Customer Experience: Frictionless First, Then Delightful

For the vast majority of businesses, the ideal customer experience is not so much delightful or surprising as it is frictionless – that is, an experience that requires no extra time or effort and imposes the least possible burden on the customer. 

This is because unless you first do a good job of meeting the customer’s need, in of solving the customer's problem, then “surprise and delight” won't be very compelling. In fact, if your product or service isn’t frictionless to begin with, trying to “wow” a customer might even call attention to your failures. 

However, after you’ve made your customer experience reliable, relevant, valuable and trustable – the four primary qualities of a frictionless experience – then delighting or wowing a customer with something unexpected, or something “over the top,” can in fact be a very effective way to gain that customer’s genuine emotional commitment to your brand. 

However, delivering an over-the-top, delightful experience doesn’t necessarily require a heavy expense. It may in fact involve no expense at all. The most direct way to connect with a customer emotionally is simply to allow your own humanity to show through. 

After all, smiles and empathy are free.

Even small bicycle parts don’t cost too much. At Zane’s Cycles, a Connecticut bicycle “super store” doing some $13 million of business, if you come in to acquire a part for your bike, and the part costs less than a dollar, they don’t charge you for it.  And if you think about the rationale it makes perfect sense. As Jeanne Bliss relates in her classic customer service book I Love You More Than My Dog, if all you’re coming in for is a tiny part, and you only need one of them, you’ve already spent more time and energy than this part would be worth, just by getting into your car and driving to Zane’s. 

But being empathetic and kind to customers isn’t limited to small businesses or retail merchants, either. The massive and hugely successful UCLA Health System has a reputation for delighting its "customers," i.e. the patients it serves. That’s right, you can become terribly ill, go through a series of traumatic procedures, be subjected to painful treatments, and yet leave their institution utterly delighted – not just because you were cured, but because you were treated in an extremely human, and humane, manner.

The UCLA Health System’s entire culture is based on reaching out to patients individually, showing respect and courtesy, listening to their problems, and responding to their issues. It’s not just the quality of the medical care that makes this institution successful, but the quality of care – the quality of their attention to the human beings who are their patients. Similar stories could be told of other fine medical institutions, such as Mayo, or Cleveland Clinic, or Geisinger.

And at Southwest Airlines, the flight attendants are well known for their playful shenanigans, often hamming it up in front of customers, not to mention going the extra mile to ensure that everyone enjoys the flight, even when it’s crowded. 

Importantly, each of these businesses is competently operated and has already eliminated all possible points of friction in its customer experience. Southwest runs a tight ship, more on-time and dependable than most airlines. And it wouldn’t do Zane’s a bit of good to give away bike parts if the bicycles they sold weren't up to par, nor would it matter how nice the service was at the UCLA Health System if patients still found themselves buried in forms, or having to explain their symptoms over and over again to different physicians or nurses. 

But another important quality that each of these organizations has in common is a unifying corporate culture and sense of mission. It is this sense of mission that unites individual employees into a common purpose, which is to act in the interest of the customer.  A culture like this ensures that all customer-facing workers are empowered to be empathetic and caring, spontaneous, creative, and even playful – in short, human.  And the human-like quality of this kind of service is what delights a customer. 

Because it offers a glimpse into the humanity within an organization, true, customer-oriented service can create a genuine emotional bond. In turn, the customer is likely to begin thinking of the company more as a friend, rather than simply as a faceless seller of goods and services, to be compared with all the other sellers.   

So yes, first eliminate all the friction in your customer experience. Wring it out. Make things operate like clockwork for the customer's benefit and convenience.

But then, once you've done that, seal the deal by letting your real humanity shine through.