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USPTA Invited Guest The Missing Ingredients “Customer Experience” and “Customer Service” By Chris Tran USPTA Elite Professional
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found that in our tennis industry, many coaches who are great salesmen or great teaching pros on court, are missing the customer service and/or fail to provide good customer experience. What is “customer experience”? Customer experience is defined by the interactions and experiences your customer has with your business throughout the entire customer journey, from first contact to becoming a happy and loyal customer. Customer experience is an integral part of customer relationship and the reason why it’s important is because a customer who has a positive experience with your business is more likely to become a repeat and loyal customer. In fact, according to a global customer experience study by a large fortune 500 company it has been found that 74% of senior executives believe that customer experience impacts the willingness of a customer to be a loyal advocate. If you want your customers to stay loyal, you have to invest in their experience! Why do we see customers following the pros in our industry and not staying with the academy or school? Mostly because the pros provide them the customer service and good product they expect. A smart operation will build the pros around their program not their program around the pros and will focus on great customer experience and customer service. As such, when one of the pros leaves, the customers will not see a change. What is “customer service” in the tennis business? The term refers to the way a company interacts with its customers and handling of progress of the child, billing, complaints and any issues. Whenever there is direct contact with a customer, we are talking about customer service. What’s the difference between the two, one might ask? Customer experience is how players feel about their session with the pro during the lesson or clinic, or when they buy one of your products. It could also mean how they view you as a pro, or your program while watching or attending a lesson/clinic. On the other hand, customer service is how communication and issues are being handled beyond the tennis court. If you answer “yes” to any of the questions
below then you not providing good customer experience(CX): 1. Are your pros just standing around talking to each other while running the clinic? 2. Are your pros just a ball feeding machine, not providing any feedbacks to the students? 3. If you are working with a Performance level player and you ask, “what do you want to work on today?” 4. Your pros are spending most of the time checking the phone or on the phone during the lesson/clinic? 5. Are your pros NOT enforcing the COVID19 CDC guidelines? 6. Put a child in an inappropriate level? 7. Are your pros talking too much, or not enough? 8. Do your pros present themselves professionally both in appearance and demeaner? 9. Do your pros come to the court before their scheduled time and be ready for their clinic/lesson? If you answer “yes” to any of these questions below then you are not providing good customer service(CS): 1. Do you provide a quality status report about the player if you are dealing with Performance kids? 2. Do you listen and answer their questions to their satisfaction? 3. Do you return their VM or emails in timely manner? 4. Do you provide recommendations and move a child to the next level when a child is ready before a parent asked? 5. Do you make recommendations about their equipment needs before you even asked? Here’s what we should learn from the major businesses. Customer experience and customer service have fast become top priorities for businesses and 2021 will be no different. But, why are so many companies focusing on the CX and CS and what happens to companies that choose to ignore it? Customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product. Keep in mind that tennis is an expensive sport, so your clients are mostly mid to high-end salaries, so cost is not their concern. Instead, they stay loyal with club/academy due to the experience they receive. If you cannot
keep up with their increasing demands, your customers will leave you. A good customer experience means your customers will spend more. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. The more expensive the item, the more they are willing to pay. The perception is that the more expensive coach and clinic are better and provide higher quality than the cheaper ones. In my experience, this is a distorted perception. Many of the highly priced pros are just great salesmen, but some are not even certified and getting high prices for their lessons. Customer frustration will lead to churn According to Esteban Kolsky, 72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people. On the other hand, if a customer is not happy, 13% of them will share their experience with 15 or even more. The challenge here lies in the fact that, in most cases, customers don’t tell you if they are unhappy. In fact, only 1 in 26 unhappy customers actually complain. The rest just leave. With 9 out of 10 businesses competing mainly on customer experience, it’s the organizations that take customer experience seriously that will stand out from the noise and win loyal customers over. One thing is for sure, in order to deliver a positive experience, you have to know your customers better than ever before. Once you know your customers well enough, you can use that knowledge to personalize every interaction. Customers these days have more power and choices than ever before. Thus, you are responsible for understanding and acknowledging their needs. If you make sure their interaction with your club or academy is smooth, pleasant and continuously improving, you will drive brand loyalty. If not, you’ll give your competitors the best gift you can – your customers. A host of clubs and academies all over the world are striving to enhance this experience in order to build their reputation, increase customer loyalty and drive sales. Indeed, when asked about the company’s main competitive advantage, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was quick to define it as: “creating a customer experience superior to anything my competitors can create.” Clubs and academies who successfully implement a customer experience and customer service strategy achieve higher customer satisfaction rates, reduced customer churn and increased revenues.
