The customer satisfaction trap
High customer satisfaction drives business success. Does it? No!, says Roman Becker, author of the book “The Fan Principle”. Because even highly satisfied customers will leave. Becker is convinced that companies that focus exclusively on performance and customer satisfaction are putting themselves at risk.
At the invitation of MS direkt (thank you very much!) we experienced the keynote speech of Roman Becker at the “Swiss CRM Forum”. The speaker showed his German charm right from the start: “Switzerland can do everything except price”. He was referring to his hotel bill in Zurich. He made the reference for a good reason: companies in the high-price country of Switzerland are forced to, and also good at, offering customers an emotional home. This emotional home not only justifies a high price, but also allows a more relaxed approach to trends. Those who create an emotional home are intuitively doing the right thing. Companies that see customer satisfaction as a guardrail for customer centricity are putting themselves at risk. Even highly satisfied customers would leave. To satisfy customers, there is continuous investment in performance, but the “more is more” mantra no longer works. Subjective differences in performance, especially between service providers, are difficult to identify. As a result, customer satisfaction is not synonymous with success. 70 per cent of customers are satisfied, but only one in five is a fan of the brand. Although German customers are becoming increasingly satisfied, they are often migrating to the competition.
Companies would be truly successful if they did not fall into the customer satisfaction trap, but instead worked on their enthusiasm quality. Enthusiasm quality goes beyond satisfaction and performance. It is based on recognising the customer’s real needs and consistently focusing on them. If the customer becomes a fan of the company because of his enthusiasm, he will hardly be able to choose another company. Just as a fan of FC Bayern cannot be a fan of Borussia Dortmund. The customer, as a fan of the company, freely attests to its monopoly position. The emotional bond is created through identification and the perception of uniqueness. Companies must therefore work consistently to offer opportunities for identification. So that it is not the employees who become brand ambassadors – they are part of the brand – but the customers.
The speaker also presented an extraordinary example of this consistency: Aldi Süd has a very high “fan indicator” because the retailer focuses uncompromisingly on its two key customer benefits: price and speed. To ensure speed, for example, the cashiers are trained in a very special way. They should not engage the customer in conversation or be particularly polite, but should be short, to the point and quick. If a cashier were to be particularly polite to a customer, the customer would have to reciprocate this politeness, which would cost him or her time. Aldi Süd, on the other hand, does not want to cost the customer time, but to save it. The cashier’s slightly brusque manner may put some people off, but it turns real Aldi customers into Aldi fans because they put price and speed above all else, in line with the Aldi brand promise.
If you want to win fans for your brand, you can’t please everyone. You need to consistently focus on your customers and delight them. This increases customer value and loyalty, because fans are permanent, trusting, forgiving, persuadable and recommendable.