The Human Experience: How to Make Life Better for Your Customers and Create a More Successful Organization

“Restoring humanity to customer experience... is better for both customers and for businesses,” contends business consultant Sills in his practical debut. He recommends that companies prioritize attending to customers’ emotions rather than shuffling them through rigid scripts, positing that doing so increases the bottom line by reducing complaints and employee turnover while making customers more likely to “instinctively” recommend the company. Pushing back on “myths” that drive unsatisfactory customer experiences, Sills argues that customer loyalty is usually shallow at best and leads companies to take existing customers for granted. To build up goodwill, Sills encourages businesses to allow their employees to develop relationships with customers built on “genuine care, not just regulatory compliance.” Profiles showcase companies that excel at humanizing themselves, such as Chiltern Railways, which has its train drivers make announcements instead of relying on automated recordings. These companies, Sills asserts, embody the seven “organizational traits” that produce quality customer experience: accessibility, consistency, flexibility, proactivity, respect, responsibility, and being straightforward. Sills makes a persuasive case that companies have become too impersonal, and executives will appreciate the concrete guidance. This makes for an ideal manual on bringing a human touch to business transactions. (Apr.)