The title of this blog, isn’t meant to imply you are in denial about the importance of customer experience elevation. Rather, I am using FACE as an acronymn for 4 guiding principles to consider as you craft customer-centric solutions. For me FACE stands for:
Fast
Accurate
Caring
Easy
I can demonstrate 2 of the 4 principles (Fast and Easy) with one quick example – the Domino’s Zero Click Pizza app. While many of us may not have thought that ordering pizza was a particuarly time consuming task, Domino’s sought to make the relatively easy even easier.
In the spirit of “fast” and “easy” here is how the Zero Click app works. Since most people buy the same food items repeatedly, Domino’s will enable a customer to open an app that populates their saved “easy order.” Upon opening, a 10 second clock will count down and voila the order is placed.
In an interview for Ad Age Alex Guerri, the Vice President and account director of Domino’s creative agency, CP& B noted, “While it does seem like one click is trivial, we thought, ‘Why do we even need that one click?’”
Obviously, customers can stop the clock on the app or change their order if they need to but otherwise they have entered the land of “zero click” online ordering.
With such an emphasis on fast and easy customer experiences, it is increasingly important to focus on the accuracy that goes with that speed. For most customers, fast and wrong is not necessarily better than slow and right! In many service delivery systems, inherent tension exists between speed and accuracy and the feedback from your customers should guide the appropriate balance.
Finally, given that technology plays such an important role in driving accuracy and speed, great service organizations must humanize customer experience by hiring and developing compassionate and caring service professionals.
Let’s assume the Zero Click app allows for fast and easy ordering and accurate product delivery. Domino’s had best assure that they have caring people available to help when the app freezes or when a pizza gets ordered faster than a customer could have stopped it from processing.
So how is the FACE of your customer-experience?
Is it fast enough, accurate enough, caring enough, and easy enough?
I used to say that if you aren’t delivering adequately your customers were just a “click” away from the competition. Thanks to Domino’s they might not even need to click…
Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D. is a professional speaker and chief experience officer at The Michelli Experience. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, Dr. Michelli and his team consult with some of the world’s best customer experience companies.
Follow on Twitter: @josephmichelli