Customer Experience | Scott McKain

The SECRET to “show business” success for YOUR business!

Apr 4, 2021 | ALL Business is STILL Show Business, Business Distinction, Customer Experience

To approach your business as “show business” is not to be confused with putting on an act, being overly dramatic, or being fake.

It’s about differentiating yourself from the competition by understanding your clients in the same way that show business understands their audience.
It’s about creating specific strategies based on your customer’s distinct preference in order to deliver experiences that are compelling and engaging.
It’s about taking what we can learn from the entertainment business and leverage that insight into building strong and lasting emotional connections with our clients and colleagues.

You are selling an experience

Mar 28, 2021 | Business Distinction, Customer Experience, Sales & Retail

The entertainment industry spends more time studying human emotion than it does the most advanced visual effects or new camera angles.

Why?

Because an emotional connection is the most potent and influential connection possible.

To make 1997’s Titanic, it cost a staggering $200 million. (In 1997 dollars!) However, not very many people stepped out of the theatre marveling over the fact that a special Russian submarine was used or every detail on the ship matched the original Titanic down to the doorknob. The audience walked out in a trance, swooning over Jack and Rose’s romance, saddened by the massive loss of life — or enraged that Jack’s death could have been prevented had Rose just shared the door she was floating on!

The fact is people rarely remember the details.

But they will remember how something made them feel.

We have created a culture of customers who demand compelling experiences whenever they do business. Regardless of your industry, what your product or service is, you’re selling an experience.

The more powerful the connection, the greater the success.

Your Customer’s Measuring Stick

Mar 21, 2021 | ALL Business is STILL Show Business, Business Distinction, Customer Experience

Your customer’s measuring stick for efficiency may be entirely different from yours, and if you’re not aligned with your customer’s expectations, then you’re never going to meet their needs. Customer service and customer

experience should not be confused.

Remembering that all business is show business…

You can be creative despite limited resources. “The power of ideas can often compensate for the lack of size.”

Consider the following:

The 1978 slasher flick Halloween had a $325,000 budget but went on to make $47 million at the box office.
2004’s Saw’s budget was only $1.2 million, and yet it earned $103 million.
Napoleon Dynamite’s budget was only $400,000, and it made an impressive $46 million.
Who could forget the phenomenon that was The Blair Witch Project that had a $60,000 budget but ultimately earned $140.5 million?

It doesn’t matter how large or well-funded your business is, adopting the show business philosophy can impact your future success in a major way.

You can go a long way with superior creativity when it’s matched with strategic execution.

The effect that Ebert had on me…

Jan 30, 2021 | Business Distinction, Customer Experience, Leadership, Personal Distinction

In my book, “Create Distinction,” I write about a phenomenon I called “The Ebert Effect.” It’s based upon a powerful lesson I learned from the famed movie critic, Roger Ebert, who passed away at age 70 after an extraordinarily valiant battle with cancer.

As I relate in the book, Roger asked me how many movies I was viewing in any given week — then, he told me he would watch three to five per DAY. In his wisdom, he commented, “That’s why quirky, offbeat films often receive rave reviews.

When one is overwhelmed with similarity, you begin to perceive that DIFFERENT IS SUPERIOR.

That is the basis of my work on distinction and the customer experience.

We’ve been overwhelmed with similarity, and we — as customers — are bored. We don’t see any meaningful differentiation between competitors in any given marketplace. When something different or even moderately unique comes along, we immediately begin to perceive it as a superior offering because of the effect Roger so eloquently described. It’s “The Ebert Effect.”

When Werner Herzog called me and asked me to play the “bad guy” in his film, “Stroszek,” I was honored beyond description. The only thing that topped that thrill was seeing the extraordinary review my meager attempt at the art form received from Roger Ebert, the reviewer I respected the most.

Then, when he featured the film and my performance in his first book on “Great Films” on his fifty favorite movies of all time, I was astounded… and grateful.

Roger took such delight at being the one who reunited Herzog and me after thirty years at his “Ebertfest” on the campus of the University of Illinois. He couldn’t contain his joy… and was scribbling notes as fast as he could to tell us how much he loved bringing us back together.

“I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.”
~Roger Ebert

Your competition may not be who you think

Jan 5, 2021 | Business Distinction, Customer Experience, Sales & Retail

Take just a moment…right now…and write down the names of your two biggest competitors.

My guess is that if I could look at your list, I would see that you’ve listed other players in your specific industry. You have just proven that we stereotypically define our competitors — and that holds the potential of causing us great harm in the future.

As I was doing the background research for one of my earlier books, I found that what customers really wanted did not vary much from industry to industry. The reason is because customers blend ALL of their experiences — both personal and professional — as their criteria for evaluating YOUR level of performance.

This means that your competition, regarding how customers view the level of service and engagement you’ve created with them, is NOT limited to your specific industry. Your competition is the service they received the time they stayed at a Four Seasons…the shopping experience they have at Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus…the quality of the BMW they took for a test drive.

Not understanding your competition can be horrifically damaging. Folger’s thought its competition was Chase & Sanborn and missed out on what Starbucks created. Nokia thought its competition was Motorola and missed out on how Apple changed the industry.

I recently asked a group of executives this question: “If you were going to create a start-up company to compete with you…what would it look like?”

As you can imagine, there were many terrific ideas.

Then, I asked them, “So why aren’t you doing these outstanding points?”

You can guess the answers: “We’ve never done it that way before.” “Our competition isn’t doing it, so why should we?” And on and on.

The good news is…they decided to try.

And so should you.

To become more distinctive and stand out, change how you view your competition.

Companies that Create Distinction by Delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience®

Aug 8, 2020 | Business Distinction, Customer Experience

What is the purpose of delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience®?

For many, the primary goal is become distinctive from the competition. There have been numerous companies that have built themselves up by filling the niche of delivering excellent customer service. The Ritz Carlton, for example, famously authorizes every staff member to spend up to $2,000 per day to give each guest an exceptional experience. And the Ritz Carlton stands apart even in the world of luxury hotel chains as delivering truly exemplary customer service.

However, outpacing the competition in offering the Ultimate Customer Experience® is not limited to major hotel chains – or even big business. Plenty of smaller and supposedly “less glamorous” companies employ customer experience techniques that set them apart from the pack.

Using the Customer Experience to Conquer the Marketplace

Unless you’ve been traveling by train in France, you likely haven’t heard of the company Captain Train. Prior to its purchase for $187 million by Trainline Europe, it was a small travel website used to buy cheap French train tickets. What’s more, the market for selling cheap train tickets in France was already dominated by Voyages-sncf.com.

Captain Train saw an opportunity to offer something that consumers weren’t used to getting with their train tickets: an excellent customer experience. CEO Jean-Daniel Guyot created a policy where the company pledged to not only answer but also solve all customer inquiries withing 2 hours. When Captain Train actually delivered on that promise, they were able to achieve a whole new level within their industry.

(If you’ve read my latest book, “ICONIC,” you know how critical I believe it is that your PROMISE is congruent with your PERFORMANCE!)

Replacing Lost Items

One example of the Ritz-Carlton’s over the top customer service includes the hotel overnighting a laptop charger to a guest who had left it behind — along with an extra charger!

Smaller companies can also make up for the little disappointments in life. Kinsa Health manufactures thermometers that come with a small plastic cap to protect the tip. This is not sold as a stand-alone item. However when customers contact the company to request a new one, the company sends a replacement — without charge — along with a handwritten note.

Win Over Critics

A large part of the customer experience in a luxury brand hotel is making sure that no one is having a bad time. This should also be a concern for everyone seeking to deliver the Ultimate Customer Experience®!

Making certain that critics are taken seriously is especially important in the food industry — a lesson which Julia Baldwin, the CEO of After Dark Cookies has taken to heart.

Using the NPS score (Net Promoter Score), the company reaches out to their harshest critics, asking what went wrong. When people were truly dissatisfied, they are refunded AND given an additional free order, in the hopes they will have a more positive experience. Sometimes the most valuable feedback has come from these encounters…not to mention new raving fans!

Finding Strength in Small Size

Sometimes the solution for a growing organization to delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience® comes from realizing that your expanding size might mean that you need to do things differently from the traditional norms of customer service.

Wistia, a video hosting, creation and analytics company realized that they were not able to deliver quality customer service to scale via phones. Yet a large part of their success was based on the customer service they offered — especially going above and beyond throughout the set-up process.

They made the difficult decision to remove their phone number from their website. They switched instead to a robust online system of support. This included personalized welcome material such as emails and videos that help guide new customers through the set-up process. It has helped Wistia to continue being greatly admired for their customer service.

All too often, the examples of companies setting themselves apart with their customer experience come from the major players. We’ve probably heard enough stories about Apple, Amazon, Southwest, Nordstrom and the usual suspects.

It’s critical that small businesses – and even entrepreneurs and solopreneurs – discover that they should not be afraid to invest their resources to make themselves shine by delivering the Ultimate Customer Experience®