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

GOOD SERVICE CAN SAVE A BAD EXPERIENCE

Despite your best efforts and your best employees, sometimes mistakes are made. Employees, even good ones, screw up. But you can overcome those mistakes by providing Hispanic customers with killer customer service.

Have you ever shopped at a store that offered the opportunity to take a customer satisfaction survey on the bottom of your sales receipt? They usually provide a small offer or benefit for completing the survey. One of the largest companies that conducts these surveys (both online and on the phone) is based in Kansas City, Missouri. We did some work with them to determine whether there was a measurable difference in customer satisfaction between Hispanic and non-Hispanic consumers. They used two major national companies to conduct the test; one of the companies was a shoe retailer, and the other was a fast-food chain. They gathered data for six straight months to make sure they had a statistically viable sample size. The results were astonishing.

They found that if Hispanic customers felt they received “great customer service,” which was defined by such simple, and no-cost, elements as a friendly smile, a warm greeting, making eye contact, and giving customers all the time they needed to make up their minds or make the purchase, they were apt to “forgive” other service failures! In other words, if you were warm and kind to Hispanic customers but forgot the fries or the chicken sandwich was cold, that was okay. The Hispanic customers ...