Interview: Martin Newman, author of The Power of Customer Experience
RTIH sits down with Martin Newman, Founder, The Customer First Group, to discuss his new book, The Power of Customer Experience, which is available to buy via Kogan Page and all leading retailers.
RTIH: First of all, tell us more about your book and what inspired you to write it?
MN: I wanted to provide the proof that customer centric businesses are commercially successful over a prolonged period of time and to create a framework for all consumer facing businesses to achieve this.
RTIH: Have you got any examples of non-customer centric behaviours that can be truly damageable to a company?
MN: Poor customer service, failing to resolve customers issues, will almost always result in them not coming back.
Worse still, customers will often amplify their issues on social media, which can be hugely detrimental to any business.
Increasingly, customers also pay close to attention to how a business behaves. How it treats its staff, its suppliers, whether it has a true sense of purpose or not.
Failure to live up to expectations will drive customers away.
RTIH: Can you think about a company that has put societal challenges at its core and how this can ensure their success and profitability?
MN: The outdoor retailer Patagonia is probably the one brand that does more than any other as it is a cause led business.
It puts activism at the heart of its approach when it comes to championing the causes it cares about.
As a result, its customers have an incredibly strong affinity and affection for their brand. This drives customer lifetime value and profitability.
RTIH: Many companies choose to follow the “we’re the cheapest out there, they’ll come back” culture. What do you make of this? Are they bound to remain successful overtime?
MN: There’s no doubt some value led retailers have done well over a sustained period of time.
However, it will become increasingly important to a growing number of consumers for these brands to prove that they are also doing the right thing when it comes to the environment, their staff and their customers.
Price alone will not be enough to secure customer loyalty for all customers.
Millennials and Gen Z are arguably the most important customer segments for most consumer facing business both now and in the future. How best do you engage with them?
You need to be authentic. If you’re using influencers, then you must use ‘real people.’ They don’t respond well to perfect looking models.
You must also communicate openly and honestly, and you need to recognise the things they care about and demonstrate that you do too.
You must also provide the experience they want to have such as paying with buy now pay later from the likes of Clearpay, because they don’t want to use credit cards and accrue debt.
Attempting to speak to customer service in a business is often dreaded by customers: complaints range from customers being unable to reach them to not getting the information or resolution they need. How can brands improve customer service?
They can implement customer service action and integrate it into their own website so that they can prove to customers that they’re taking it more seriously.
They need to communicate more effectively with customers to let them know how they can be contacted in the first place.
And they need to empower their team to resolve customers issues without having to escalate to various other colleagues to get an answer.
RTIH: You often say that to be customer centric, you need to put your employees first. Can you give us examples of how a company can empower its employees?
MN: Yes, it can empower them to make a decision for a customer such as giving them a discount, in order to make a sale.
Or to give them something back because of poor levels of service. Home Depot do this in North America as well as helping their people out when they have financial emergencies.
RTIH: If you had to choose the best customer centric company – the one that tops them all – which one, would it be and why?
MN: I’d put Timpson out front. The customer is always first, they empower their people to make decisions for customers on service issues.
They have a fairly linear organisational structure so that they can implement initiatives quickly. They offer to dry clean a suit for unemployed people going for an interview.
They take on ex-prisoners providing them with the opportunity to be rehabilitated. I’d say they are community centric as well as customer centric.
RTIH: What are the hot technologies that customer centric retailers should be investing in?
MN: Customer service action to improve service levels for customers and brands!
Hero is a solution that enables retailers to leverage their store staff to have live chats with customers who are online but want more details on products. It’s a great sales tool.
There is also Clearpay, which is now the market leader in the buy now pay later space, empowering Millennials and Gen Z to pay how they want to.
RTIH: Finally, what would your advice be to young CEOs getting into the world of retail or those who aspire to be the CEO?
MN: Always be authentic, lead by example, put your people first and be customer centric in everything that you do.
Also, never stop learning. Every day is a school day!
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