I’ve just returned from our EMEA Summit at the prestigious Celtic Manor in Wales – those of you who are golf fans will know that the venue hosted the Ryder Cup earlier this month. This was our 7th European Summit and we had attendees from across Europe, including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Gibraltar, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
Our clients BT, PhotoBox, Mansion, TomTom and Travelport all spoke at the event about how they use RightNow and the benefits they are seeing from the solution. What struck a chord with me is the strong commitment our clients have to delivering customer experiences that go that bit further. Across the board there seems to be an understanding that Customer Experience is a critical business imperative — driven by rising consumer expectations — and that systems need to be in place to help keep ahead of the rapidly accelerating rate of change in the market.
However, while consumer expectations for service increase, there is also some good news. Following on the research we released in North America two weeks ago, we asked 2,000 consumers in the UK whether they would be willing to pay more for a guaranteed superior experience. A full 87% are willing to pay more. The way the math works out, this comes to an average price increase of 8.5%. In a quick example, this means that the British Retail Consortium, which recorded £285 billion in revenue for 2009, could have added another £24.5 billion if all retailers had delivered outstanding customer experiences. These research results are a strong reiteration of the customer experience imperative.
While we’ve all certainly had our share of bad customer experiences, and my own bad experiences resonate very strongly with me, given the business I’m in, I also take note of particularly positive experiences. Let me briefly share an unexpectedly positive experience I enjoyed en route to Wales at Heathrow this week. As I started to search for the Heathrow Express ticket counter I was met in the hallway by a gentleman with a portable credit card machine offering Heathrow Express tickets. He swiped my card and in five seconds I had my tickets without having to wait in line or even having to look for their ticket booth. Their proactive service essentially put me on an earlier train and added about 30 minutes to my day. That’s a good experience. And I would have happily paid more for that ticket because of the good experience.
What good experiences have you had lately that you would have been willing to pay more for?
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