CUSTOMERS.COM® RESEARCH FROM THE PATRICIA SEYBOLD GROUP
Making It Easy to Buy More of Your Products
Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in Reorder/Renew/Replenish Customer Scenario® Patterns
By Ronni T. Marshak, July 3, 2008
NETTING IT OUT
Customer
Scenarios® fall into patterns. Based on running hundreds of customer co-design
sessions with thousands of customers, we’ve noticed that customers in a
particular context tend to want the same things. It‘s valuable to know
these patterns ahead of time so that you’ll know what kinds of customer
metrics and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus your co-design
activities on the real secret sauce: how to differentiate the experience, products,
and services you offer to help customers reach their goals.
In the typical “reorder/renew/replenish” scenario, the customer
typically has four key things that he wants:
- I want it to be easy to reorder
- I want the products to be delivered quickly
- I want to never run out again
- I want it to be easy to cancel or modify
a reorder
These are the customer’s Moments of Truth; if you don’t address
these issues crisply, you risk losing your customer forever.
While understanding the moments of truth is valuable, your real leverage comes
from knowing how to measure and improve what matters to customers. How does
the customer determine if a moment of truth has been successfully met? How
do you measure if your company is successfully meeting your customers’ metrics?
How can you monitor and improve your organization’s performance in
addressing each moment of truth? How can you identify and measure what business
opportunities might emerge?
Customers’ moment of truth metrics are typically, though not exclusively,
measured in terms of elapsed time for the customer, number of customer steps,
amount of customer effort required, and customer’s money (often in that
order of importance).
Once you’ve identified your customers’ moments of truth and the
related metrics, based on the customer context, there are a series of next
steps to take in any scenario:
- Determine what your company ideally should
do to anticipate and/or alleviate the customers’ concerns and successfully
address their moments of truth
- Identify processes, policies, and resources
that must be put in place
- Estimate the costs and benefits of investing
in changes
- Prioritize and implement changes based on
their probable impact on the value of your customer franchise
The Customer Lifecycle
© 2008 Patricia Seybold Group
Illustration 1. The customer lifecycle begins with customers looking for
solutions and continues to their planning for the next product/service
solution that
they need, leading, again, to the exploration phase. Most customer
scenarios span two or three of the phases. The reorder/renew/replenish
scenario addressed
in this report focuses on the renew and replace phase of the cycle,
but, with automatic reordering considerations, touches on the manage
and maintain
phase as well as the plan phase.
A TYPICAL “REORDER/RENEW/ REPLENISH” CUSTOMER SCENARIO
Similar for Products and Services, B2B and B2C
No matter what types of products or services you use, if they are important
to your life or your business, you have to get more. You run out, or a subscription
expires, or you realize that you need more than you had anticipated. No matter
what the situation, it all can be summed up in a quotation from Charles Dickens: “Please,
sir, I want some more.”
Moments of Truth in Reorder/Renew/Replenish
The reorder/renew/replenish scenario is a common one in many customer co-design
sessions. Although there are always variations on a theme (based on specific
customer type, specific service or product line, industry, and context),
there are four key moments of truth that show up in some manner in every
reorder/renew/replenish scenario, as shown in Illustration 2:
Moments of Truth in Reorder/Renew/Replenish Scenarios
© 2008 Patricia Seybold Group
Illustration 2. In almost all reorder/renew/replenish scenarios, whether
for products or services, or B2B or B2C, there are four key moments
of truth.
•
I want it to be easy to reorder/renew
•
I want the products/services to be delivered quickly
•
I want to never run out again
•
I want it to be easy to cancel or modify a reorder
CONDITIONS OF SATISFACTION FOR MOMENTS OF TRUTH. Although these moments of
truth are virtually universal in this type of scenario, sometimes they are
expressed in a slightly different way depending on the Conditions of Satisfaction
for the customer. Conditions of satisfaction are things that have to happen
in my specific context and scenario to make me happy; sometimes they are
expressed as emotions (how I feel about what’s happening).
For example, in a reorder/renew/replenish scenario, the first moment of truth
sometimes includes the need to make changes to the contract or number of
items or licenses being renewed. So there may be a condition of satisfaction
around the ease with which the customer can change the terms of the subscription,
license, or membership, or quantity of refills.
•
Moment of Truth: I want it to be easy to reorder/renew.
Condition
of Satisfaction: I want to be able to change the terms or quantities
for my renewal to match my changed circumstances.
Similarly, the second moment of truth is often expanded through the following
condition of satisfaction, which, although it isn’t universal, often
emerges (download the PDF to see Illustration 3):
•
Moment of Truth: I want the products/services to be delivered quickly.
Condition of Satisfaction: I want you to provide an interim solution (in case
there is a delay in delivery/activation).
Types of Customer Scenarios
Understanding your customers’ scenarios—what they are trying to accomplish and how they ideally want to reach their goals—is critical to making it easy for them. There are several types of Customer Scenarios:
• Customer Lifecycle Scenarios. There are Customer Scenarios that are closely connected to customers’ discovery, acquisition, and use of your products to fulfill a need they have—we call these customer lifecycle scenarios.
• Event-Triggered Scenarios. There are also Customer Scenarios that relate to life events or business events that customers need to deal with. For consumers, these might include buying a new home, retiring, welcoming a new baby into the family, sending a child off to college. For business people, these scenarios may include things like launching a new product, opening a new branch, or downsizing the business.
• Outcome-Based Scenarios. Some scenarios are focused on a specific outcome, such as loosing 20 pounds, getting a promotion, or increasing your revenues by 20 percent while retaining or improving your current profit margins.
Customer Lifecycle Scenarios
In a perfect world, your customers remain loyal to
you throughout their life time, always looking to you
for the next generation of products and services in
your area that fulfills their needs. In reality, customers,
both business and consumer, can be fickle and picky,
changing providers as soon as something better, sexier,
and/or cheaper comes along. The key to keeping customers
happy and loyal is to make it so easy for them to do
business with you and achieve their goals throughout
their entire lifecycle of selecting, purchasing, and
consuming or using your products and services (see
Illustration 2) that the thought of defecting never
enters their minds.
Recurring Scenario Patterns
Customer Scenario patterns recur over and over again
across lots of different products and industries. Unlike
a specific Customer Scenario for a particular customer
in a particular context, a Customer Scenario pattern
is a high-level outline or template that emerges from
many different actual context- and customer-segment-specific
scenarios.
Each Customer Scenario pattern consists of:
1. The types of steps that customers who find themselves
in a similar role and context will typically want to
take, and the key points within the scenario that matter
most to customers: customers’ “Moments of Truth.”
2. The metrics by which customers will determine if
the particular moment of truth has been met successfully.
3. The types of responses that suppliers and partners
find will best address these top priority customers’ needs and how your organization measures your customers’ successful achievement of their key needs.
4. The metrics by which you measure the business opportunities
resulting from customers achieving their goals.
Unpacking Customers’ Moments of Truth
Once customers have mapped out their ideal scenario,
we ask them to show us the points in the scenario that
are the most critical for a successful experience and
a successful outcome. We ask, “What are the moments of truth for you in this scenario? What are the points at which you would abandon this scenario? What are the showstoppers for you in this situation?” The customer team will step back and look at the entire scenario, and, usually within a minute or two, they quickly agree on three to five critical steps in the scenario that really make a difference to their ability to complete the scenario successfully. They identify these moments of truth and “unpack” them for us by describing what needs to happen in order for them to feel well taken care of and able to complete the scenario.
|
This report continues...
|
|