Constructing Care: How Your Customers Know They Matter

It sounds like a broken record. "We love customers," "Customer satisfaction guaranteed," or "Service is our number one product." However, the clichéd promises can ring hollow without concrete proof. And caring is the foundation of trust and the preamble to loyalty.

A recent PwC survey found that customers who do not trust a company are not inclined to buy from the company (71%) or recommend the company to others (73%). And the same study discovered that 87% of leaders believe their customers trust their company, while only 30% actually do.[i] The message is clear: transform an "I care" attitude into a "let me show you I care" action, or it is irrelevant. How do organizations give evidence they really care? Here are four steps.

Hardwire Caring into Your Processes

How often have you tried to open the packaging of a purchased product and thought, "I wish the CEO were required to open this darn thing." How many processes have been so draconian they are literally customer-hostile instead of customer-friendly? It means looking at all your service processes through the eyes of customers. And that requires getting customers to assist since you are either blind to the details they see or biased toward an inward perspective. Plus, you know too much!

When a customer complained to an employee at Stew Leonard's Dairy Store in Norwalk, CT, that their fish was not fresh because it was in a supermarket package, the store built a fresh fish station with fish weighed and wrapped by an attendant right off the ice. The fish on ice were the same price as the pre-packaged fish. Sales for packaged fish did not decrease; instead, the store doubled their fish sales. Getting customer fingerprints on a process design helps dramatize a caring attitude. Would your process appear to customers that they were crafted by customers or by someone with no line of sight to customers?

Make Your Value-Adds Sincere and Personalized

Customers always value generosity. But we live in an era when value-added is often mechanized. Getting upgraded by the computer as a frequent "whatever" fails to have the emotional attraction that the same gesture has with a human fronting it. That turndown knock on the hotel room door with an offer of chocolate from the housekeeper can feel like a not-so-subtle bribe for a tip. Granted, personalization takes time and resources, but the closer it gets to a thoughtful gesture, the more it convinces the organization cares.

Authentic gifting can spell caring to customers. My car dealership takes excellent care of my and my wife’s same brand cars. We drive over an hour to get all the maintenance, bypassing another dealership much closer. But the attraction is not the TLC our cars receive; it is how we are treated. Most dealerships provide a nice waiting area for customers getting maintenance, complete with complimentary coffee, TV, and magazines. My dealership has in my customer profile that I like hazelnut-flavored coffee, so they make sure there are a few hazelnut K-cups with the waiting area Keurig machine. Not only do I have a bottle of cold water in the cup holder as I drive away, but there is sometimes a long-stem flower on the dashboard to take home to my bride.

Show Allegiance to What Matters Most to Customers

I serve on the board of a small museum. Few museums in the world can sustain their costs solely through admission. Not-for-profit businesses like the museum tend to shower for-profit companies with requests for philanthropy. Some enterprises purchase self-serving advertising disguised as a contribution, like the billboard at the ballpark or that logo on the backs of Little League shirts. But when "sponsor" is spelled f-r-i-e-n-d, it telegraphs sincere interest and caring. Our local newspaper owner funded the purchase of a rare antique typewriter for one of our museum‘s displays with no expectation of reciprocity.

Learn about the issues and causes important to your target market and channel your philanthropy in that direction. When a local hardware store learned that eighty percent of its customers had a dog, it planned a "build a doghouse" activity linked to the local humane society. For two Saturdays, patrons used tools and materials provided by the hardware store to build dog houses of all sizes. The humane society set up their "adopt-a-pet" operation right in front of the store. Anyone who adopted a homeless dog got a free doghouse if they wanted one. There was even a painter with stencils ready to "personalize" each house with the pet's name.

Genuinely Empathize with Your Customers

A heartwarming story went viral. The babysitter of Morehouse College student’s five-month-old daughter cancelled at the last minute. His wife had necessary chores and he was preparing for a midterm algebra exam. The class was to be a critical review. So, he brought his child to class at this all-male college in Atlanta. But it created a new problem - how to hold his baby and take notes. Professor Nathan Alexander volunteered to carry the child in his arms while he lectured and periodically wrote on the whiteboard. ln the Morehouse College president David Thomas' tweet, he wrote, "This is about love and commitment to our students. Caring about our students means being committed to removing any barrier to their pursuit of excellence."

Always lead with the person in the customer, not the problem of the customer. Anne Brose posted her heartwarming story on LinkedIn and it lit up the Internet. Here are her words that bear shouting from corporate rooftops. "I contacted Chewy last week to see if I could return an unopened bag of my dog's food after he died. After a heartwarming expression of sorrow for my loss, they 1) gave me a full refund, 2) told me to donate the food to the shelter, and 3) had flowers delivered today with the gift note signed by the person I talked to."

Caring is conduct that demonstrates a deep and abiding concern for your customers' well-being and success. It is acknowledging customers' uniqueness, honoring their peculiarities, and respecting their preferences. Make your customers’ experiences customer-centric, personal, generous, and above all, like they matter. You will know your caring works when customers return with their friends, not just their funds.

i] PwC Survey on "Trust: The New Currency for Business," PwC Consumer Intelligence Series on Trust, June 2022.