Taking the customer’s perspective
Valeria Maltoni wrote a great brief piece at FastCompany.com on a recent car repair/replacement rental experience. If you are like me, you are thinking, “Man, I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about having to deal with getting my car fixed and renting a replacement for a few days.”
Sadly, that’s the same kind of feeling folks have when they’re about to purchase a home or embark on a remodeling job. WHY is that? Shouldn’t they expect something better?
My favorite part of this little article was not Maltoni’s great articulation of the impact of poor service (”[allowing your service to slip causes a] subtraction of value, allowing your brand to slip in your customers’ minds”), but it was the perspective of the article. If you need to get grounded–to put yourself back into your customers’ shoes–try to do what she did in this article:
Think about what your customers experience, beginning with your first interaction.
Is that the kind of experience YOU would want to have? Is that the kind of experience you would want your mother to have?