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Don’t Harp on the Customer’s Mistake - 6/24/25


Seth’s daughter, Sarah, had missed some swim classes, and Seth remembered that the aquatics center had several make-up classes available late in the summer.  So Seth pulled up the class schedule on his phone, found one that worked on his and Sarah’s schedules, and planned to attend a session Read more

Create Customers for Life - 6/17/25


Veronica has gone to the same automotive service shop for at least 20 years.  She bought a new car about a year ago, and this is the third car she’s brought to the shop instead of taking her car to the dealer where she bought it.  She’s had three Read more

Don’t Turn the Customer into the QA Department - 6/10/25


Roberta received a form with information filled in by the company after her conversation with the account rep.  Roberta just needed to review the information, fill in some of the blanks, sign it, and resend it in order to set up a new account. She noticed that the effective date Read more

Imitate to Improve - 6/3/25


Oscar Wilde said that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Now this doesn’t mean that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.  Nor does it mean that great impersonators such as Rich Little, Dana Carvey, or Frank Caliendo are always offering flattering portrayals of those that they imitate. Wilde’s Read more

How the Customer Perceives a Truth as a Lie - 5/27/25


You’re the customer, you’re asking about an unused item that you’re returning, and you hear the employee say: “The refund process takes 7-10 days.”  You’re thinking: “Great!  I can get the refund check as early as a week from today!”  The reality is that the company means that they’ll Read more

Tell Customers What’s Next - 5/20/25


In most businesses that have been around for a while, how a process was originally designed is not how it currently operates.  Sometimes this change is referred to as “practical drift,” where the actual process moves further and further away from the documented steps over time.  Maybe the changes Read more

Questions to Guide You to Empathy - 5/13/25


“If I was him, I would do ABC…” If you’ve ever heard somebody say this - whether it’s a friend or acquaintance, whether it’s some TV reporter or podcaster - you may get as frustrated or as annoyed as I do. I get annoyed because we are not that other person. Read more

Negate the Nervousness - 5/6/25


The customer needed a loan, so he walked into the bank, but he was a little nervous.  He knew that launching his business would be easier if he had some working capital, but that’s about all he knew.  He was anxious because he didn’t know what to expect in Read more

Don’t Rush to Resolve Quickly - 4/29/25


The customer is angry, so you use the CSS LEAD technique as designed.  You, listen, empathize, accept responsibility, and deliver on a remedy.  But it doesn’t work.  The customer is still upset, and maybe even a little more frustrated than when you started…why?! If the use of this technique fails, Read more

Energy v. Apathy - 4/22/25


I asked a couple friends who are much more scientifically-oriented the question: What is energy?  I didn’t mean E=MC2.  I meant physiologically, what is energy? They described a lot of things that sounded really good, yet far too advanced for my non-medical mind. Part of the reason why energy is of Read more

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Redesign around Millennials (and Others, too!)

Posted on July 3, 2015 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Blog 7-3-15Millennials. I’ve been in so many meetings lately where they were the main topic of discussion. Why? Because they’re different. How they communicate, how they socialize with each other, why and how they move toward a brand and what could pull them away is different from other generations.

But couldn’t we say that about most of the customer groups out there? Aren’t first-time customers different than those that have been with you for ten years? Aren’t those that transact business with you purely via the web different than those that will only come into the store to make a purchase or get service?

The uniqueness of Millennials is important to note, but it’s important to note because every customer group (every customer) is unique.

To improve the customer’s experience, conduct this exercise with whomever the key 3-5 customer groups are for your business:

  • Research – Conduct research – surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc. – to identify what is most important to them about their experience. Is it speed, simplicity, self-service options, self-evident steps, text-based options, face-to-face dialogue, quality, or kindness? Identify just a few key attributes of their experience.
  • Journey Map – Use those attributes as guiding principles to redesign your customer’s experience by breaking up the experience into several Macro-process steps; here are six sample steps:
    • They identify a need for and inquire about “stuff”
    • They find stuff
    • They request/order stuff
    • They get a status on stuff delivery
    • They receive stuff
    • They complete/pay for stuff
  • Redesign – During evaluation of each step in this customer continuum, how well does the experience in this step address the guiding principles? For example, when they’re requesting/ordering an item, is it “simple, quick, and self-evident?” If not, then that’s where there’s opportunity for a redesign.

The lesson on the laser focus on Millennials is to look at each customer or customer group as unique. Know what’s important to them so you can design your world around theirs. Research. Journey Map. Redesign

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