You’re welcome?
I heard a great talk by Jonathan Winchester the other day talking about the client experience within your business.
You see it starts from the first step out of the car, the first phone call, the first interaction. Whether its people visiting your office, being ignored instead of welcomed or the phone ringing more than 3 times, the signs outside of your office, the mugs you serve coffee in and even the state of your loos. Because every little bit sets up your client journey throughout your business.
Happily our loos are clean, our premises friendly and I know the guys who are on the phone answer it quickly and in a personably manner (always greeting with Good Moring/Afternoon and introducing themselves). However our entrance on our depot at Unit 9 was about as welcoming as Gulag 75. There was warning signs about parking, not entering the warehouse, avoiding forklifts and CCTV – it was all WARNING, ALERT, and STOP – no exactly setting up a positive initial client interaction. And it was busy. With negative connotations regardless of the intent – which was only safety.
Now some of those signs are legal requirements but we could move them form the front door to by the warehouse. We cleansed the front door so it stopped being a collage of negativity and replaced it all with a ‘Hello, and welcome’ sign and rephrased all the official notices for them to be, well, more Diamond like. And Diamond = FRIENDLY. None of the alterations cost a lot – just a little thought and it’s certainly kicked off a more inclusive perspective on how every little thing counts when we are setting up our client experience. No more obscene mugs in our kitchen, no more NO/STOP/WARNINGS unless totally necessary and a return to WELCOME as being our major focus. We even printed on the rear of our welcome sign with a little ‘Have A Nice Day’ on the rear, so people leave our premises with the Diamond positivity fresh in their minds.
I therefore encourage you as part of your new year’s resolution to look at the start of your client experience with your company and audit it accordingly. Is your reception welcoming or off putting? Does you whole office sing of all your core values or does it set up a vibe contrary to how you really want to be seen? And think KISS – keep it super simple – clarity of welcome, with little detracting from your core values is a must. It’s the little things like this that we all have to think about in making sure our client experience is 100% congruent with our company core values – and it all starts with ‘Welcome’.
Jonathan’s details can be found at:
http://www.shopperanonymous.co.uk