GumDrops boutique in Vancouver's beachside Kitsilano neighbourhood appeals to the emotions by evoking memories of early childhood. Owner Shanda Jerrett isn't looking for a quick sale. Instead, she wants to make customers feel like friends.
Before Shanda Jerrett opened GumDrops Wet Weather Boutique in late 2007, she thought carefully about the customer experience she wanted to provide. Located in Vancouver's beachside Kitsilano neighbourhood, her shop greets visitors with a colourful display of fashion-forward raincoats, gumboots and outdoor accessories. Ms. Jerrett says GumDrops appeals to the emotions by evoking memories of early childhood – and offering an escape from the West Coast's frequently gloomy weather.
In the same spirit, she and her staff aren't looking for a quick sale. Instead, Ms. Jerrett explains, they make their customers feel like friends. "If someone walks in and they have an awesome experience – they're just looking and I don't have what they want and I can find it for them at another store, I'm more than happy," she says. "My job is to fulfill a customer's needs, whether or not that customer is giving me money straightaway or they're giving me word of mouth."
This low-pressure strategy appears to be working for GumDrops, which has never run an advertising campaign. But the company is also smart about gathering information that will help it build customer relationships. Staff match shoppers with the right product by asking them how they will use it. And when Ms. Jerrett swipes someone's credit card, she thanks them by their first name. "When they come back in next time, I always have it in my mind [to ask] 'Oh, how did that trip go? How did it work out? Was everything good?'"
To make her business grow and sharpen its customer experience, Ms. Jerrett is reorganizing. Besides running the shop, she oversees GumDrops' online storefront. Ms. Jerrett – who also designs her own raincoats – has learned that each of these tasks is a full-time job. Another challenge is that calls from the website land in the shop, which isn't set up to deal with them.
In search of the right balance, Ms. Jerrett has decided to separate GumDrops' production, e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retail divisions. Starting this month, she is franchising the shop and handling website calls through a dedicated 1-800 number.
For GumDrops, service is just one facet of customer experience, or CX, which encompasses everything that happens between a firm and its customers. Large or small, many companies lack a big-picture view of CX. They may also forget that their relationship with a customer doesn't end with money changing hands. Instead, it takes a new turn when that buyer becomes a user who expects support and recognition.
A company deals with customers through several channels, notes Tedde van Gelderen, president of Toronto-based human experience design firm Akendi. Typical channels are a physical storefront, a website and an interactive voice response system. "But at an experience level, these kinds of things are really not connected for a lot of organizations, and that's where they get into trouble," Mr. van Gelderen says. "As a customer, you get this disconnect where people don't understand why they're treated so well in one channel and so poorly in the other."
Sometimes, a company will favour a particular channel, he adds. Mr. Van Gelderen says Canadian Tire used to offer online shopping, but now its website is only for product searches. "The clear signal to anybody who interacts with that company is that, 'Well, we don't take the Web seriously – we don't even try to make it on an equal footing with the bricks-and-mortar version.'"
Anson Lee, director of customer experience strategy at Vancouver- and Calgary-based branding agency Karo Group, says mapping out a company's CX breaks departments out of their silos. When Karo helps clients with websites, it usually starts by talking to the IT folks or the marketing team. "And when you ask them to come together, it's often the first time they've ever met," Mr. Lee says. "As a result, you've got some interesting conversations happening – sharing of information – fortunately now all working toward the same goal."
Understanding what's broken and bringing all channels up to the same level is only one part of the equation, Mr. van Gelderen says. Post-purchase, he observes, companies often fail to recognize that customers are now users. "The dynamic with the organization changes very much, because now I'm looking to get something done quickly and efficiently," Mr. van Gelderen says. "Motivations and expectations are shifting from the buyer experience to the user experience."
Mr. Lee can relate. When the coating started to come off his set of KitchenAid pots, he visited the company's customer support website. Mr. Lee found sophisticated online tools for self-diagnosing product problems – but no number to call and no mention of his complaint. "While the customer service, say, of the purchase itself, or maybe the pre-purchase information would have been adequate, the post-purchase had completely failed," he says.
On the other hand, U.S. cable and Internet giant Comcast is using Twitter as a low-bandwidth means of customer support. Mr. Lee says Comcast has an employee who watches for and responds to complaints on the popular social networking service. "Small businesses can easily use [Twitter]to interface with their customers and also attract customers," he adds.
When companies create a product or service, Mr. van Gelderen says, they spend considerable time and money on pre-purchase CX. Once the sale is made, though, many often neglect to keep people happy. But Mr. van Gelderen says the ultimate goal should be client experience – turning users into loyal long-term clients by making them feel special.
As an example of how not to do client experience, he points to the phone companies. "The way that people are treated by a lot of carriers doesn't feel all that different when I'm with them for a week or when I'm with them for 10 years," Mr. van Gelderen says. "And even after 10 years, when I pick up the phone and call them, I get treatment that feels very much like, 'Well, you don't actually know me, do you?'"
According to Mr. van Gelderen, Apple makes a rare attempt at client experience by trying to keep people with it and making a difference in customer service. After buying an affordable support plan, customers can visit the Apple Store for help and training. Apple also offers online and phone support, but using its bricks-and-mortar channel is much more personable, Mr. van Gelderen explains.
"That's a pretty unique and smart thing to do, because it's directly related to client experience," he says. "It's directly related to, 'Oh you bought a computer from us, you bought an iPhone from us, but we didn't forget about you.'"
For Apple, this strategy does more than win loyal clients. It also gets people excited enough to start recruiting new customers on the company's behalf. "You're not just a user any more," Mr. Lee says. "You're a raving advocate."