How often do you find yourself asking the question, “Why does it have to be so hard? “ For example, why is it so hard to:
• Determine which product or service is right for me?
• Place an order?
• Get assistance when something isn’t quite right?
• Return a product that is defective?
• Respond to what should be a routine customer inquiry?
• Get a quote?
• Pay a bill?
• Navigate a website?
• Get a specific use case accomplished via an enterprise application such as ERP, CRM, PLM, etc.?
• Use a business process that people will routinely use hundreds or thousands of times per year to accomplish something?
• Connect your products and services with the marketplace?
• Get a straight, correct answer to your question about a product or service?
Generally, things are hard because they were designed (if you can really use the word “designed”) without giving careful consideration to the person who will be using the system or process and what their needs are.
Years ago when I was running an Engineering Services function, I realized that everything my team did was for the benefit of someone else in the company. Everything.
And, as Jay Abraham taught me so well years later, “It’s all about them, not about you.” It’s all about the customer (or end-user), not about me.
If I was to design a back-office, non-customer-facing airline reservation system, I’d want to make sure it handled 90% of the business cases an agent using the system would encounter. Why?
The system needs to be straight-forward enough to help facilitate customer transactions and ensure the customer isn’t turned off during the process. If I have to hand-off to multiple “experts” to complete the transaction, my customer won’t be happy.
What are the friction points in your business meaning things are harder to do than they should be? What are these friction points doing to undermine relationships with your customers?
What are you doing about it?
Photo Credit: Patrice-Photographiste, Flickr
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What do you think? I welcome your comments!
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Dave Gardner
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