How experience guarantees can help you win more customers

Why are customers loyal to certain companies?

People buy from Amazon because is it consistently solves one problem quickly and conveniently: "I need to buy _____."

You can fill in the blank with nearly every product imaginable. Whatever it is, Amazon has made it as easy as possible to get it fast.

Starbucks has legions of loyal customers because it offers the most convenient way to get a caffeinated coffee drink. Just open the app, place your order, and it will be ready for you by the time you arrive.

In-N-Out Burger attracts customers in droves who want a delicious fast food burger and fries, promising "Quality you can taste." You can see your meal being made in the open kitchen with fresh ingredients.

All of these companies do one simple thing to win and retain their customers. They offer a guaranteed customer experience.

What is an experience guarantee?

Customers do businesses with companies they like and trust. An experience guarantee assures customers will have a consistent experience every time they do business with you.

Here's an excerpt from the book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

A typical guarantee makes a promise, such as how long a product will last without breaking, or that customers will be totally satisfied with their purchase. Behind the scenes, companies must work hard to keep those promises or risk losing both credibility and customers.

Guarantees often include a specific remedy in the event a promise isn't kept—such as refunding the customer's money or replacing a defective product. The remedy gives customers an extra amount of assurance and creates an additional financial incentive for companies to keep their promises.

The Guaranteed Customer Experience model applies the concept of a guarantee to the customer's overall experience.

You win customers by promising to solve a customer's problem, retain customers by making sure that promise is kept, and encourage unhappy customers to give you another chance by recovering from service failures.

Let's look back at Amazon, Starbucks, and In-N-Out to see how they use this concept.

• Amazon promises orders will arrive by a certain time.

• Starbucks promises a convenient cup of coffee.

• In-N-Out promises high-quality fast food.

All three companies have earned their loyal customers by being remarkably consistent.

How do you create an experience guarantee?

Start by identifying the problem your customer is trying to solve. This is at the core of the Guaranteed Customer Experience model.

Armstrong Garden Centers doesn't focus on selling plants, though that's what they sell. They focus on solving a problem their customers care deeply about solving: growing a beautiful garden.

The company's brand promise speaks directly to that need: Gardening Without Guesswork.

Everything Armstrong does is focused on helping customers become better gardeners:

• They only sell plants that grow well in the local environment.

• Employees give expert gardening advice.

• Classes and online tutorials are offered for even more assistance.

Think about the core problem your company solves for customers. One way to identify it is to listen for your customers' "I need to" statements.

What do they say they need to do when they do business with you?

Once you understand your customer's problem, you can create a guarantee to solve it that ensures your customer has a great experience.

An experience guarantee has three elements:

1. Promise: Win customers by promising to solve their problem.

2. Action: Earn trust by taking action to keep your promise.

3. Recovery: Restore trust through service recovery if a promise is ever broken.

You don't have to spell out all three elements for your customers, though you can. What's important is customers know that you promise to solve their problem and that you keep your promises.

Here are three more examples of businesses that earn loyal customers with an incredibly simple experience guarantee:

Road trip travelers want clean restrooms when they stop at a gas station. Buc-ee's wins repeat business by promising the world's cleanest restrooms.

Deli customers want fresh, great-tasting food. Elephants wins loyal customers by promising great local food from scratch.

Public transit customers want reliable transportation. TriMet earns riders’ trust by constantly monitoring its system and providing real-time updates.

Take Action

Here are two resources to help you win and retain customers with your own experience guarantee.

1. Workbook --> Download it for free

2. Book --> The Guaranteed Customer Experience is a guide to implementing this system.

How customer experience can save the environment

Sustainability is all the rage.

Consumers increasingly want it. Companies everywhere promote it. Governments demand it with new laws mandating sustainable practices.

The big trick is adopting sustainable practices without negatively impacting the customer experience. People want to save the planet, but they don't want to be inconvenienced.

Single-use grocery bags and coffee cups are an example. Billions get thrown away each year, but customers continue to use them because they are quick and convenient.

I recently followed the customer journey for two companies that are trying to tackle this issue.

One is James Coffee Co., a chain of four coffee shops in San Diego that provides customers with reusable glass jars instead of disposable cups. The other is Goatote, a reusable shopping bag system that's being piloted in New Jersey.

Let's take a closer look at each program to see if they can save the planet without ruining the customer experience. We’ll test each one via the Guaranteed Customer Experience framework.

The big question: does it work?

What promise do they make?

Companies attract new customers by promising to solve problems that people care about. According to the Guaranteed Customer Experience framework, a good marketing promise meets three criteria:

1. Valuable: it addresses a problem that customers want to solve

2. Specific: it's clear enough to avoid confusion

3. Realistic: the promise can be consistently kept

James Coffee Co. promises to help customers eliminate single-use coffee cups by serving drinks in reusable glass jars.

A $1.50 deposit will get you a "Glass To-Go" set consisting of a glass jar, metal lid, and a koozie. You can return the set for a refund anytime or exchange it for a new one on your next visit.

That promise is consistently explained across the company's website, in-store signage, and via individual employees. Let’s see how it compares to the framework:

1. Valuable: Mixed. The promise is valuable if you are concerned about reducing single-use cups.

2. Specific: Yes, the Glass To-Go program is specific and clear.

3. Realistic: Yes, the program works seamlessly.

I think James Coffee is underselling the value by missing a problem customers really want to solve: great tasting coffee.

Coffee sipped from a glass tastes much better than when you drink it through a plastic lid or from a paper cup. While sustainability is a good aim, my guess is more customers would be moved by the tangible benefit of better coffee.

Goatote promises to help customers who forgot their reusable shopping bags or don’t already have one. The state of New Jersey recently banned single-use shopping bags at large grocery stores, which creates a need for reusable shopping bags.

You can rent an unlimited number of reusable bags for $2.50 per month, or pay $1.00 for a one-time rental.

I didn’t observe a single customer use the Goatote system on two visits to the Target in Jersey City, New Jersey. Let’s look at how it compares to the Guaranteed Customer Experience Framework to understand why the promise was not compelling:

1. Valuable: No, the promise is not valuable.

2. Specific: No, the promise is inconsistent and unclear.

3. Realistic: No, the program does not work.

Value can be defined by how well a promise addresses a customer's problem. At the Target store I visited in Jersey City, customers had the option to rent a Goatote bag for $1.00 (or a $2.50 monthly subscription) or buy a reusable Target bag for $.99.

The Target option clearly provided more value to a customer who forgot to bring a bag:

• It’s one cent cheaper.

• You didn’t need to return the bag. (Goatote rentals are 30 days.)

• Unlike Goatote, you don’t need a separate transaction to acquire a bag.

Specific promises are clear and easy to understand. The Goatote program was not consistently or clearly explained. For example, the Goatote website is unclear about whether you need to download an app or how bags are returned.

I emailed Goatote to get clarification, but did not receive a response. A Target customer service rep told me via chat that I did need to download the Goatote app. Inside Target, a sales associate also told me I needed to download the app.

It turns out, you don’t need to download the app.

Realistic promises are ones you can consistently keep. Goatote customers must first create an account and I was unable to complete this step. This made the program unrealistic.

Is the promise kept?

A good promise can win a customer's business, but keeping your promise is what earns a customer's trust and gets them to come back.

James Coffee Co. easily kept its Glass To-Go promise. The process was smartly designed to include the reusable glass in the normal flow of ordering coffee.

• A Glass To-Go kit was automatically added to each new order.

• The cost of the kit was taken off your order if you brought in one to exchange.

• Customers could get their deposit refunded by bringing the kit back to the counter.

A simple, frictionless customer experience makes a sustainability program easy for customers to get behind. I saw more than 60 percent of James Coffee Co. customers walk-in with a Glass To-Go kit already in hand and nobody seemed to have any problems with it.

And the coffee was very good.

Goatote was unable to keep its promise to rent me a reusable shopping bag. The process was very convoluted and then I hit a dead end.

To start, you either had to download the Goatote app or scan a QR code at the Goatote kiosk. This is a separate transaction from whatever you are purchasing at Target, so you’ll need to acquire your bag before or after you make your Target purchases.

I scanned the QR code rather than downloading the app.

Next, you had to set-up an account. My first attempt at a password was too weak, so I had to come up with a new password before moving forward. This extra friction would have been enough to stop me from renting a $1.00 shopping bag if I wasn’t writing this blog post.

The "Payment Method" button on the signup screen suggested I'd be entering my payment info next, but first I had to agree to the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.

This is where I hit a dead end.

Clicking on the "Terms of Service" link led me to the website for a seemingly unrelated company. There were no terms of service to be found, so I couldn't read exactly what kind of shenanigans I'd be getting into with this $1.00 shopping bag rental.

Images of past Blockbuster Video late fees danced in my head, so no rental for me.

The privacy policy link did work. It was onerous, to say the least, clocking in at 3,796 words. Who knew a reusable shopping bag rental required such an extensive contract?!

Meanwhile, customers could simply purchase a $.99 reusable Target bag as part of their regular transaction. It was a simple process with no accounts to create, apps to download, or terms of service to read.

Does customer service support the promise?

Customer service is defined as the advice or assistance a company provides to those people who buy or use its products or services.

The customer service at James Coffee Co. was great.

A friendly barista clearly explained the Glass To-Go program to me. His explanation was consistent with what I read on the James Coffee Co. website and the sign I saw in front of the store.

He went a step farther by offering me a sample of coffee he had just brewed. Of course, he served it in a reusable glass rather than a disposable cup.

Goatote's customer service was uneven and confusing.

The company never responded to questions I emailed to both of the email addresses listed on its website. I did track down an email address for Renee Lundahl, Goatote's co-founder, who replied quickly, but I doubt the average customer would go to that trouble.

Target's customer service also sent an inconsistent message.

I did an online chat with a Target customer service rep prior to trying the Goatote system in-store. He told me that I had to download the Goatote app to use the system (which isn't true), though he did admit he had very little information on the program.

An associate in the store also told me the app was required to rent a bag, though I was able to initiate the process from the kiosk without an app. She didn't know much else about the system, though she did tell me people rarely used it.

Conclusion

The big question for each program is does it work?

• James Coffee Co: Yes

• Goatote: No

James Coffee Co. had a steady stream of customers on the morning I visited. More than 60 percent brought their Glass To-Go kit with them, which indicates they were repeat customers.

I did not see a single customer use the Goatote system. A Target employee confirmed the system was rarely used and customers generally chose to purchase the $.99 reusable Target bags if they didn’t already have a bag of their own.

The big lesson here is sustainability is important, but the customer experience has to be right if you want customers to accept your program. That means promising to solve a problem customers care about and then taking steps to keep your promise.

Check out The Guaranteed Customer Experience if you’d like to apply this model to one of your own products or services.

3 reasons to stop conflating customer service with customer experience

"You're pissing me off!"

The one-sentence email came from the company president. He was upset that the phones had been ringing all day, and blamed me for what was happening.

Our phone lines rang throughout the office whenever a customer was holding for more than a minute. Everyone, including the president, was expected to drop what they were doing and answer the phone.

The president thought it was my job to stop the surge since I was the customer service manager. So did my coworkers in other departments, who were openly grousing about having to take so many calls.

In reality, there wasn't much I could do.

Ironically, the phones were ringing off the hook due to mistakes my colleagues had made. The president, who was upset at me, had made the most critical blunders. It was a miserable experience to get blamed for their failures.

That experience happened over 20 years ago, but it's still fresh in my mind. It's something I think about every time someone conflates customer service with customer experience.

Here's why we need to stop doing that.

Customer service vs. customer experience

Customer service is just one part of the overall customer experience. That distinction is important, for reasons I'll explain in just a moment.

For now, let's start with some definitions. This excellent definition of customer experience comes from Annette Franz:

The sum of all the interactions that a customer has with an organization over the life of the “relationship” with that company… and, especially, the feelings, emotions, and perceptions the customer has about those interactions.

Customer experience includes customer service and also product design, marketing, delivery, and any other part of the company that the customer interacts with in some way.

This helpful definition of customer service comes from the Oxford English Dictionary:

The assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.

You can read this detailed explanation of the difference between the two if you want to take a deeper dive.

How confusing service and experience causes problems

Several problems are created when customer service is mistaken for customer experience. Here are three:

#1 Hidden Problems

The true scope of customer experience problems get hidden when the customer service team is expected to take responsibility for everything.

At my company, most of our customer service calls were about problems caused by other departments.

1. Defective products sourced by merchandising.

2. Backorders caused by supply chain struggling to keep items in stock.

3. Incorrect items shipped by the fulfillment center.

The president refused to acknowledge the scope of these problems or take steps to address them, so the phones kept ringing.

#2 Lacking Ownership

Other departments avoid ownership when the customer service team is rebranded as the "customer experience team." They distance themselves from anything that has a negative impact on customers.

The president expected my team to fix the customer experience issues, even though most of the problems were a direct result of his decisions. He micromanaged the merchandising side of the business, often to disastrous effect:

• Selecting poor quality products that led to high return rates.

• Writing advertising copy that exaggerated a product's attributes and dissatisfied customers.

• Vetting suppliers who were slow to deliver promised shipments, causing extreme backorders.

Ironically, it was the president's policy that customer service calls had to ring throughout the office whenever a customer was on hold for a minute. He wouldn't let me change it, yet he blamed me when the phone rang.

#3 Defended Silos

A lack of ownership creates silos, where each department pursues and defends its own agenda without regard to the impact on the overall customer experience.

Inventory was one of the biggest problems that plagued my company. It wasn't uncommon to find a box of 30 items where our inventory showed zero in stock, or an empty shelf where our inventory showed 10 items would be there.

Yet the warehouse manager refused to conduct an inventory.

It got so bad that customer service reps started going to the warehouse to search for backordered items. On many occasions, they found items previously thought backordered that could be shipped to waiting customers.

Rather than delight in our success, the warehouse manager got even more territorial and barred reps from going into the warehouse to look for products.

Conclusion

Customer service does play a vital role in customer experience. In addition to helping customers, customer service can be a listening post to share customer feedback with the rest of the organization.

In retrospect, I made a lot of mistakes in this area.

I'd often share vague feedback such as, "We're getting a lot of calls about backordered items." Nobody wanted to listened to that. Some, including the president, accused me of being a complainer.

One day, I accidentally discovered a better approach. It involved sharing a story, data, and a specific request.

First, I told the president a story to make the situation tangible. We had missed out on selling an expensive item because it was found damaged in the warehouse and couldn't be shipped.

Second, I explained at least 50 percent of similar items we had in stock were damaged, too. This data helped explain the scope of the problem.

Finally, I asked for help getting the inventory cleaned up so we didn't lose out on more sales.

The president agreed, and ordered the warehouse manager to inspect and repair each item, and remove any items from inventory that could not be repaired.

It was a great lesson, and one that I carried on to my next job. The president’s angry email convinced me I was in the wrong place. Good thing I left, since the company went out of business about a year later.

What the heck is a Chief Customer Officer?

Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

More companies are adding a Chief Customer Officer (CCO).

It sounds like a positive development, but you're not alone if you don't know exactly what a CCO does. I'll admit—I had to do some digging myself. 

Thankfully, two experts gave me the inside scoop.

Customer experience pioneer and bestselling author, Jeanne Bliss, literally wrote the book on this topic. The book, Chief Customer Officer 2.0, spells out in great detail the role of the CCO.

Judy Weader is a senior analyst at Forrester who researches the field of customer experience (CX). You can find her quoted in publications like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

In this post, I'll attempt to answer a few questions with help from Bliss and Weader:

• What does a Chief Customer Officer do?

• Does a CCO need to have functional responsibility?

• What’s the difference between a CCO and a CXO?

• Is the CCO role a fad or a real trend?

• How do you know if your company needs a CCO?

What does a Chief Customer Officer do?

"The Chief Customer Officer is responsible for building and guiding an organization’s customer experience strategy," explained Weader.

Customer experience extends beyond just customer service. It extends to all the interactions a customer has with your brand, including advertising, sales, delivery, support, and even the product itself.

A CCO should help ensure all of these functions work seamlessly together.

According to Bliss, the CCO is ultimately responsible for "Uniting the c-suite to elevate the organization to become an admired company and earn the right to customer-driven growth."

This means more than just collecting and presenting survey results or fixing problems. The CCO should give senior leaders enough information to grow the business.

Does a CCO need to have functional responsibility?

Both Bliss and Weader agree that a CCO doesn't necessarily need departments reporting to them such as customer service, marketing, or sales.

"I have yet to find one single mold for a CCO that establishes one typical set of functional responsibilities outside of CX," said Weader. "However, I’ve come across a number of CCOs who are also responsible for brand, marketing, sales, customer success, and/or the contact center. Some of this relates to their reporting structure; if the CCO reports directly to the CEO (which is the most common alignment), then they’re more likely to have a specific function beyond CX reporting to them in order to be efficient at the executive layer."

Bliss agreed that a CCO should report directly to the CEO in order to have the appropriate level of influence within the organization. 

She also pointed to a few criteria shared by most successful CCOs:

1. Already a senior executive when they're promoted.

2. Experience building collaborative teams.

3. Have led an operation.

Bliss explained that top CCOs have "dirt under their fingernails" from running part of the business. This helps them better understand the real challenges of continuously improving customer experience.

Whats the difference between a CCO and a CXO?

Generally speaking, the titles of CCO and CXO can be used interchangeably. 

"Importantly, Chief Customer Officers may not always go by this title—Chief Experience Officer (CXO) and Chief Client Officer (also CCO) are seen, as well," said Weader.

Is the CCO role a fad or a real trend?

This appears to be a real trend.

Bliss published Chief Customer Officer in 2006. The second edition, Chief Customer Officer 2.0, was released in 2015. The role of the CCO has only continued to proliferate since then.

Weader cited research from her colleague at Forrester, Angelina Gennis. "From 2014 to 2019, we noted explosive growth in CX leadership roles at the executive level, including the CCO: in 2019, there were over 10,000 current job titles for CX executives (including CCO and CXO), versus fewer than 1,000 only 5 years prior."

How do you know if your company needs a CCO?

Bliss offers an excellent 10-point checklist in Chief Customer Officer 2.0 to help you decide whether your company needs a CCO.

I won't share all of it here—you should really get the book—but here are a few highlights:

1. Do you need someone to clarify and champion the customer experience vision?

2. Is there a roadmap for the customer experience work to be done?

3. Do clear metrics exist for measuring progress?

A "no" to one or more of those questions might indicate the need for a CCO. 

Interestingly, Bliss also advocates that CCOs try to work themselves out of a job. As an organization matures its customer-focused culture, the CCO function should become embedded in the daily work of every other executive.

Conclusion

This insight Bliss and Weader shared makes a lot of sense. I've observed CCOs struggle when they haven't been put in a position to succeed:

• They weren't a member of the senior leadership team.

• Their role was limited to collecting and presenting survey data.

• The position was added to chase a trend, not because of a strategic imperative.

On the other hand, I’ve seen Chief Customer Officers make an impact on their organization under three conditions:

1. A strategic need exists for this person.

2. There's clarity around what this person does.

3. The CCO is a senior executive.

What Indeed can teach us about brand promises

The job search site, Indeed, ran baseball-themed commercials during the recent World Series broadcast. In this one featuring Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, Max Scherzer, Scherzer uses baseball analogies to coach an applicant looking for a sales management position.

What's struck me about these commercials is the strength of Indeed's brand promise: "We help people get jobs."

This simplicity and focus has helped Indeed become the #1 job site in terms of total site visits and rank at the top of many "best of" lists, such as this one from The Balance Careers.

A great brand promise is a core element from my book, The Guaranteed Customer Customer Experience. For many businesses, it can be an essential part of a strategy to win and retain customers.

Here's a look at how Indeed does it so well. Let's start by looking at the connection between a brand promise and customer experience.

How brand promises influence customer experience

A brand promise influences customer experience in two ways. First, it tells the brand’s ideal customers what type of experience to expect, and assures them that this brand is the solution to a problem they’re trying to solve. Second, it gets all employees on the same page when it comes to crafting a consistent experience.

In the case of Indeed, the ideal customer is looking for a job. "We help people get jobs" could not address that need more clearly. An informal poll on LinkedIn showed that's exactly how many people view Indeed.

"I've found pretty much all my past jobs through Indeed," wrote James. "I personally like the simplicity of the website."

Devon added, "Indeed has been an excellent way to research what jobs are out there."

A great brand promise also provides clarity on how the company should operate. It focuses all of its employees on the type of experience it must deliver.

The brand promise influences advertising, such as this commercial showing hall of fame pitcher, Mariano Rivera, helping someone search for a senior accountant job.

You can also see it on the Indeed website. The home page is hyper-focused on people searching for a job.

Katie Molloy, President of the career consulting firm, Leo & Loy, is a big fan.

"I love Indeed for so many reasons," wrote Molloy. It has many standout features, including the ability to easily refine job searches and set alerts for certain types of jobs. Molloy says these features makes it easier for her clients who are searching for jobs. "Basically it does the work every night while you’re sleeping and you wake up to a new list of jobs you can apply to."

What makes a great brand promise?

The best brand promises have three characteristics that enable them to help attract customers and provide clarity for employees.

#1: Specific

A great brand promise should focus on something specific, so customers clearly understand what the brand stands for.

The Indeed brand promise is very specific. "We help people get jobs" tells you exactly you can expect from Indeed. Yes, it's very broad in the sense that there are a number of ways Indeed can deliver on this promise, but you aren't confused about what Indeed does.

#2 Valuable

A great brand promise should offer something of value to the company's ideal customer. 

You can understand what your customer finds valuable by listening to their "I need to" statements. Customers often use the words "I need to" when they are searching for a particular product or solution.

• "I need to wash my car."

• "I need to get a healthy meal on my lunch break."

• "I need to store my Halloween decorations until next year."

All of these statements bring to mind specific products or services that would satisfy a particular need, whether it's a car wash that offers incredible convenience, a fast food restaurant that offers healthy food, or company that makes storage containers.

Indeed's ideal customer is saying, "I need to find a job." The Indeed brand promise speaks to that need very directly.

#3 Realistic

Great brand promises must also be realistic. A brand has to keep its promise to customers if it wants to earn their trust and loyalty.

My friend Paul is a small business owner. Whenever he needs to hire employees, he goes to Indeed.

Paul explained that he doesn't have a lot of time to search for resumes. He found Indeed to be a simple and effective way to quickly find great candidates. Perhaps too effective, since Paul told me that if he posts a job on Indeed, he'd better be ready to hire someone right away!

Conclusion

A great brand promise should speak to your ideal customers with absolute clarity. This is the power of Indeed's deceptively simple promise, "We help people get jobs."

You can learn more about using a brand promise to attract and retain customers from The Guaranteed Customer Experience. Download the first chapter to read about a chain of convenience stores that outsells the competition by simply promising clean restrooms. You can also get a free toolkit to help you implement your own brand promises.

How customer experience promise audits can save customers

Updated: October 9, 2024

Boarded up windows were the first thing I saw when I arrived at the hotel.

I tried opening the lobby door. It wouldn’t budge. Confusion and concern set in. Is this the right hotel? Am I too weak from travel to open the door? Are they even open?

An employee saw me pulling on the door and let me in.

The hotel was open, but undergoing renovations. Ditto the hotel’s restaurant. The door was locked for security reasons because the hotel had recently experienced some vandalism.

None of this was disclosed on the website, where glossy photos painted the picture of a vibrant hotel. I would have stayed somewhere else if I had known ahead of time.

I hoped things would get better. They didn’t.

Three more promises were broken inside of the first 30 minutes on property. Each one negatively impacted my customer experience, and sowed distrust with the hotel:

1. Mobile check-in didn't work.

2. In-room wifi didn't work.

3. I didn't get an expected room upgrade.

That third promise comes with being a "Gold" member of the hotel chain's loyalty program. Gold members get various perks in exchange for staying 25-49 nights per year. An upgraded room, when available, is one of those perks.

Would you stay at this hotel again?

Bigger question: do customers ever have a similar experience with your business? The type of experience where promise after promise is broken, and they question whether to ever do business with you again.

You can avoid this scenario with a promise audit.

What is a customer experience promise audit?

Companies make a lot of promises to customers. A promise audit evaluates whether those promises are kept and identifies ones that are broken.

1. Identify promises made to customers.

2. Determine whether each promise is being kept.

3. Fix broken promises.

You can audit all the promises made along a customer's journey or focus on one specific area. For example, the hotel chain might audit how often Gold guests get the elite benefits they are promised in exchange for their loyalty.

The top three benefits are highlighted on the chain’s website:

Room upgrades are called out as a top benefit.

I go out of my way to stay with this hotel chain in part to get a nicer room. A promise audit would reveal that Gold members like me haven't been getting those upgrades.

Why should you do a promise audit?

A promise audit can help you identify opportunities to make the customer experience more consistent, avoid unpleasant surprises, and prevent chronic service failures.

This helps reduce customer churn, improve your product or service, and improve operational efficiency.

I'm searching for a new hotel chain despite achieving lifetime elite status with my current one. My guest experience is inconsistent because I don't regularly receive all the loyalty benefits I'm promised.

Many travelers have reported similar frustrations with the chain in online forums. It's costing the chain a lot:

• Loyal customers are switching to other brands.

• Service costs are going up (the labor cost of handling complaints).

• Goodwill costs are going up (extra points, comped meals, etc.)

• Word-of-mouth advertising has turned negative.

• Guests are reducing their overall spend with the chain.

Promise audits aren’t just about saving customers. They can also help you increase revenue.

I've seen the impact in my own business. My wife, Sally, and I once owned a vacation rental cabin called The Overlook in the Southern California mountain village of Idyllwild.

Revenue increased 145% in the five years we owned in. Part of our growth came from offering a consistently great guest experience. Promise audits helped us stay consistent:

• Monthly: maintenance inspections.

• Quarterly: review guests' journey (i.e. stay at the cabin).

How do you conduct a customer experience promise audit?

Most promise audits are quickly conducted by following a few steps.

1. Identify the scope of the audit

2. Identify where promises are made

3. Identify how often promises are kept

Step 1: Identify the scope of the audit.

Decide what particular set of promises you want to focus on. It could be a specific marketing campaign, an aspect of your operation, or the entire customer journey.

The hotel chain could audit the benefits that are promised to loyalty program members.

Step 2: Identify where these promises are made to customers.

Promises are communicated to customers in many ways. This includes advertising, from employees, and digitally. Try to identify all the places where promises are made and make sure they're consistent.

The hotel chain communicates it's loyalty benefits in a few places:

• Website

• App

• Hotel associates

• Mail (welcome and renewal letters mailed to members)

• Email

• Brochures

Part of the audit includes making sure these benefits are consistently described.

Step 3: Identify how often the promises are kept.

Gather data to determine how frequently promises are kept, and which promises are broken. There are a few ways to gather this data:

• Review reports if the data is already collected.

• Test the various systems in question to see if they're working.

• View customer complaint data to identify broken promises.

• Follow the customer journey by being your own customer.

The hotel chain tracks extensive data about its guests. It could easily access data to determine whether its guests are getting their benefits.

My last 10 stays with the hotel chain provide a snapshot of what the audit might reveal. Here’s a breakdown of the eight benefits I’m promised as a Gold member:

Promises Kept 100%:

1. Member rates

2. 25% bonus points

3. Welcome gift of points

4. Late checkout

Not applicable:

1. Ultimate reservation guarantee

Broken promises:

1. Complimentary in-room enhanced internet: 90% (10% not kept)

2. Mobile check-in: 0% (100% not kept)

3. Enhanced room upgrade: 0% (100% not kept)

In-room wifi works most of the team. Mobile check-in and room upgrades are a huge red flag.

Mobile check-in allows you to bypass the front desk and check-in via the hotel’s app. You can then use your phone to access your room. That feature never worked in the past 10 stays.

Enhanced room upgrades are clearly promised "based on availability." While it would be unfair to expect an upgrade on every visit, I haven't gotten upgraded on any of my last ten visits. I used to receive regular upgrades, so something has changed.

Promise audits can also uncover unexpected problems.

For instance, the hotel chain's loyalty members earn points that can be redeemed for free stays. Unfortunately, those points aren't redeemable at many hotels. I've only been able to use points to book the hotel I wanted 40% of the time over the past two years.

Broken promises cause customers to distrust a brand.

I once stayed at this brand automatically. Now, I’m shopping other hotels when I make a reservation. I’m also talking to other travelers about their experience with other chains in case I want to switch loyalty programs.

Conclusion

Promises help you attract customers. Keeping promises is where you earn their repeat business and positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Use a promise audit to help you retain more business.

1. Identify the scope of the audit

2. Identify where promises are made

3. Identify how often promises are kept

I’ve created a step-by-step system to win and retain customers by keeping your promises. It’s called The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

Get it here: The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

How a simple marketing strategy helps Buc-ee's dominate the competition

Note: The following is an excerpt from The Guaranteed Customer Experience. You can download Chapter One to read the rest of the story about Buc-ee’s.

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Imagine driving cross-country on a road trip.

You need gas, and you need to use the restroom. Choosing a place to stop is a big decision. Gas stations can be miles apart. The station you see on the horizon probably has gas, but there's no guarantee they’ll have a clean restroom. Do you need to stop now, or do you have enough fuel to keep going until the next one?

You size up each gas station’s convenience store you pass as your level of urgency increases. Some are rejected at first glance for being too scary. You slow to scrutinize others. Will the restroom be open or out-of-order? Will there be a line? Will it be clean?!

Your car's gas gauge is hovering near "E," while your own tank is dangerously close to "F." Decision time. Where will you stop?

You're not alone in this experience. A study from the travel app GasBuddy found that 40 percent of Americans worry about finding a clean restroom on a road trip.

Buc-ee's, a chain of gas station convenience stores located primarily in Texas, has developed a devoted customer base by solving this problem.

Driving through Texas, you're likely to encounter any number of humorous billboards advertising the nearest Buc-ee's location:

Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.

I once counted 19 billboards on a stretch of highway. The messages often repeat the same promise that Buc-ee’s has clean restrooms.

Image courtesy of Lou Congelio, Acme Fish.

The billboards speak clearly to customers on the go who desperately have to go. They demonstrate an understanding of this common road trip problem and promise that Buc-ee's will solve it.

Many travelers will drive past other gas stations to get to a Buc-ee's, because Buc-ee's provides an assurance that other brands don’t.

This billboard is a welcome sight to a traveler with an urgent need.

Your heart might skip a beat when you pull into a Buc-ee's for the first time. This place is huge!

There’s a steady stream of cars in the parking lot, but you’ll still find plenty of parking and gas pumps. Semi-trailer trucks are not allowed, which creates a bit more space than the typical travel stop.

The restrooms are clearly visible from the front entrance, but you might still worry. Will there be a long line? Or worse, will it be a mess?

Buc-ee's does not disappoint. 8.3 million ratings of fuel and convenience retailers on the GasBuddy travel app rated the restrooms at Buc-ee's as the best in America. The restrooms at each location are unbelievably plentiful and clean, and each is well-stocked with paper and soap. Many are downright enormous.

Clean restrooms attract customers, but that's not all Buc-ee's has to offer.

It has all the items you'd expect to see in a convenience store—such as soda, candy, and chips—though on a much larger scale.

Most convenience stores are lucky to have one Icee machine that barely works some of the time. There are four Icee machines at the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas. Each is in perfect working condition.

There are also things you wouldn’t expect to find in a typical convenience store. Larger Buc-ee's locations have a barbecue counter where employees make hot sandwiches to order.

There's also an enormous display of house-made beef jerky and candy past the counter. Keep walking, and you'll come to a large section selling Texas-themed gifts and Buc-ee's apparel.

I once stopped at the Buc-ee's in Luling, Texas, to get a dog leash. My wife and I were on a road trip, and I had accidentally left our dog's leash at my mother-in-law's house in Houston. "Let's stop at Buc-ee's," I said. "I bet they have dog leashes." Sure enough, they did.

The size of the store and the sheer number of customers can intimidate first-time visitors, but Buc-ee's is surprisingly convenient. There are multiple cash register lines open with friendly cashiers ready and waiting to serve you.

Buc-ee's draws large crowds. Its locations average nearly four times as many customers as a typical convenience store.

Imagine attracting four times more customers to your business than your competition. What would cause so many customers to give you a try and, once they did, keep coming back? The secret is customer experience.

Buc-ee's wins customers from competing brands by consistently providing restrooms that are far superior to anyone else's. It averages a four-star rating on Yelp across all locations, with a whopping 46 percent of those reviews mentioning the restrooms.

Cody Esser, who writes the Impulsive Traveler Guy blog, traveled to 33 Buc-ee's locations over the course of three days in 2018. He reported that not a single restroom at any of those locations was dirty. I polled family and friends in Texas, asking what they love about Buc-ee's. Nearly everyone mentioned the clean restrooms.

Of course, the Buc-ee's experience is more than just clean restrooms. It keeps customers coming back with stores that are bigger and have a broader selection of items than a typical gas station convenience store.

Outside the Buc-ee’s in Luling, Texas.

My friend Robin summarized the Buc-ee's experience nicely: "I love that you can get bakery items, fresh-made candy, wonderful hot sandwiches, that they have a gift shop, and also have clean bathrooms! They have everything a traveler could ever want."

Conclusion

The challenge for any business is to figure out exactly what problem it can consistently solve better than the competition. It has to be something that customers value so customers choose you over other options.

You can download Chapter One from The Guaranteed Customer Experience to read the rest of the story and learn how to identify the problem your customer is trying to solve.

How Elephants Delicatessen wins customers with a great brand promise

Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

Dining out quickly loses its luster when you travel for work.

Several years ago, I had a long-term consulting project in Portland, Oregon. I'd fly in on a Monday, work crazy hours, and then fly home at the end of the week. I did this every week for several months.

Dining out for three meals a day makes it difficult to get proper nutrition. I needed to find a solution.

Fortunately, I discovered Elephants Delicatessen.

The Elephants brand promise is "Great local foods from scratch since 1979." That's exactly what it delivered—offering me a chance to get a tasty, healthy meal on the go.

I recently interviewed Cheyenne Terbrueggen, Marketing Communications Manager at Elephants to learn how the company keeps its brand promise and wins fans like me.

Here are a few of the questions that Terbrueggen answered. I've included the point in the interview where she answered it.

• What makes a good brand promise? (1:51)

• How can a brand promise help employees? (4:21)

• How does a brand promise influence your marketing message? (9:40)

• What makes a brand promise attractive to customers? (12:09)

• How does a brand promise influence product decisions? (17:24)

You can watch the full interview or read the highlights below.

What makes a good brand promise?

Terbrueggen explained that the brand promise encapsulates everything that Elephants does in one simple, straightforward sentence.

Great local foods from scratch since 1979.

"When you put it all together, it's basic and it's straightforward, and it's friendly--all things that we want to be."

The first part, great local foods, reflects the company's commitment to sourcing fresh ingredients from the community.

"Ninety percent of our main suppliers are located within 200 miles of our stores," explained Terbrueggen.

The second part, from scratch, communicates that the food is home-made and reinforces the feeling of fresh, healthy, and tasty.

"We make everything ourselves," said Terbrueggen. "Everything you eat is something that we've made."

Finally, adding 1979 shows that Elephants has been doing it for a very long time. The company isn't just trying to be trendy—they've made a real commitment.

Terbrueggen referred to the brand promise as a tagline throughout the interview, since it plays such a prominent role in Elephants' marketing. Notice how it's clearly communicated on the company's home page.

Terbrueggen admitted there is often an impulse to change the brand promise. When she was first hired, she was asked to come up with some alternatives. Terbrueggen came up with several ideas, but none were as authentic and impactful as the existing one.

"As many times as I've tried to come up with a better tagline that states what we do, I just can't."

Hear more on this topic at 1:51 in the interview.

How can a brand promise help employees?

Many people think of a brand promise as something that's exclusively for marketing. Yet employees are the keepers of that promise.

"It's important for the consumer, it is," said Terbrueggen. "But we have 250 employees. And I can tell you that they all know our tagline."

A good brand promise functions as a company's customer experience vision. This is a shared definition of an outstanding experience that gets all employees on the same page.

At Elephants, the brand promise helps employees understand what they do and guides their daily work.

Terbrueggen explained that it's often used as a way to simplify all that the company does into one simple message. "We do so many things, it's nice to have a really descriptive, straightforward tagline."

New employees learn about the tagline in their initial training. They hear multiple leaders talk about it, and what it means. It then becomes an integral part of their jobs.

This discussion starts at 4:21 in the interview.

How can a brand promise simplify your marketing message?

Many marketers confide that crafting the right message is a struggle. Companies offer so many products and services to many different types of customers.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to distill that down to one clear message.

Terbrueggen explained that she always comes back to the tagline whenever there's any doubt. It helps answer the question, "When there's so much to say, what's the one thing I should say?"

Elephants has run advertisements that focus exclusively on the tagline. Executives reference it as talking points during interviews. It even influences product decisions.

"Everything we do that's important for people to know is in the tagline," said Terbrueggen.

Go to the 9:40 mark to hear more.

How can a great brand promise attract more customers?

This was a fun segment of the interview, because it gave me a chance to tell Terbrueggen why I'm a fan of Elephants.

Customers ultimately buy products and services to help them solve a problem. A good brand promise speaks clearly to a specific problem a customer is trying to solve.

As a business traveler, the problem I needed to solve was to get a healthy, tasty meal on the go. I didn't want another heavy meal weighing me down. Elephants solved that problem nicely, and I ate there regularly.

One important side note is that I discovered Elephants through word-of-mouth. My clients routinely ordered lunch from Elephants, so I got to experience the quality myself.

Companies that have a strong brand promise make it easier for existing customers to refer the company to new customers. They can use the brand promise to help describe what makes the company special.

Listen to the full discussion at 12:09.

How does a brand promise influence product decisions?

Customer-focused companies often take a cross-functional approach to creating new products and services. The goal is to create something that customers will not only love, but that the company is capable of consistently delivering.

In my book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience, I profiled multiple companies like Osprey Packs, Domino's, and Briggs & Riley that involve marketing, repairs, customer service, and other departments when developing new products.

The same is true at Elephants, where marketing, chefs, and procurement work together to create menu items. Ultimately, the availability of fresh, local ingredients determines whether or not a menu item can be offered.

"We wanted to do strawberry muffins this week but we can't, because we can't get great strawberries," said Terbruggen. "We can get good blueberries right now, so we're doing blueberry sour cream muffins instead."

Elephants regularly changes its menu to ensure it's keeping its promise of providing fresh local foods from scratch.

"We'd rather do that than purchase something that's not fresh and local," said Terbrueggen. "We have to be guided by what's available and what our suppliers have."

More on this at the 17:24 mark in the interview.

Take Action

First, make sure you visit Elephants the next time you are in Portland.

If you can't make it to Portland anytime soon, check out the Elephants website. Notice how the tagline is clearly communicated. (You can also order gift boxes!)

Next, discuss these questions with your team to implement these concepts in your own organization:

• What is our brand promise?

• Do we communicate it clearly to our customers?

• Do we communicate it clearly to employees?

• How can we be sure our employees know the brand promise?

• What do we do to ensure our brand promise is kept?

This last one is just for fun.

Portlandia, a TV show that poked fun at many of Portland's eccentricities, had this wonderful sketch about the importance of food being truly local.

How to fix customer experience by keeping your promises

Domino’s helped me survive college.

My school had a deal with the local Domino’s franchise where you could use your meal plan to order a pizza. The meal plan even covered the delivery driver’s tip.

It was way too convenient for a student who was strapped for cash.

To say I ordered a lot of Domino’s was an understatement. I ordered A LOT of pizza. And when I wasn’t ordering Domino’s, my friends were. Or my classmates when we were working on a project.

By the time I graduated, I needed a break.

Recently, I ordered Domino’s for old time sake. It appeared on my doorstep like a long-lost friend and we spent some time getting reacquainted.

A lot had happened over the years.

The following is an excerpt from The Guaranteed Customer Experience: How to Win Customers by Keeping Your Promises. The book launched on March 23 and is available on Amazon and BookPal.

Business looked bleak for Domino's in early 2009.

The 2008 fiscal year had been tough for the chain of pizza restaurants. Revenue was down 2.6 percent from the prior year. The company relies heavily on franchise operators, yet it had a net decrease of 108 franchises in the United States. An audit revealed that 12 percent of the company's 1,200 franchise locations worldwide were chronically underperforming.

The company's problems continued to grow as the year went on. In April 2009, a video of two franchise employees defiling customer orders went viral. Among other disgusting acts, one employee was filmed putting cheese in his nose before putting it on a sandwich. The video led to the employees' arrests and a lot of grossed-out customers.

Customers were already widely dissatisfied with the quality of Domino's pizza. In a 2009 consumer survey conducted by research firm Brand Keys, the company tied Chuck E. Cheese for worst-tasting pizza among the major pizza chains in the United States.

The company's problems can be traced to a string of broken promises. Think about what you expect when you order a pizza for delivery: the pizza will arrive on time, taste good, and look like the pizza you ordered.

Domino's initially built its reputation around fast delivery. Until 1993, the company had offered a "30 minutes or less guarantee" on deliveries. The original guarantee promised customers a free pizza if it wasn't delivered within 30 minutes of placing their order. The guarantee was later changed to give customers $3 off their total.

The guarantee had many critics, as delivery drivers were accused of driving recklessly in order to meet the 30-minute promise. Domino's finally eliminated it in 1993 after facing two high-profile lawsuits when one delivery driver killed a motorist in a crash, and a second delivery driver severely injured another in a separate incident.

Fifteen years later, the company discovered an innovative way to set delivery expectations. In early 2008, Domino's rolled out the Pizza Tracker™, an online tool allowing customers to track their pizza from the time it was ordered until it was delivered to their door. The tool also included a way for customers to submit feedback about their order—feedback that went straight to the store manager.

The Pizza Tracker™ might have helped Domino's do a better job of keeping its delivery promises, but the company still failed to keep its basic promise of serving high-quality pizza. Domino's CEO, Patrick Doyle, admitted some years later, "When we did consumer tests, if they knew the pizza was Domino’s, they actually liked it less than if they just thought it was a random unbranded pizza."

In late 2009, the company offered a mea culpa in a new advertising campaign. One video produced by the company shared blunt feedback from customer focus groups and surveys. "Where's the love?" asked one customer featured in the video. "There doesn't feel like there's much love in Domino's pizza." Another customer said, "Domino's pizza crust, to me, is like cardboard."

Doyle directly addressed the feedback in that same video. "You can either use negative comments to get you down, or you can use them to excite you and energize your process of making a better pizza. We did the latter."

That video, and other Domino's commercials released during the ad campaign, offered customers a new promise. The company had listened to customer feedback and extensively reworked its recipes. Domino's promised its pizza was actually good again!

The promise of better-tasting pizza was real, and customers took notice. Domino's attracted positive publicity for its better-tasting pizza, and customers were increasingly willing to give it another try. Same-store sales rose 14 percent in the first three months of 2010.

There was one more broken promise that Domino's took aim at fixing. The pizzas shown in commercials and other advertising were not how a pizza really looked when it showed up at your doorstep.

A video released by Domino's in July 2010 showed a behind-the-scenes look at how pizza commercials were filmed. People dubbed "food stylists" used an array of tricks to make the pizza look better on camera. Pepperoni slices were hand-cut and painstakingly arranged to make the slices look evenly distributed. Torches crisped the edge of the crust and heated the cheese to make it stringier. Hidden screws secured the pizza to a board, so the rest of the pizza would stay in place when a hand model pulled out a slice.

The company announced it would begin using photos of real pizzas in its advertising. It launched a "Show Us Your Pizza" campaign, inviting customers to submit their own photos of Domino's pizzas.

CEO Patrick Doyle addressed one poor-looking photo in a commercial. A customer submitted a picture of a Domino's pizza with its toppings stuck to the underside of the box lid, as if the pizza had been squished inside the box. "This is not acceptable," said Doyle. "You shouldn't have to get this from Domino's. We're better than this."

Doyle then reiterated the company's commitment to keeping promises. "I'm Patrick Doyle. I'm the CEO of this company. We're not gonna fail. We're not gonna deliver pizzas like this. I guarantee it."

All these changes aimed at keeping promises paid off. By the end of 2010, revenue had increased 12 percent after two straight years of declines. The company continued to grow. And in 2018, Domino's finally surpassed its longtime rival, Pizza Hut, in total sales in the United States.

Read the rest of the story

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The one customer insight you absolutely must know

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

Years ago, I became the membership director for the San Diego chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD San Diego). It's a nonprofit professional association for corporate trainers.

Membership grew 67 percent over the course of my two year term.

It might surprise you to learn we didn't resort to any traditional tactics:

• Lower our prices

• Offer new member discounts

• Run a membership drive

What we did instead was leverage one specific insight to retain members and grow via word-of-mouth.

I discovered this insight by luck. Later, I discovered it’s applicable across a wide range of industries. It's now the cornerstone of my new book, The Guaranteed Customer Experience.

I'll share that insight in a moment. But first, let's look at why so many companies struggle to win and retain customers.

Why companies struggle to grow

In the simplest terms, companies grow by adding more customers than they lose. If you lose one customer, you need to add at least two new customers to post a net gain.

Lose too many customers, and growth becomes insanely difficult.

ASTD San Diego had lost 25 percent of its members over the past year when I became membership director. Even worse, the chapter was almost out of cash.

There was a palpable desperation amongst the leadership team.

Many of my colleagues wanted to offer a membership discount. Some argued we should offer a discount to new members while others felt we should offer a discount to existing members to entice them to renew.

I made a surprising counter-proposal: raise our dues.

It might seem strange to raise prices when you're losing members, but I had good data to back it up.

First, our dues were already lower than comparable professional associations. An additional discount would only cheapen the perceived value of a membership.

Second, we weren't losing members due to price.

I knew this because I had called every person who chose not to renew their membership in the past year. I also contacted everyone whose membership was expiring within the next 60 days.

My calls revealed exactly why so many members were leaving.

What you need to know about your customers

Business leaders have a lot of data, but they don't always know what to look for. There's one particular insight that can make all the difference.

What problem is your customer trying to solve?

This insight was popularized by Clayton Christensen. Customers don't purchase a product or service, Christensen argued. They hire a product or service to solve a problem.

For example, millions of people choose Amazon when they want a fast and convenient way to get nearly any product delivered.

Starbucks wins customers by making it easy to get a consistently good cup of coffee.

People join professional associations like ASTD San Diego because they want to grow in their careers. The chapter was losing members because it wasn't addressing that problem:

1. It lacked programs and other opportunities for career growth.

2. When interesting programs were promoted, they often failed to be as good as advertised.

A lack of value was the same reason the chapter struggled to recruit new members.

It didn’t matter what we charged members. Heck, we could make membership free! People wouldn’t join the chapter unless we promised to help them grow in their career.

This insight provided a clear path for our leadership team.

How to fuel customer-driven growth

Addressing the problem your customer is trying to solve is the key to growth. You win customers by promising to solve their problem. You retain them when you prove you can keep your promises.

I was fortunate that my fellow board members took the membership feedback seriously. The team committed to creating the strongest membership value proposition possible.

• A mentoring program for new trainers was expanded.

• The quality of monthly programs was improved.

• Events were offered in multiple places to make them easy for more members to attend.

• A one-day conference was created to expand learning opportunities.

• Multiple volunteer positions were created that helped people develop new skills.

Our mantra was to make the chapter's value proposition so strong that joining or renewing was a no-brainer.

Amazing things began happening. More members started renewing. Soon, the top two reasons our chapter lost members were:

1. They moved out of town.

2. They were no longer in the training industry.

People stopped leaving due to a lack of value.

The more members that stayed, the more new members we attracted via word-of-mouth. Coworkers, professional colleagues, and friends started recommending the chapter to people they knew. Companies enrolled their whole training departments.

Over the next two years, our membership grew 67 percent.

We didn’t offer a discount. In fact, we raised our rates. We didn’t run an advertising campaign to attract more members. Our happy members did the advertising for us.

We simply helped more members grow in their careers.

How to identify your customer’s problem

There are two big advantages to identifying the problem your customer is trying to solve.

1. You can attract new customers with a promise to solve that problem.

2. You can retain customers by consistently keeping your promise.

The first chapter of The Guaranteed Customer Experience describes how to identify the problem your customer is trying to solve.

I've made it available as a special preview.

Download it now to read about a chain of convenience stores that earns far more money than its rivals by leveraging an incredibly simple insight: people want clean restrooms.

The Guaranteed Customer Experience

Get Chapter 1