Customer Experiences that Foster Customer Engagement

When it comes to customer experience most people place at the top of their lists Starbucks, Apple, Nordstrom and the Ritz Carlton. Up until recently, I had experienced all of these except Apple. That changed when I convinced my cousin recently to upgrade to the iPhone. So we headed off to the Apple Store at the Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, GA.

Upon arrival, I quickly understood why one blogger wrote this about his experience at an Apple Store:

In many ways, it’s more a community gathering for Apple customers and potential customers than it is a retail store.

We spent about an hour in the Apple Store and the experience was quite impressive. The concierge, Peaches, had us engaged from the moment we entered the store and everyone else we encountered paid attention to our needs to make sure we had a good experience. I am more likely to tell a friend – or to blog about — my experience at the Apple Store and encourage others to visit a store in the near future.

A visit to an Atlanta restaurant icon

The experience several hours later at KC Pit BBQ in Sandy Springs, GA not far from The Apple Store was a total contrast. After arriving, we learned the restaurant was apparently featured in the Tyler Perry film ‘Diary of a Mad Black Woman.’ Wow! That was interesting.

The KC Pit BBQ website states the restaurant is committed to

…serve you in a manner that is efficient and friendly.

So when it took over 2 hours to get our meal delivered to the table my impressions were tainted. It no longer mattered to me that this restaurant was featured in a really good movie. Nor did I believe the brand promise on the website about being served in an efficient and friendly manner.

Why?

Because customer service was lacking at KC Pit BBQ. The employees were not equipped or empowered to deliver on the brand promise and as a result, we were left to become disengaged customers.

We can only assume the wait staff, the kitchen staff, the bar tending staff and the management of this restaurant experienced a communications breakdown because service from these three functions was deplorable. We were not afforded the opportunity to be engaged in the process. There was no initiation on the part of the manager or the wait staff to inform us of the status of our meal. We were offered a 25% discount but no personal apology was extended.

The Cost of Poor Customer Service

You can put this in perspective after reading a study commissioned by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories which found that poor customer service cost companies over $330 billion in lost business. That’s an aggregate total based on surveys of over 8,000 customers in 16 countries but the result is still the same, poor customer service costs money.

The comparison of an experience at the Apple Store to that of KC Pit BBQ is an apples to oranges comparison. Even still, studies like the one above are evidence that customer engagement can drive business results, whereas a bad customer experience results in lost revenues. 

Solutions to the Problem 

Better training of the restaurant staff is a good place to start. Those involved in meal preparation must understand how their actions impact the wait staff. Better communication between food preparation, the wait staff and management could have been a deal breaker for KC Pit BBQ. More importantly, communication with the customer was needed to ensure a repeat visit.

An investment in technology to help the entire staff better communicate can elevate this chain of restaurants into a strong competitor in Atlanta. Give employees a chance to identify problems and offer solutions. After all, the employees are on the front line and see first-hand where the breakdown in communication occurs. Management can provide training so that employees know how to respond in a way that does not alienate the customer but builds customer loyalty.

Given the growth in social media and the ability of customers to share more openly with others in their network means word can travel fast when there’s a good customer experience and consequently, when there’s a bad customer experience. There are companies that know the value of customer service. Unfortunately, others don’t learn until they see revenues start to slide and wonder what they can do about it.