Beyoncé Has Everything to Do With Building a Customer Experience Journey Map
Crafting your customer experience journey
In the first blog of this series we talked about how our prospects and residents are a little psycho when it comes to decision making, the idea that customer satisfaction is not enough and that it’s critical to add more WOW (cowbell) to their experiences. If you missed it, press pause and check it out. We’ll be here when you’re back!
Now it’s time to talk Beyoncé. Specifically, Beyoncé’s Single Ladies video. If you really watch the music video, you can’t help but notice how freakin’ amazing the choreography is throughout. Hello, perfection. Those Single Ladies are hitting the right moves at the right time. The combined effort and the perfect execution, makes for a flawless performance.
So what’s Bey got to do with our communities? Everything!
It comes down to choreographing a killer Customer Experience Journey that, although cannot be perfect 100 percent all of the time, can consistently deliver. Think of this customer experience journey like a well-crafted music video. Everyone knows where to be and what to do exactly at the right time. NOTE: The ‘Customer Experience Journey,’ is just that, a journey, not a destination.
It is all the interactions that we have with our residents from the moment they're a prospect, all the way to the time that they move in, until they renew, and over and over again.
It's all of those interactions adding up that make up the customer experience journey. So for all the instant gratification people, you’re going to have to do a mental shift and think of this as a long-term marketing and retention strategy.
Remember, Beyoncé wasn’t built in a day and neither is your customer experience journey.
Who is responsible for the customer’s experience?
Every. Single. Person.
Everyone is responsible for handling complaints.
Everyone is responsible for suggesting improvements and processes that could use some updating.
Everyone is responsible for maintaining that customer-friendly approach that you already have in place.
Everyone is part of delivering happiness to our residents and prospects.
Crafting the Customer Experience Journey Brings Big Financial Gains
It makes sense that we take the time to craft the ultimate customer experience journey.
Residents that are emotionally connected are 3x more likely to recommend our community to their friends.
Residents that are emotionally connected are 3x more likely to renew.
Residents that are emotionally connected are are 44% less likely to shop around.
Residents that are emotionally connected are less price sensitive.
They're not looking across the street, they're not looking next door, they're not looking across town, because something stronger is tying them to your community. Remember, heartstrings keep people connected to a community.
Emotional Competency Critical in Building A-Teams at Your Property
So it’s time to do a reality check on ourselves and our team. In order for us to be emotionally connected with our residents, we have to have emotionally competent teams. Emotional competence can be defined as how you recognize, understand, express and regulate your own emotions and respond to the emotions and interactions of others. Teams that understand how to pick up on cues when residents and prospects are not feeling satisfied, or are only feeling satisfied, but aren't feeling wowed.
Emotionally competent team members know that sometimes what a resident or prospect DOESN’T say is more important than what they do say. Then they act accordingly.
So how emotionally competent is your team?
The Basics:
Basics are KING. There is no substitute.
Let’s start small. It starts with the basics. Basics are my favorite because they never go out of style. That means that any effort you put towards mastering the basics will pay out in return over your lifetime. Warning: Just because they are basics, doesn’t mean we can slack on them sometimes. Sometimes the simpler something is, the easier it is to neglect it. Day in, day out, part of this customer experience is providing the nuts and bolts of service. That means operations, maintenance, getting it right over and over again, delivering, responding, taking care of your customers.
Surveys tell us over and over again that customers value good service over fast service that isn't good. So, master good service first. Then we can add speed to our customer service once we’ve mastered delivering consistently good results which people can rave about.
So you’ve put all this effort on mastering the basics. Now you are destined for raving prospects and residents? Not quite.
Are You Bey Or JT?
Here is the cold, hard truth. NO ONE RAVES ABOUT BASICS.
Basics are expected. In other words, let's say that you promised a resident that you were going to fix their leaky faucet, and you fixed it. On time, no problem. You've fulfilled your end of the bargain. Nobody is going to go post on Facebook, "Oh my gosh, I just love my community, they fixed my leaky faucet." But here's the deal: everyone grumbles when you drop the ball on the basics. So you weren’t available when they wanted to pick up their Amazon package or that leaky faucet wasn't taken care of the first time, chances are a lot higher that their social media followers will hear about that.
Once we feel that our teams have mastered the basics of customer service, we can start to weave in WOW moments!
About the Author: Barbara Savona is the CEO of Sprout Marketing with 18 years of housing experience. Sprout Marketing offers an exclusive marketing platform for multifamily professionals. Whether you are struggling with outreach marketing, social media, resident retention, events or overall community engagement, Sprout Marketing has you covered. Learn more at watchyourbusinesssprout.com.