Eliminating negative experiences does not necessarily lead to positive customer experience, commitment, loyalty and advocacy.
Recently, Maritz Inc. reported that 68% of Americans defected from a company because of poor service. One of their conclusions, It is the customer experience that truly holds the potential to be a positive differentiator or a downfall for a company. Customers have made it clear that they won’t stand for poor service experiences and will take their business elsewhere.
While I agree that the customer experience is the primary source of competitive advantage these days, I do quibble with the implication that eliminating negative services experience will by itself lead to a compelling customer experience.
First, in an era of abundance and choice, customer often see products as commodities and make purchases decisions based on the best trade-off between price and convenience. In this case, even if the experience is not negative, the next purchase could go to company offering the best trade-off.
Second, in their book “Paradox of Excellence,” David Mosby and Michael Weissman make the case that companies that deliver flawless service time and time again can easily be taken for granted.
To deliver customer experiences that customers find compelling, the customer must become emotionally or psychologically engaged. This engagement signals that the experience has intrinsic value or meaning to the customer. Often this occurs because through the experience the customer has gained additional predictability and control over uncertainty or complexity in their world. It could also occur because they have experienced an increase in relationship value which will help them deal with future uncertainties in their world.
