Are You Easy?

“Being good is making it look easy, but getting good is never easy.”

Jeffrey Fry

When I begin working with a company for the first time I ask them if they’re looking for a competitive advantage over their competition. Of course the answer is always, “Yes!” Who isn’t? Then I ask them to name for me companies they LOVE doing business with. Companies where they’re treated like royalty, companies where they don’t even pay attention to how much they’re paying, companies they tell all their family and friends about. While I will sometimes get a name or two the typical response unfortunately is often crickets. I then flip the question around and ask them to name companies they hate doing business with. Companies where they’d never go back even if their product or service was free, or companies they only do business with because their competition isn’t any better. What do you think the response is to that question? Unfortunately again, this time the room becomes very animated with any number of companies names being shouted out. It often gets to the point where I have to quell the response as everyone wants to tell you about their latest terrible experience.

Did you notice a competitive advantage there anywhere?

It’s rare to find a company that doesn’t use some form of, “Our Customer Is King!” or “Putting Our Customers First In Everything We Do” mantra. Many even have the plastic banner hanging in their lobby or lunchroom proving it to be so and have it printed across their stationary. Yet the treatment you often receive is not only deprived of that kind of sentiment, but many times seems to be intentionally the exact opposite. How many times have you been told by a company representative, “I’m sorry but that’s not company policy.” How many times have you been treated rudely as if you should be the one happy to have the good fortune to be doing business with them?

Many years ago when my partners and I had just started Silicon Logic Engineering a wise man asked me how we were going to innovate in our business. My heavily pompous response was that we were a tech company so we would need to be innovating all the time. When he told me he wasn’t asking about the technology aspect, but instead the business as a whole, it was my turn for crickets. When I finally asked him what that meant to him he had a wonderful one word answer. Simplicity. He asked me how I was going to make it simpler (easier) for our employees to work there. How were we going to make it simpler for our vendors to work with us AND how we were going to continually make it simpler for our customers to do business with us?

Turns out there’s never an end to that question. By the time you implement some new idea to make it easier for your customers to do business with you, you should have the next two or three ideas ready to go. Look at companies such as Amazon. Their entire focus is the constant push to make it easier and easier to do business with them. Do I buy from them even though I know I could probably find the same product cheaper elsewhere online? Yep. Why? Because with limited typing for the product I’m looking for and about three clicks of my mouse I’m done and the product arrives two days later. Or now with Alexa I can just speak it. Simple! I’m willing to pay a little more for the “convenience” they provide. They make it so EASY for me to buy from them. They build on that by making it SO EASY to send something back if you don’t like it. One estimate says that out of every dollar spent on the internet 51 cents now goes to Amazon and that percentage is growing. Think about that for a moment. Impressive growth for a site that started out being just another online book store twenty years ago.

Think about the champion sport teams you watch. The best make it look so easy don’t they. Yet I think we all know how much time and effort and hard work went into making it look so simple.

Great businesses understand their success depends upon truly caring about and serving their customer. Being respectful of their time is a great place to start. We all lead busy lives today. Anyone that shows us they understand and then does everything possible to not add to our frenzied frustration gets our attention, our appreciation and most often our hard earned dollars.

One company I personally use is so good at it that I actually get an, “Ahhhhh”, feeling whenever I need to call them for something. Why the good feeling? Because I know no matter how bizarre my request might be, the answer is always going to be, “No problem Mr. West. We’ll take care of it by the end of the day.” And they do it with a sincere, friendly tone. Does their competition try to get my business from time-to-time? Of course. Am I interested in listening to them? Not a chance.

Does your company deliver that kind of feeling for your customer? Do you make them feel so welcome, make it so easy to do business with you they would never dream of going somewhere else? If you do, good for you! Now what’s the next thing you should be doing for them?

If you’re not thinking this way, what happens when one of your competitors figures it out?