Following the emails that I have received and other feedback to my latest post 'Confronting Change', I would like to share with you some more thoughts on the topic - in this instance about change when customers are smiling.
When raising the issue of change this is what I often come across: "Our customers love our products! They're all smiles! Our sales have never been better! We don't need to change a thing!"
Following this corporate wearesocoolwepissicecubes statement I point out that 99% of customers are extremely well brought up, model citizens who have strong values and go to church on a regular basis.
The response I get is: "Andrew, are you feeling OK?"
Quite OK thank you. The point that I'm trying to get across is that the majority of customers will have a high propensity for politeness and will feel bad to make you feel bad because they are basically, well, very nice people. The fact that they may not be actively voicing their opinions says nothing about how they really feel about your products or services (or vice-versa those who do voice their opinions are not necessarily representative of those who don't).
In short: "When a customer smiles it's not always because he/she is happy, they're quite often simply being polite."
However I also remind companies that this politeness stops short of reaching customer's wallets. They will nevertheless very politely indeed exit for the nearest competitive offering if it offers them better value - and it's not all just about a slightly better, faster or cheaper product/service but about the complete customer experience!
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