Improve Customer Service by Delivering the Right Experience
Kevin Stirtz
January 27, 2009
I surf the Internet a lot. As a writer and speaker it comes with the territory. And I don´t mind, except when I have to deal with insanely slow websites. There are a few websites I use on a regular basis that are horribly slow. I call them "coffee cup" websites because you can go get a cup of coffee between screen changes.
That drives me crazy because it wastes my time. And I know it doesn´t have to be that way. I know this because several months ago I noticed my website was behaving badly. It was slow. Very slow. So I began looking into the problem. I educated myself on possible causes and solutions. Then I made a variety of changes based on what I learned.
The result is my website is much faster. The user experience is greatly improved because you don´t have to wait as long to get to where you want to go. You can find the information you want faster now.
This experience tells me that consistently slow websites remain slow because their owners do not make the changes they need to enable them work work better. Either they don´t realize how slow their website is. Or they know but they don´t make any changes.
Either way, they are ignoring their customer´s experience. They are not working to give the customer the experience they want.
(I understand not everyone cares about web site speed. But most people do. And I understand there are others things people want from their web surfing experience. But I believe speed is at or near the top for most Internet users. )
If your business depends on a website to serve customers and it´s slow, then you are not giving your customers the best experience. You´re probably not giving them what they want. And you might be driving customers away. Because our world moves faster every day. And a slow website could signal to a customer that your business is either falling behind, or you don´t care enough to offer them a better experience.
And beyond your website, are there other ways your business might be delivering the wrong experience to your customers? This is a good time to step back and evaluate different aspects of your organization. Take a look at how you´re doing things in light of what your customer want from you.
To keep it manageable, take them one at a time. Then ask your customers and employees, what experience should you be providing? Are we doing it? Can we improve? How? (Make a list of these "How" items.)
Then do some of the "How" things you come up with. Work through the entire list.
Do that with every aspect of your business that touches your customers. That should help keep your customers coming back and it will improve some of your operations. Not a bad way to start a new year!
That drives me crazy because it wastes my time. And I know it doesn´t have to be that way. I know this because several months ago I noticed my website was behaving badly. It was slow. Very slow. So I began looking into the problem. I educated myself on possible causes and solutions. Then I made a variety of changes based on what I learned.
The result is my website is much faster. The user experience is greatly improved because you don´t have to wait as long to get to where you want to go. You can find the information you want faster now.
This experience tells me that consistently slow websites remain slow because their owners do not make the changes they need to enable them work work better. Either they don´t realize how slow their website is. Or they know but they don´t make any changes.
Either way, they are ignoring their customer´s experience. They are not working to give the customer the experience they want.
(I understand not everyone cares about web site speed. But most people do. And I understand there are others things people want from their web surfing experience. But I believe speed is at or near the top for most Internet users. )
If your business depends on a website to serve customers and it´s slow, then you are not giving your customers the best experience. You´re probably not giving them what they want. And you might be driving customers away. Because our world moves faster every day. And a slow website could signal to a customer that your business is either falling behind, or you don´t care enough to offer them a better experience.
And beyond your website, are there other ways your business might be delivering the wrong experience to your customers? This is a good time to step back and evaluate different aspects of your organization. Take a look at how you´re doing things in light of what your customer want from you.
To keep it manageable, take them one at a time. Then ask your customers and employees, what experience should you be providing? Are we doing it? Can we improve? How? (Make a list of these "How" items.)
Then do some of the "How" things you come up with. Work through the entire list.
Do that with every aspect of your business that touches your customers. That should help keep your customers coming back and it will improve some of your operations. Not a bad way to start a new year!
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