. You can pay me back when you get back from NY.”

Some things can’t be taught to staff. This is definitely an experience that falls under this bracket. It just goes to show the importance of hiring the right people. Staff who are willing to go out of their way for your customer are your most important asset. They are the face of your business and have the power to make your customer’s experience with it a remarkable one, or a poor one.

 

We are always looking for examples of CX Excellence. If you have any yourself please send it on to us and we will feature it in our blog.

If you would like to explore how your company can activate CX excellence, e-mail Michael Killeen to discuss further.