Crafting the Customer Experience For People Not Like You: How to Delight and Engage the Customers Your Competitors Don't Understand

NEXT: EMPLOYEE TRAINING

You want to engage the employees themselves as much as possible when you are training your employees on how to deliver a terrific customer experience for diverse customer segments. Hold ongoing meetings where you pose hypothetical questions about what it would be like for someone who is different from them to try to do business with you. For example, “If a 65-year-old, retired customer came in or called, what would you do to make that person comfortable doing business with us? What might that customer want from us, besides our product/service?” You can then ask how that customer’s needs and wants might differ from someone who is four decades younger. For example, if you ask your employees what they’d do if someone came in who didn’t speak their language, hopefully one of the first responses you’d hear from your team would be, “I’d smile at him or her and say hello.” The smile part is the important part, because a smile sends the message that “Even though there is a language barrier, I am glad you’re here and I’ll try to help you.” This type of conversation with your staff will generate great ideas and identify potential barriers you must overcome in serving customers effectively.

Here’s a different example. Let’s say that you posed a question to your staff about a different hypothetical customer: a mom with a tired, cranky toddler. An employee might suggest greeting the mom first, then saying hello to the child and giving him or her a lollipop, a balloon, ...