Maguire here.

To continue on with a recent thread…Customer Satisfaction Is Not Enough! Consider this: 60 –80% of customers who defect report that they are “satisfied.” Mere “satisfaction” is by no means the whole picture. Repeat business comes from going beyond customer satisfaction — to customer delight. Customer delight leads to customer loyalty.

According to B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, authors of “The Experience Economy” the “key to differentiation in the market is experience.” Mssrs. Pine and Gilmore consider customer experience to be the “fourth economic offering” — beyond commodity, beyond goods, beyond service.

Experience. Pine and Gilmore go on to state that “When a person buys a service, he purchases a set of intangible experiences carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages – as in a theatrical play – to engage him in a personal way.”

Companies create an “experience” whenever they engage customers, connecting with them in a personal, memorable way.

Think Geek Squad…Starbucks…Nordstrom…Southwest Airlines, et. al. In order to differentiate your service in today’s crowded marketplace from everybody else’s, you need to create an experience for the customer that will make them feel good about doing business with you.

Experiences are sensations and feelings evoked by interaction with the customer. Experiences can be positive or negative (and they cause a physiological change in the customer’s body). Experiences are memorable.

The creation of consistently positive experiences is the key to loyalty.

When a customer experience engages, customers walk away with indelible impressions. Impressions are the “take-away” of the experience. When the customer walks away with the impression of being valued — that they are cared about and appreciated — they are more likely to want to come back again and to tell their friends to do so as well. Differentiation comes from being treated differently…being made to important, welcome, comfortable – special!

What a delight that is. More next time. Frank out.

Maguire here.

Recently came back from a very enjoyable, particularly stimulating speaking engagement in Panama. Ideas flowing, all systems engaged. Maybe it was the exhilarating sight of those famous canals. Maybe it was the attitude imparted by the new, smartly styled Panama hat that I picked up to commemorate a great trip. Maybe it was that particular brand of clarity that comes from the combination of foreign soil, security lines and travel fatigue. Whatever it was, it all comes down to this: I’ve got something terrific I want to share with you.

It came to me on the plane ride home. A number of corporate executives and business leaders from Southern California have enjoyed my informal Leadership on the Lake sessions, where we climb into my boat and take a slow trip around my own little Westlake waterway.  We talk about whatever leadership topics come to mind — bringing our intellect, our experiences, our individual expertise to bear in the interest of brainstorming new topics, new directions, new solutions to the problems that plague all forms of endeavor  — from the entrepreneurial to the corporate to the personal kind.

We have fun, too. Seeing the world from beyond the office helps everyone’s thoughts to flow, but it also encourages it’s own brand of focus – similar to the clarity I spoke of earlier, but more easily achieved. Creative viewpoints emerge. Alternative strategies pour forth. Innovative solutions take shape.

I love seeing the “aha” moments coalesce as my clients derive visions of how to successfully navigate the challenges and opportunities of their own leadership work. Anyone who has seen me speak to an organization knows that I thrive on the warmth of a gathering, and enjoy exercising my gift for inspiring the troops about what a contribution they make, and how they can set their sights even higher.

It occurred to me that I really don’t need a boat or a lake or a trip to Panama to go exploring.  It also came to me that one-on-one coaching is a valuable offshoot and a natural progression of the group success sessions for which I am presently (and globally) known. As it turns out, some of my Leadership on the Lake alumni have inquired about just such one-on-one coaching sessions – for the express purpose of  helping them explore their own specific tasks and challenges more deeply. So, because Leadership on the Lake (and my Panama epiphany) has shown me that the Mind of Maguire is also highly effective for close-focus work, I’m inviting all you out there to come exploring with me. Let’s get together and talk about you, your organization, your dreams and some experience-tested ways to increase your forward momentum.

Buy a new hat…and give me a call.

Maguire here. Consider this…

Life responds to your outlook.

Life is largely a matter of expectation. In order to succeed, you must expect to succeed.

Funny thing…When you expect things to happen, strangely enough, they do happen.

Expectation energizes your goals and gives them momentum.

The dreams you believe in come to be. Believe something good can happen, and it will happen.

Set your goals high. Begin with wild expectations, succeed beyond your wildest dreams.