Here on the blog, we'll be presenting
weekly idea gathering wrap ups of some of our favorite customer experience
strategy, design and alignment news and views.
This week our focus is on Customer Congruency.
This week our focus is on Customer Congruency.
Steph Hyken defines customer
congruency in a Business Exchange article saying describing it as “When what we promise and what the customer receives
are thought to be the same”. Does your business deliver what it promises to
deliver? When you say you have a commitment to great customer service
are you really delivering that?
Customer congruency is an important
part of any business and particularly their customer experience. Calculate
customer congruency by evaluating what you offer to the customer, or claim to
offer, then compare that to the actual customer experience. The difference (or
lack of) reflects your customer congruency, great businesses strive to keep
this difference as minimal as possible.
Customer congruency can come as a shock
to some companies because it often reveals how little companies actually know
about their customers and their customer’s experiences. This was highlighted in
a study by the Stravity Group who polled company executives on the customer
experiences at their respective companies. The poll consisted of three key
questions which got pretty shocking results:
1.) Do you know the
average annual value of a customer to your business?
12.9% yes. 87.1% no
2.) Do you
know the cost of a customer complaint to your business?
9.7% yes 90.3% no
3.) Do
you know the cost of acquiring a new customer?
8.6% yes 91.4% no
Are you able to answer these
questions about your own business? If you don’t even understand the value or experiences
which customers are having with your business then it is impossible to
determine your customer congruency. Even beyond customer congruency, understanding
the value of your customers to your business is important to determining how
you will be treating them.
If you found yourself unable to
answer some of these questions, and/or know that others in your business would
be unable then start with an intnernal survey. Find out exactly how much your
employees know about the customer incudling their experiences and value. Compare
that to external sureys or focus groups with actual customers and see just
where your business stacks up.
Jeffrey Marino is a contributing
writer concentrating his focus on Business Administration, Management
Information Systems, and Tech Innovations. He blogs atFordham Nights and can be reached at JMarino@iirusa.com.
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