Retaining customers is hard it requires consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time. Customers interact with companies in a number of ways, but there are usually three to 5 that are critical for both the customer as well as the business—start your improvements there. To track progress, effectiveness, and predict opportunities, you may need to retool both metrics and analytics to report on journeys, not just touch point insights.

When experiences align with expectations we clearly know what to expect and we can make plans around this “fact”.  For example, if you know that when you email a technical support question to your equipment supplier they always take between 1 and 1½ hours to respond, so you reach out to them and then go to lunch knowing the response will arrive in your in-box soon after you finish eating.  But what happens if they are inconsistent with their response time?  You contact tech support when you know you will be at the equipment for at least 2 hours (based on previous experiences).  Before tech support reaches out to you, your boss asks you to come to her office.  She has a new, and important, project to turn over to you.  You go to her office but in the back of your mind you are worrying that you will miss the return call from tech support and have to begin a game of telephone tag.  Stress mounts and you start hating the equipment supplier.

So far, nothing major results from the inconsistency.  But what if the new project requires purchasing a new piece of equipment?  While the incumbent has an advantage because you know how to use the equipment, etc., you may feel that another supplier’s product may also be easy to use and their tech support group may have its stuff together and provide an overall better experience.  The trade-off is between the short-term pain of learning a new piece of equipment and the long-term stress caused by uncertainty with tech support.

Do you want to be the tech support manager when your Sales VP reports to the CEO that a long-time customer purchased a competitor’s product because your tech support “sucks”?  I don’t think so!

Adapted from Sam Klaidman‘s blog Consistent Experiences Drive Customer Satisfaction and That Drives Customer Retention.