“At the heart of a successful business strategy is a customer experience that is elegantly simple and positive, where consumers are likely to come away satisfied – and return.”
– Andres Angelani, CEO of Softvision
As we continue our discussions on signs of operational effectiveness, we need to include a significant indicator: happy Customers. Unfortunately, there are some organizations that do not even know whether their Customers are happy. Therefore, having a clear understanding of the signs that indicate a happy Customer aligns with creating operational effectiveness.
A Customer is happy when:
- Services or products are consistently delivered on time and are error free.
- Staff provide timely responses to Customers’ inquiries, questions, and/or concerns.
- The Customer believes in the organization so much he/she returns for additional services or products.
- The organization provides routine updates on changes, improvements, or anything that could impact the Customer.
- They are treated as if they are the most important and only Customer the organization has.
To monitor and increase the probability of a happy Customer, consider the following simple methods:
- Clearly define the characteristics of a happy, satisfied Customer.
- Define criteria to measure this.
- Establish a method to routinely obtain input from Customers.
- Evaluate that input to identify those opportunities for improvement.
A happy Customer, per Gregory Ciotti, Content Marketing Lead at Shopify, is described as follows:
“A satisfied customer is one who will continue to buy from you, seldom shop around, refer other Customers and in general be a superstar advocate for your business.”
A happy Customer is yet another sign of operational effectiveness.