What do the world’s most successful modern product and service brands have in common? 

What’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Is it advanced technology? A superior or entirely unique product offering? Maybe a new and innovative approach to world peace?

Or, is it something more fundamental. . . something more inherently tied to the human factor. . . . perhaps, just perhaps. . . could it be a focus on the customer experience?

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” ~ Jeff Bezos

If you’ve even remotely followed customer service trends over the past several years, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the growing dominance of the term “customer experience” in business publications, blog posts, and trend analyses. While “customer service” is primarily centered on a single or small series of transactions and customer touchpoints, the “customer experience” encompasses the entire past, present, and future customer interaction from both the physical and the psychological perspectives. In other words, it’s not just about the quality of the products and services consumed along the way, but equally about the customer’s lasting emotional impression from the culmination of the entire relationship and how that impression impacts brand promotion and future business.

The major brands have not just driven their own success, they have effectively reshaped the face of business and elevated consumer expectations for all businesses to a whole new level. They have done so not just through pioneering technological development, product enhancement, and innovative marketing, but more importantly by leveraging the power of delivering a consistently positive overall customer experience to generate strong customer loyalty and growth. These brands not only serve the customer’s product and service needs, but also dedicate themselves to providing convenience, responsiveness, effective communication, expeditious problem resolution, and efficient product support, all of which is flexible enough to provide a tailored experience consistent with individual customer preferences. 

So, what does this mean, just how critical is the customer experience? 

According to a recent Customer Management IQ survey, 75% of customer management executives rated the customer experience at the highest level of strategic importance on a prioritized scale of 1 to 5. Further, a report compiled by Walker indicates by the year 2020 the customer experience will outpace the combination of product and price as the central focus of business strategy, with 86% of consumers willing to pay more for a superior customer experience. Regardless of which reports or analytics on this topic we cite or choose to believe; one thing is certain. . . there is a clear and present strategic opportunity in the years ahead for brands that reach beyond the fundamentals of customer service and outpace their competition in the delivery of a robust and relevant customer experience.

In the multifamily industry, in its simplest and most basic form, we think of the customer (resident) lifecycle as the transactional progression through marketing and lead generation, leasing, move-in, occupancy/community, service and maintenance, lease renewal and retention, and ultimately the move-out and final financial settlement. How we interact with our residents in each of the individual transactions along this lifecycle defines our customer service. How the resident perceives the quality of the service, product satisfaction, and emotional imprint across the entire culmination of all their interactions with the people (leasing/maintenance/management teams), product (apartment/community/amenities), services (communication/technology/convenience), and value (pricing/fees) along the way defines the multifamily customer experience.

If we are to meet and exceed the expectations of today’s resident, and more importantly continue to capture a significant market share of tomorrow’s resident, it’s time to rethink our brand strategies and move beyond a “lifestyle” focus.  There is significant opportunity inherent in expanding our approach with greater consideration of the entire customer experience. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating a departure from lifestyle considerations; we provide people with homes and community, of course lifestyle will continue to be a core priority. I am saying that a robust customer experience strategy that effectively elevates lifestyle to a level consistent with modern consumer demand will provide a much stronger competitive advantage and more lasting return on investment.

To fully capitalize on the customer experience opportunity in multifamily we must look closely at all aspects of our customer interaction and develop strategies that promote positive experiences throughout the entire resident lifecycle. While we may not always be able to give the resident everything they might want given the financial, legal, and/or Fair Housing considerations that could be in play, we certainly can learn from the example of the most successful technology, product, service, and hospitality brands to develop and train strong teams and create operating strategies and systems that are more centered on the long-term customer experience.

There is no single best approach to prioritizing, developing, and executing sound customer experience strategies, but there are certain fundamentals that clearly standout as critically important components. The most obvious and consistently cited top priority is. . . no surprise. . . the customer-centric culture. From the ground up, there must be a focus on people. Hiring, training, developing, inspiring, and compensating people who inherently believe in living a true customer-centric culture every day. Supporting them, encouraging them, and giving them the tools to execute the brand strategy in ways that prioritize providing the customer with the best possible experience and consistent emotional fulfillment.

To create a genuine customer-centric culture, senior leadership and ownership must have 100% buy-in to the strategic importance of the customer experience. This requires not just an understanding, but more importantly a sincere belief, that the products we are developing and selling in the future are not just the brick and mortar properties, supporting amenities, and professional property management, but is instead the combination of those products and services intertwined with consistent delivery of an exceptional customer experience at all stages of the customer lifecycle.  This requires a commitment to capital investment in the sometimes less physically tangible customer experience components, just as it does for the development and construction of the physical communities and amenities.

There must be a well-thought, clearly defined, and consistently communicated Customer Experience Strategic Plan. The plan should include mission/vision statements, specific goals and objectives, assigned leadership and staff resources, a thorough and detailed budget, action plans, and benchmarks for the measurement and monitoring of progress. Once the plan is finalized, it must be openly and continually communicated to all levels of the organization in terms that are meaningful to each individual. The plan must be an integral and inseparable part of the company mission, core values, and culture. Many organizations have taken this so seriously they have begun to create c-level leadership solely dedicated to this function – the CXO or Chief Customer Experience Officer.

Customer-facing associates and on-site management must be further empowered to effectively drive the customer experience. They should be trusted to innovate and be creative with customer experience initiatives within their scope of responsibility, and unique to their market, demographics, and community. They must have the authority to make immediate customer-facing decisions when the resident is looking for an answer and not be limited to overly restrictive “corporate policy” or the fall back deferral of issues to “upper management.” This requires training in how to make effective cost-benefit decisions that provide investment in the long-term customer relationship without giving away the store or inadvertently creating legal issues. A successful customer experience culture is one that empowers your team with the knowledge, trust, confidence and support to provide the customer with a natural and organic “yes, we can” attitude and approach.   

Where tools are concerned, there are numerous current and emerging technology resources that can greatly improve the quality, efficiency, and convenience of successful customer experience delivery. Automation and streamlining of processes is critical. Tomorrow’s customers want simplicity, convenience, and a near instantaneous response/result delivered whenever possible on-demand through their smartphone. Chatbots, customer service AI, and messaging systems can simplify the communication process, and seamless communication tools that connect the resident to a live representative in a timely fashion when automation isn’t enough can greatly improve the overall experience. Customer intelligence systems that aggregate and analyze the ever-growing list of customer experience data sources into useful information are also essential.

Customer intelligence data allows us to measure the current state of our customer experience, identify areas of success and needed improvement, and in some cases, predict the future impact of new initiatives on our overall scoring. There are numerous sources and methods of gathering and interpreting customer intelligence data, each with their own merits and drawbacks. They are far too numerous to list here, so for the purposes of this article I will focus on one that is generally considered to be of primary importance to customer experience measurement. . . the Net Promoter Score. 

In simple terms, if a resident is likely to recommend you to a friend, family member, or colleague they are a Promoter of your brand. If they are not likely to recommend they are a Detractor. Calculating the difference of the percentage that are Promoters minus the percentage that are Detractors provides you with your Net Promoter Score (NPS). In other words, if the number of customers you have promoting your brand significantly outweighs the number that are detracting from your brand, you have a good score and a positive indicator that your brand is providing a positive customer experience. Setting goals and incentives tied to improvements in the NPS can help to build buy-in and excitement with your customer experience programs. Controlled surveys of verified customers that ask the “likely to recommend” question are generally the most reliable source for calculating promoter scores. 

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” ~ Bill Gates

If you look at the multifamily customer experience diagram above and compare each of the stages of that lifecycle to various forms of customer feedback you have at your disposal such as customer ratings/reviews, satisfaction surveys, retention/turnover data, time-to-complete service stats, and marketing expense ratios just to name a few. . . how do you think your brand is doing with regard to the entire customer experience? As business and technology trends and consumer expectations continue to advance and evolve, how do you think you’ll be able to answer that question a year from now? Five years from now? Ten years?

With the continual and rapid evolution of our consumer culture in this digital age of on-demand access to unfiltered (and often unverified) information, instant gratification, and social media, it has never been more critical to understand the strategic importance of the customer experience in shaping corporate values and brand execution. Regardless of the generation they belong to, while today’s customer is already more and more attracted to brands they feel confident will provide a superior overall experience, tomorrow’s customer will quite simply demand it.

Is your brand ready?