4 steps to creating an amazing customer experience

When I was promoted to president and CEO of Safelite AutoGlass in 2008, we made customer service a high priority. We set out to create a culture where people were inspired to deliver a truly delightful customer experience.
Over time, we grew to understand that creating service worthy of loyal customers required more than making them smile. So we’ve launched a new campaign, Customer Driven, to help us truly understand what our customers want.
Here are four actions to help you become customer driven.
Listen
Seek to understand customer pain points and learn through their experiences. Absorb their feedback, dig in to all of your data to understand the customer on a deeper level, ultimately anticipating and identifying better ways to meet their needs.
For example, we annually collect more than half a million Net Promoter Score customer surveys. In the past, we probably focused too much on the score. We provide our technicians with customer comments, but it’s challenging to gain true insight into the customer experience on a one-by-one basis.
With new analytic tools, we use this information to influence new products and solutions that will improve the customer experience. These tools help us to stop only listening to detractors and start listening to promoters. They have insights that shouldn’t be ignored just because they gave a high score.
Focus
Deploy resources where they deliver the greatest mutual business value. Align resources and prioritize actions to target critical customer segments and geographic areas and markets with unique situations so that you can serve more customers.
As a national company, we sometimes used a one-size-fits-all approach. Today, we take into account the differences in customers — not every market needs to operate the same. For example, one market might have extended hours or be open on Sunday, while another may not.
Create
Implement solutions for customers that differentiate you from competitors. Design unique and tailored solutions that make it easy for customers to do business with you.
For example, based on customer feedback, Safelite incorporated new technology that allows technicians to pilot a new program. Before they leave a job, they send automatic text messages to the next customer that tells them they are on the way.
Delight
Create loyal customers that become brand advocates and super promoters. Continue to provide service that goes beyond basic needs and wants. Consistently deliver untouchable service and quality, leaving a memorable impression so powerful that customers want to share it.
There is power in having everyone who serves customers deliver a memorable experience. Memorable experiences mean something beyond delight because they create positive, lasting impressions. In fact, we introduced a new pledge: “Service so great … it’s memorable!”
Memories are important because they last. When a friend or neighbor mentions they have windshield damage, customers with great memories will recommend Safelite. They also use us again and again.

Being customer driven is a never-ending cycle. We use feedback from customers’ experience to listen and inform the next part of our continuous improvement journey — that only gets better with time.