Why Choose Favorites?
Growing up in a family of six, I frequently heard the rhetorical question “Am I your favorite child?” As we all know, there probably isn’t a good parent in the world who would actually answer that question even if they could. Business is not parenting (at least in most cases). Ask a teacher about their favorite student over the years, many will mention a few that stood out for different reasons. They’ll probably also identify one or two that they remember for the wrong reasons. Most of us would already know if we were on the list of those remembered for the great things they did in school, for their mischievous ways or simply somewhere in between.
I know from my time in working in stores that our customers stand out much in the same way. Decades after I served my last customer at the grocery supermarket where I had my first job, I still remember many. I remember some that were always friendly and even the one that nominated me for a local service award. I remember one that always had a great joke to tell. There were also those on the other extreme – like the one that would come in just moments before closing time to carefully review the entire ice cream selection, only to choose the same flavor every time.
Do You Have A Favorite?
Recently, I was asked the question by a client, “Aren’t we your favorite client?” Of course it was brought up jokingly in the midst of a long working session to finalize some specifications in getting our customer experience programs up and running for one of their CX touchpoints. Seems to be when most clients bring up that question.
Is it like children, where you should not have a favorite? No, I’ll admit I have favorites. Not because they spend the most with us or they are always nice. Actually, I have favorites because of the ways they challenge us. Yes, the more difficult clients are my favorites. Because of them, we are able to find unique solutions, improve our product and server future clients even better.
Favorites In Many Ways
As a customer experience researcher, another frequent “favorite” question is asking about my favorite customer experience KPI or metric? My instinct would be to say NPS+ of course. With one additional ‘click’, we add churn risk in addition to root cause analysis. However, much like my clients, I have favorites for various reasons, it is part of building the Customer Experience Strategy. Should a metric be used just because it is the popular one or because you can index it against others? Absolutely not, the idea behind measuring CX and fielding that customer satisfaction survey is to help the customer to choose their favorite. Which should be your brand right? At least if you do it correctly.
Parting thought: On June 30th, you’ll want to attend a QuestionPro event hosted by Dan Fleetwood and Vivek Bhaskaran. Join them as they announce how we Democratize research with QuestionPro Insights Hub. Click here to register.
