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Friday, April 3, 2015

Customer Experience

Around two years ago , my mom was planning to buy spectacles for herself .  I told her about the new shop which offered 1 on 1 free . The offer had been running for quite some time . I said she should give it a try . She said  , "I went there , the shopkeeper wasted good 15 mins of mine . He offered me tea which I didn't want ."  I had many other things do , which she always has. So he was short on Manpower , I said  . Mom said , yes and he still wasted a lot of time with customer who also didn't buy anything.  This is a classic case which made me wonder on "what customer wants ?" while he would always know what he needs .

When you give what customer wants , you do good . However if you could also fulfill what custome wants, you create an experience . Experience  that would retain him longer . Ofcourse,
today it goes without saying that quality of your product/service  should meet the standards and it should be value for money . ( And yes , I think Apple is certainly value for Money)

How do you create an experience ? How much do you invest in creating an experience ?

Its not necessary what works for others will work for you .  This applies to both a marketing/sales manager and the owner of the company . The reason being every person and company is different . In short I am talking about traits of person or company .  A company which sells quality goods at value for money and offers an excellent after sales automatically creates an experience for customer. But will customer cherish it ,or will move on to another competitor as his own class rises with time . That , ability to pay has increased and you might do incremental improvements to product , but the product/service will be no longer being required by the customer . Hence , everyday is a challenge . Everyday you need to build new strategy and innovate to retain consumer,

The experience should be personalised  and personalised certainly does not mean filling inbox with promotions . There is this new term I'd like to coin, "You can't say "we don't do this"". Bata Shop at Viviana Mall Thane  created a small space for children's play area . The toys are are carefully selected & are placed on a thick mat  in view of safety .  I need not tell how wonderful it is for parents.   A person certainly looks forward to visit shop  with family again. People often question customer's intentions on such freebies. But what they should know is & it is true i.e, "Customer is the most important person on your premises" .

Its important for you to know who is your customer . While Restaurants & multiplexes could multiply this strategy , there are many businesses who can't afford to do this . This may not gel with their business model like supermarket or departmental store.

In first case strategy of tea failed with a waiting customer  , but same is successfully used by buzzing Crawford market in Mumbai . These salesman offer 4 variety of clothes to women  from store, if rejected they do not pursue them , however if women select something these people ensure a longer engagement leading to higher purchases and tea being complimentary in these engagements .

Custmor experience is key to retention in today's competitive world where every product looks similar and services are equivalently same.




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