Articles
| Taking A Customer From Like To Love: The UX Of Long-Term Relationships |
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What do you mean “improve”? I charged him correctly, didn’t I?. My manager looked at me, disappointed:
Yes, Des, you charged him correctly. But a vending machine can do that, too. They show up on time; they’re more accurate; I don’t pay them by the hour; and they’re never hungover. Your job is to do something that a vending machine can’t do. Your job is to make our customers happy; give them a good experience; bring them back here again. Get it? I started to wonder. This was a gas station; how could I deliver a “good experience”? Surely, customers just want to get in and get out. Nonetheless, if I wanted to keep the job, I’d have to try. I started chatting to customers and casually asking questions. Did they find everything they needed. Could we order in a particular newspaper for them? Do they have our phone number in case they need to check whether we carry something? Why did they stop buying from the bakery? Customers regard gasoline as a cost that they have no say about. They enter the store annoyed at having to spend fifty bucks. My job was to change that. I got it. MBAs call this “customer experience,” although when it’s spelled out so plainly, it sounds more like common sense. And like most common sense, it’s rarely that common — especially in the world of subscription software, where we need customers to stick around. User experience designers are great at making software friendly and usable for new customers. We design clean, clear sign-up forms, smooth on-boarding experiences, and even helpful blank slates once users are inside the app. Once customers have used the software for some time and have integrated it in their workflow, their relationship with the software becomes more complex. UX designers have no stencils for designing “how the customer feels about the software after six months.” This matters because the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model depends on loyalty, on the idea that customers won’t flinch when they see your monthly charge.
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