The other day my family had a billing issue with Target. The issue itself wasn't that complicated. Fixing it was. Why? A complicated and confusing voice prompt system that made it difficult to find or talk to a real person. Want to check your account status? Easy. Want to make a payment? Easy. Want to talk to a human? Aggravating.
Content may be king, but customer experience is EVERYTHING. Everything, from the first meeting through marketing, to the experience on your website, to the greeting at your door, to the environment and treatment in your store, to the follow up after the sale... and a thousand things in between, are critical. It's no secret that a delightful customer experience leads to loyalty and repeat sales, positive word of mouth and momentum that leads to selling more stuff.
I like Target. We shop there regularly and I can't say my family has ever had a bad experience in-store. But the experience in your store isn't everything.
My frustration with Target's voice prompt system resulted in twenty minutes of wasted time and frustration before I was finally able to talk to someone, then another twenty minutes to resolve the problem.
It left a bad taste in my mouth and also resulted in me telling a bunch of people and, of course writing this post which will tell a whole bunch of other people.
Customer expeience is EVERYTHING. Are you looking at it that way?
Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/simeon_barkas/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
oh man I can relate. Bank of America fries my fritters with their laborious online computerized customer 'service' help. step after step after aggravating step.
Target and Bank of America. In this day and age they don't get it? Really? Is the customer still viewed as the irritating pissant on the line?
On the other hand, Verizon Wireless customer service has been superb. Quick responses, escape hatch out of the automated help to a human being, accomodating customer service people.
Your experience with Target goes completely against their upbeat, hip, helpful brand message.
I believe the companies with great customer service have a huge selling advantage over their competitors.
BTW, I'm transferring my BoA account to a local credit union. Driven by their crappy online customer service. There is a connection...
Posted by: Gene Brady | 10/23/2009 at 02:09 PM