Dry cleaner strikes again

Did you read my post about the “dry cleaning incident”? The one where they ‘forgot’ to tell me the buttons on my jacket were ruined, hoping I would walk out of the store none-the-wiser?

Being one to give a second chance, I went back last week to have more clothing cleaned. After dropping off my cleaning, while walking to the car I reviewed in invoice and I kid you not; I could not understand it. The invoice sliced and diced my order from all angles except the cleaning charge for each item. I just wanted to know what they were charging per piece.

I had to go back to the shop, and the staff had to look up the price in the computer to tell me how much one of the shirts cost to clean. Having to walk back from my car to have my invoice interpreted negated the very pleasant drop off experience I just had with the dry cleaner. Their invoice is hard to read, not clear and does not make it easy for me to do business with them. It may be a great invoice from the store’s perspective, but it was a very poor experience from my perspective. Furthermore, you’re reading about the same dry cleaner again… this second experience is entrenching my position as a detractor for their business.

So how does this apply to your business? Let me ask the question again, have you looked at your business’ customer interaction points? If yes, have you taken the next step of dissecting those points from your customer’s perspective? Creating a customer experience corridor, mapping the interaction points, or moments of truth a typical customer has with your product is the first step in understanding your customers’ experiences and the impressions you are leaving them. Depending on your customer’s experiences, these interaction points will cause them to do one of three things

– Evangelize your product and service, recommending it to others and return to do business with you repeatedly

– Feel neutrally about your service or product, and shop around based on price and convenience

– Tell others about their poor experience, post it on their blog, tweet it to their followers and update their Facebook status.

Take the time to walk a minute in your customer’s shoes. You maybe surprised about what you find.