Customer Immersion

My husband and I went to see a movie recently and in the middle of it a baby started screaming. Heads turned and a wave annoyance swept through the theater followed by the sounds of “Sheesh,” sighs and cursing.

Have you ever stopped to consider why most of us find that so irritating?

A lot has to happen to pull off a blockbuster movie. You need a great script, phenomenal actors, a director who can translate the written word into something visually compelling, brilliant programmers who push the boundaries of technology to make what doesn’t exist real to our eyes, editors who remove the non-essential and marketers who distill the essence of the movie into 15-30 second sound bites that make us want to rush to the theater.

Think about the theaters. The seats are arranged so that everyone has an uninterrupted view of the screen. The theater goes black, protecting our eyes from distractions around us. The sound systems and placement of the speakers support the fantasy that we are with the actors in the scene. Our sense of smell and taste are activated by the goodies we eat.

In short, we are immersed.

Then the baby cries or the cell phone rings or a teenager kicks our seat. And the illusion that thousands of people helped create, dissolves like sun-kissed morning mist. We are back in reality.

What Is Customer Experience

In my business boot camp, I teach the Recruits (attendees) all about customer experience and how to create one that uniquely fits your products, model and sales goals. Here’s how I define customer experience in class: The accumulation of experiences that cause your customers to be loyal and long-term or to look somewhere else to spend their money.

It is a continuum of experiences beginning with the moment a prospect hears about you through their last interaction with you. To look at it another way, one beautiful moment in a movie cannot make up for bad acting, bad animation and a shoddy script. What makes a good movie is what happens from the opening credits to the moment when the lights are raised.

My question to you is this: What happens in your customer continuum that reminds your clients they are back in reality, dealing with another company that just doesn’t care? You’ve got a least one thing that interrupts their beautiful perception of  who you are and your value proposition. Perhaps it is the time to ship, the way your employees answer the phone, the lengthy response time to customer requests, a website that is too difficult to navigate, your invoicing process or cutting remarks made in social media.

Creating a rich customer experience is as much about what you proactively do as it is about eliminating distractions. Business owners, it is time to get radical about identifying the distractions in your customer experience and eradicating them.

Click the link to get more information about business boot camp or follow us and all the graduates on our Facebook page. A new class is opening in January.

PS – On a personal note, when you come home from a long day of work, are you the “reality” or do you create an environment in which your family can relax and immerse themselves in love and nurturing? Food for thought.


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