I read somewhere that handshakes were originally invented as a way for two people to approach each other and show that neither was holding a weapon. In only a few months, confronted by the realities of a virus, that age-old ritual has come to an end. It is now replaced by the rather odd elbow bump, foot shake or the contact free head nod.
The point is that humans are designed to consistently evolve. When confronted with sufficient evidence, we know to leave certain practices and norms behind. So why does surprising and delighting customers remain so popular?
The idea that companies must delight their customers has become so mainstream that many managers and small business owners will be quick to tell you that delighting customers is at the cornerstone of their business and will have walls full of customer reviews and feedback to back this up. This is hardly surprising. Conventional wisdom dictates that consumers are more loyal to the businesses that go above and beyond to exceed customer expectations. As a result of this, brands bending over backwards to offer refunds, extras and freebies is so embedded in the marketing world that brand custodians hardly second-guess it.
However, research done by Harvard Business Review found that despite the Herculean and costly efforts firms say they invest in delighting consumers, ‘delighted’ consumers are not more loyal than simply ‘satisfied’ customers.
One largely ignored reason for this is that consumers are much simpler than we often assume. The average consumer will buy from a company because they’re functional. Meaning that said company delivers quality products or services, at great value. Similarly, they will leave another because it fails to deliver on those services that they consider essential.
Simply put, consumers are more likely to punish bad service than they are to reward delightful service. Need proof? First, think about how many times people (even the most influential people) have called for the boycott of certain services– Netflix, H&M, certain FMCG brands, etc. Yet these companies continue to grow because they deliver on their fundamental use case. Next, think about how often you patronise a company solely on the basis of its over-the-top services? Sure, you can think of a few examples but you probably cannot come up with many.
Now think of how likely you are to cut off a company that offers you terrible service. The list is likely to be long. Whether it’s the airline that loses your luggage, your internet service provider that is consistently providing epileptic data, the vendor who doesn’t understand what “same day delivery” means or even your local dry cleaner that heard ‘ruin’ when you said ‘clean.’
What’s worse is that the thing that is ‘surprising and delighting’ today, quickly becomes mundane and expected tomorrow such that the surprise and delight approach often results in entitled customers filled with unrealistic expectations. Take the giveaway culture on social media as an example, there was a time, not so long ago where the words “I’m doing a giveaway” worked my magic– riling engagement up, attracting myriads of followers. Now it’s taken for granted and no longer serves as a differentiator.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that delighting customers is not the loyalty building block we think it is. Doing what you say you will do and reducing the amount of work they need to do to have their problems solved does. Consumer loyalty has much more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even vanilla-plain promises (helping consumers do what they want to do as quickly and easily as possible, making it simple and convenient and offering the best overall value for money) rather than on how dazzling the service experience might be.
Acting on this insight can help firms to improve customer service and lifetime value, while simultaneously reducing service costs and churn.
Translating this insight into service designs that seek to create the most convenient experience for the consumer can be liberating, not only for top line executives and business owners, but also for frontline employees. Telling employees to ‘exceed customer expectations’ is a gateway for confusion, time wastage and expensive offerings. On the other hand, providing structure and process that allows them meet your consumers fundamental expectations gives them a solid foundation for action.
N.B: In the spirit of making things quick, easy and valuable, I’m recommending that in the wake of the demise of the handshake, we collectively adopt a Covid-19 compliant form of greeting where we share a welcoming squirt of hand sanitiser.
Upvote my idea with a comment. There will be no giveaways as a reward.
Interesting thoughts It is a given that meeting customer’s expectations is the best way to ensure long term business sustainability, but often times, brands fall short of their promise to their customers. Valid point Terver. Having a quality product, that does what it says it will do, at the point of conversion, is the best strategy.
Precisely Muyiwa! Someone asked me “if competition is very stiff and there’s parity across the market, won’t delighting customers provide an edge?” My response was that she was looking the answer in the eye already. There’s opportunities to break parity- optimising pricing, investing in initiatives that serve to grow brand love, differentiation with bundle deals and strategic partnerships. The list goes on.
Well said Terver. Small businesses should retain their earnings to grow themselves and not give away what they don’t have enough of.
These small businesses give away what they should be keeping because they are influenced by societal culture. However, cultures can change based on a superior knowledge.
Delivering excellent service will keep more loyal customers than giving freebies will.
Instead of giving freebies, small businesses can creatively do a budget corporate social responsibility project in their small environment.
Agreed! Thanks for sharing Ope.
You got jokes on the covid compliant hand greeting! Lool I’m not sharing liquids with anyone. Lool. (Pun intended). I definitely agree with you about the waning power of giveaways in the social media world. I can just imagine my current crappy internet service provider(Tizeti) trying to do a giveaway! I would roll my eyes ????? fix your service first. Then you can do give away later. Lool. Thanks Terver this is a great article reminder for everyone including me. I’ll definitely focus on delivering great service first!
Keep doing what you’re doing so brilliantly Ajoke! So much magic in what you do ?
I will have a welcoming squirt of hand sanitiser ready for you at our next meet ?
Steve jobs: “Some people say, ‘Give the customers what they want.’ But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'”
Spot on Terver and the application is wide. Many of the things that people pile on to their plate, in the name of being everywhere for their customers, is just a distraction. Your first responsibility as a business is to solve the problem you promised to solve. Solving it excellently is already a delightful “Wow”, because your customers encounter mediocre service everyday. After that, we can talk about other bells and whistles.
Framing this comment and hanging it on my wall TM!
Hushpuppi and Tundeednut fans won’t like this (the giveaway part) ..
Quality products will always be the major thing at the end of the day, if you like giveaway 100million naira to promote a product, if it lacks quality you won’t still capture the market you seek.
When you deliver quality, you gain loyalty from the consumer, and free publicity because they would likely recommend your product to family and friends. A lot of people that look forward to giveaways on social media barely even buy or patronize the brand/products.
Take for example St. Louis sugar ( the cubes ), the first and last time I saw an advert from them was in the early 90s, and ever since their products has been doing the talking to the point that when people think of sugar cubes they automatically go for them, but I’ve seen other brands come and go even after all the publicity and giveaways (Dangote inclusive).
Small businesses should invest their money into making their products top notch, and when they can achieve that consistency, they can win and retain customers.. No doubt, Giveaways/Good customer service can get you a customers, but quality makes them stay..
Quality will always be key.
Couldn’t agree more CJ!
I blame the internet. It has made princes of all of us. Everyone with internet access is an engagement, an impression, a conversion or whatever else we use to make stats out of people scrolling. Entertainment and marketing were always intertwined from the start, but it’s more so today than ever. We’ve gone from crowding outside the one balling neighbour’s dusty louvered window to watch one home movie or a match – well, we on the streets have ;), to just lounging while literally the whole world struggles to get a snort out of us.
These give-away merchants don’t realise that their best efforts to surprise and delight are now just as forgettable as any cat video today. Not only is the tactic barely useful by itself, it’s lazy and drains resources that would otherwise go to making the product better at its core.
All this is to say that I agree with you completely. I almost matched your whole article in length… No vex, brevity isn’t one of my strengths. I dey feel you ma, omo Iya mi, ma fo. Not sure what that means, but we on the streets use it so…..
Enjoyed reading this comment Eke and couldn’t agree more.