Famed customer-service expert Shep Hyken posted an article titled, Avoid Customer Confusion, wherein he details a confusing experience purchasing a ping-pong table from a nearby store. He had researched the price online at their website but was shocked to discover that the brick-and-mortar location had a much higher price—and worse still, the local store couldn’t match the online price because, “they are actually a different company.” This was despite the fact that the website and the physical location shared the same name, logo, and products. How’s a customer supposed to keep track of that when it all looks the same?
Perhaps the two literally were different companies, with the online site owned by the corporation and the physical location actually a franchisee. This happens all the time in cellular phone business, for example, with locally owned stores that brand themselves as though they are part of a major telecommunications company—but are unable to perform some of the services a corporate-owned store could.
Either way, this can be tremendously confusing and frustrating for customers, who don’t have the time nor the inclination to understand the internal workings of a business. They just want to buy the product, not think about how the relationship between the local store and the company headquartered far away. And inconsistency touches more than price, of course. Hyken goes on to say, “there are many other ways to confuse customers. My point is that we should look at our processes, our products, and more.”
Your business doesn’t need to be a franchisee bound by special rules, nor does it need to have an obnoxious policy about having separate prices for its website and its locations. Inconsistencies can crop up anywhere in your day-to-day operations. Here’s a scenario: picture a local country store with an in-store ice-cream parlor. Imagine that everything you purchase from the shelves goes to one register, but everything you buy from the ice cream parlor has to be paid for at a special register. —That’s instant friction right there, as customers are less likely to make an impulse purchase if they’re forced to stand in a different line and pull out their payment method a second time. Now imagine it’s even worse: the ice cream parlor doesn’t accept the same forms of payment as the rest of the store. Your credit card works at the regular register but not at the parlor’s.
There’s a reasonable explanation for why this situation might exist—perhaps the parlor is indeed operated as a separate company that uses its own merchant system. Consequently, it has a separate register and its own payment policies. But does the customer care about all that when they’re the ones being inconvenienced? As Hyken continues, “The best way to frustrate the customer is with inconsistency in any area of your business. Confused customers will never be loyal. Confusion erodes trust.” Analyze your business and consider where the pain points are, broadly speaking. You’ll want to do everything in you power to make the experience for the customer as pleasant as you can, which also means making the whole experience as consistent as possible.
One way to spot difficulties or catch inconsistencies is to employ a mystery-shopping company like The Brandt Group. We send in regular consumers to provide you with real-world feedback, so if there’s anything amiss, they’re sure to spot it. And that’s what you want—regular people because it’s hard to spot the problems yourself when you become so used to the inside baseball of how your processes work. Don’t lose sales to uncertainty! Reach out now for a consultation!
