Ensina-lhes as características dos produtos, ensina-lhe a utilizar os equipamentos da loja, ensina-lhes as regras a seguir e abre a loja.Parece uma caricatura? Para mim não é.
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Entro em muitas lojas onde todas as mensagens que recebo confirmam a narrativa anterior: entramos e não somos acolhidos; entramos e não se levantam; falamos e não nos olham de frente; esperamos enquanto se tratam assuntos pessoais ou se põe a conversa em dia.
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Imaginemos agora um empresário que faz batota!
Primeiro, humildemente reconhece que os clientes têm muitas alternativas onde comprar, e que a única forma de ter sucesso é procurar ser diferente, é procurar ficar na memória, pela positiva, é imprimir uma boa experiência de loja.
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Assim, a primeira coisa que faz é colocar-se na pele e nos sapatos dos clientes e fazer mentalmente a viagem, desde que o potencial cliente vê publicidade sobre a loja, depois vê o exterior da loja, depois entra e é acolhido, depois vê, cheira, sente, toca, aprecia, coloca questões, movimenta-se, compra ou não, e sai.
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“In choosing and using services, customers see more and process more information than managers and service providers often realize. Customers frequently behave like detectives in the way they process and organize “clues” embedded in the service experience into a set of feelings.
They process these clues and feelings when deciding whether or not to buy a service and while evaluating the service during and after use. The more important, variable, complex, and personal the service, the more detective work customers are likely to do as they sense experience clues.”
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“In interacting with organizations, customers consciously and unconsciously filter experience clues and organize them into a set of impressions, some more rational or calculative and others more emotional.”
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“Specific clues carry messages; the clues and messages converge to create the customer’s total service experience.
Clues tell a service story in the most powerful of ways, and it is better to tell a consistent, cohesive, compelling story than an inconsistent, disjointed, uninteresting one.”
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Empresários batoteiros são empresários que orquestram a experiência, são empresários que avaliam a experiência de um cliente em loja como demasiado importante para ser deixada acaso, ao critério de cada um. Querem passar uma experiência marcante, coerente, consistente, uma marca na verdadeira acepção da palavra.
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Existem três tipos de pistas: as funcionais, as mecânicas e as humânicas:
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“Functional clues concern the technical quality of the offering. Functional clues are the “what” of the service experience, revealing the reliability and competence of the service. Anything that indicates or suggests the technical quality of the service—its presence or absence—is a functional clue.” (têm o produto ou não têm? Prestam o serviço ou não prestam?)
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“Mechanic clues come from actual objects or environments and include sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures. Whereas functional clues concern the reliability of the service, mechanic clues concern the sensory presentation of the service.” (a loja está limpa? Arrumada? Iluminada?)
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“Humanic clues emerge from the behavior and appearance of service providers— choice of words, tone of voice, level of enthusiasm, body language, neatness, and appropriate dress.” (pois… o funcionário da livraria X (grande cadeia de livrarias) que há dias me dizia que o livro “A Guerra do Peleponeso” não deve haver à venda por cá. Sabe, é de um autor brasileiro. Não sei se é humano ou se é funcional… isto de “just a worm body” a atender clientes num balcão tem muito que se lhe diga)
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“Clues create the service experience by influencing customers’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior.”
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“Functional, mechanic, and humanic clues play specific roles in creating the customer’s service experience. As the figure shows functional clues primarily influence customers’ cognitive or calculative perceptions of service quality. Mechanic and humanic clues primarily influence customers’ emotional or affective perceptions.”
“Functional clues support the core of any service because they address the problem that brings the customer to the market. Customers buy solutions—an accurate, on-time tax return; correct diagnosis and treatment of their back pain—that depend on functionality. Nothing trumps performing the service right the first time.”…
Gato por lebre não! O básico tem de lá estar: “customers rated reliability as the most important dimension in meeting their expectations in every case.”
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“the clue management starting point for any company is to build and preserve the customer’s confidence in its competence. A customer’s confidence in the core service is the foundation for competing in any market. After all, how many customers will be interested in buying a service they consider unreliable if they have a choice?”
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“Mechanic clues come from inanimate objects and offer a physical representation of the intangible service. … A reality of services consumption is that customers buy the service before they fully experience it. A potentially important role of mechanic clues is to make a positive first impression that will influence customers’ choice of service supplier. Customers usually experience mechanic clues to some degree before experiencing the other types of clues and even before making a purchase decision”
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“Humanic clues created by employees are most salient for labor-intensive, interactive services.
The more important, personal, and enduring the customer-provider interaction, the more pronounced and emotional humanic effects are likely to be. Human interaction in the service experience offers the chance to cultivate emotional connectivity that can extend respect and esteem to customers and, in so doing, exceed their expectations, strengthen their trust, and deepen their loyalty.
Just as labor intensity can produce undesirable variability in a service, so can it produce desirable variability when a service provider performs with uncommon kindness, caring, or resourcefulness. Customer perception of employee effort in delivering a service has an especially strong impact on service satisfaction and loyalty”
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É aqui que penso que devia nascer o apelo interno do assistente de loja, do funcionário de loja, do vendedor de loja, do... em transformar-se num consultor de compra. Porque, quando isso acontecer... pode à luz da lei continuar a ser um trabalhador por conta de outrém, mas já está a trabalhar por conta própria, já está a criar a sua rede de clientes fiéis, clientes que o conhecem e apreciam a sua ajuda.
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Mas voltemos ao empresário... Assim, a batota que eu preconizo é um posicionamento mental em que não se deixa o resultado ao acaso. Onde queremos chegar? Que experiência queremos transmitir?
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Depois de conhecida a resposta, aplicamos retro-engenharia, andar para trás e ir listando o que tem de ser feito para chegar ao resultado final, mas mentalmente já lá estamos.
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“Fundamental to any effort is understanding the experience from the customer’s perspective—that is, seeing what the customer sees, hearing what the customer hears, touching what the customer touches, smelling what the customer smells, tasting what the customer tastes and, above all, feeling what the customer feels. Organizations need to work to become more clue conscious and understand the level of subtle details that are processed in customers’ conscious and unconscious thoughts impacting how they feel in an experience. Understanding what customers sense in an experience either by its presence or absence is foundational.” Amen
Este desafio merece um terceiro episódio: Como calçar os sapatos do cliente?
Trechos retirados de “Service Clues and Customer Assessment of the Service Experience: Lessons from Marketing” de Leonard L. Berry, Eileen A. Wall, e Lewis P. Carbone, publicado em 2006 por “Academy of Management Perspectives”
