Every second of the day, conclusions of a companies brand are being formed by individuals around the world.  Positive or negative is not the question nor what matters most, it’s how the company protects the brand which is the differentiators with today’s web savvy consumer.

Brand protection or Customer Experience Management as I like to now define it, is today’s art of the deal.  Prior to the web 2.0 movement traditional means of “Customer Service” represented a walk up desk in a retail store or a 1-800 number where operators are “standing by”.

“#1 in Customer Satisfaction” has become a term loosely thrown around by almost every organization, when the truth of the matter, the statistics driving that metaphor commonly used, is primarily driven off of an annoying telephone survey or a link on a big box retailers receipt inviting you to “Win $100 in groceries” for providing feedback to your shopping experience while buying diapers and sweet potatoes.

Much has changed in the past few years, yet a fundamental question still exists:

If So Much Has Changed, Why Then, Are Companies Still Providing Crappy Service?

The truth of matter is… companies simply do not know HOW to provide fantastic service.

True, that satisfaction is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone has a cocktail napkin story about how bad, a company is with their service, but at the end of the day, how is it, that the process of providing great service comes down to a link on receipt or a phone survey as you are sitting down to dinner and it’s justified as customer satisfaction?

It doesn’t & it needs to change.

Companies are fighting for market share, drooling wolves looking for the next kill per se, however the mechanism of obtaining customer feedback is only the first step in the process -  yet many end it here.

Secret Tip To Move The Needle From “Customer Satisfaction” to “Customer Evangelist”

It’s the resolution of customer issues that is what actually resolves the issues that are causing the negative expressions of satisfaction, but low and behold… organizations are analyzing statistics first and lack the ability to track, maintain, respond and confirm a customer issue is in fact “Resolved”

In conclusion:

Times of changed and so have our consumers.  In the blink of an eye the customer you have worked so hard to gain can be gone in a second and without the right method of:

First: Hearing what your customer is saying, in near real time

Second: Responding to them just as fast

Third: Managing the issue through a true “resolution process”

Fourth: Ensuring the issue has been appropriately handled to true customer resolution

Fifth: Then, Studying the metrics

Sixth: Saying you are the best of all time

Only have a few of the above covered?  You may be leaving your most precious asset on the table for competitors to feed.  Has your satisfaction program evolved to the needs of today’s consumer?

Good Question Right? What do you think?