Abraham Venismach

Author Archives: Abraham Venismach

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“Show us the Money” in Customer Experience

How to get C-level buy-in? In other words, how do you show the value (profitability) of CX?

Question from E. Martin


Hi Martin, This a great question. It’s really the crux of the entire CX Success Summit.

I find it odd that companies have trouble buying into making the Customer’s Experience a priority.

Here are some of the main benefits that I see, then I leave it up to the experts to “Show us the Money” in CX.

Your customers are your greatest asset. Keeping them coming back for more and referring others to you is the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to grow your business. Stan Phelps, my first interview on the CX Success Summit, pointed out that studies show that your customers only know about 20% of what you do!

Studies show that customers know only about 20% of what you do.

 

Here’s a story about that from my past.

The name of our company was Ace Trophy. (Keep this name in your mind as the story unfolds.)

It was a family business. We had engraving, embroidery, and screen printing machines and could put a message and logo on just about anything. Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of our loyal customers for probably 25-30 years.

We had been printing t-shirts for a local radio station for years.  While I was in their office one day, I was asked by the buyer if I could recommend a good trophy shop for them as they needed trophies. I started to laugh and asked, “Do you know what the name of our company is?” The buyer looked at me and with a straight face, said, “Of course! Ace T…..Trophy! My goodness! Of course! You’ve been our t-shirt guy for so long it never occurred to me!” and we both had a great laugh as I took his trophy order.

Customer Experience is about keeping your customer, having them want to buy more and tell others about you.

In other words, the lifetime value of each customer.  Many companies seem to sell like they have a hole in their bucket and they do. They don’t market to their customers. Reducing the Customer churn alone can mean huge revenue to any company at a fraction of the cost it would be to acquire a new customer.

So the next time you count the “beans” starting thinking how much you lose by losing customers.

I don’t know if you saw my riddle on the site yet… but here it is… “Why did the Customer Cross the Road?” Here’s the answer 🙂

Well, that’s my two cents.

Enjoy, Abraham

Now, let’s hear from the experts!

 

Customer Pays Pizza Shop over $5,000 for Posting Complaint on Social Media

Customer’s have responsibilites too.

I found a story on one of my favorite internet news sites and thought it would be a great share.

Reading the story, I noticed that the pizza was late, and the customer complained that the pizza was non-edible and mushy. The customer refused to take the money back or get a new pizza due to the owner refusing to deliver a new pizza to the customer’s house.

I don’t think that would be unreasonable, do you?

The customer put this customer experience on Facebook, saying the pizza was disgusting and created hashtags #disgusting and #nameofpizzashop.

The customer also added things that weren’t true to the story. That’s not fair.

The pizza shop owner said that this caused him irreversible damage because it was a small town, and he had to start selling pizzas at less than cost in order to regain his reputation.

The pizzeria owner took the customer to court and won! The customer was fined over $5K.

Personally, I think that it would have been better to redeliver the pizza, apologize and give her a coupon for a discount on the next pizza. The customer might have even posted a great review.  I bet that would have gone a long way.

When you read between the lines, I don’t think that the court ruled because the customer complained on social media. Rather, the customer grossly exaggerated the experience. We as customers have the responsibility to complain responsibly. Social media is very powerful and not a game.  We need it to be a credible source of our voice as the customer. When people decide to abuse social media, it’s hurt us all.

What are your thoughts about this?


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What’s your “Izzy”?

2018 is going to be great! My wife and I are editing the CX Expert interviews. It’s a goldmine of information that will help your CX go through the roof.

Time for a taste from the CX Success Summit.

Stan Phelps

Stan Phelps is a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. His focus is on the value of customer experience as a competitive differentiator and the importance of employee engagement in building a strong corporate culture. He challenges brands to explore new opportunities, showing them how to be more successful in tomorrow’s changing world.

Here’s a clip from Stan’s interview:

Stan:
So my big mantra is: “Take care of the customers you have because they’ll bring you the customers you want.” But one of the problems that we have is; the current customers know a fraction of everything that we could do for them. Do you know what the percentage is? I just learned this last year, out of 100 percent of what you offer as a business, your products, and your services. What percentage of that do you think your current customers actually know?

Abraham:
8 percent?

Stan:
Well, a little more than that. They know about 20 percent of what you do. That’s the problem. So how do we actually get them exposure to those things? The solution is, and it’s a simple thing, called “sampling.” So we think about sampling traditionally from a marketing perspective is something that we give a little taste to a prospective customer. Why can’t we do that with the customers that we already serve? The next time you serve them why don’t you give them a little extra taste or sample of what those other 80 percent of your offerings are?

Abraham:
I like that.

Stan:
And so that’s a simple thing. I mean I’m sure you’ve been to Starbucks before. Starbucks, when they have a new drink that comes out, will make these little samples and put them on a tray walk them around the store. I love that as a great example of a sampling to your customers that are in the store already. Another one and it was in my TEDx talk is an ice cream store. A small business in St. Paul Minnesota. When you order a scoop of ice cream they let you pick a second flavor and they give it to you as a little mini scoop on top.

Abraham:
I saw that. I thought that was awesome.

Stan:
It’s a place called Izzy’s ice cream and that little mini scoop is called “the Izzy”. I think that sampling is the lowest hanging fruit in marketing. When you talk ROI, I mean literally almost one-third of the people that get a sample actually buy. Depending on what studies that you find it can be one fifth the cost or even one-tenth the cost to upsell a current customer. What happens when you can take someone from ordering one or two things from you to now ordering three or four?

Abraham:
Right, and they’ll tell other people about that cool scoop, saying, “Hey I went to buy an ice cream and they had this little scoop called an Izzy. So delicious. I recommend going and give them a try.

Stan:
The question is what’s your Izzy? It’s something that I call by the acronym G.L.U.E. Give Little Unexpected Extras. [continued on the Video on the CX Success Summit]

 

I guess this is my “Izzy” to you! Stan goes on to give more details and more great tips. May I suggest you make a note to catch Stans complete interview?

My wife and I want to wish you and yours a happy new year!

More “Izzy’s” from the CX Success Summit to come. Keep on the lookout.

Abraham & Bat-Sheva Venismach