When it comes to delivering a truly differentiated customer experience, small companies have a distinct edge. In a small business environment where a handful of employees personally serve every customer, know every product or service, and have the authority and responsibility to do the right thing, delivering a unique and personalized customer experience comes naturally.
As companies get larger, however, they often lose that personalized touch. Being big does not preclude the creation of great experiences; it only means that they just have to work a little harder to achieve and maintain it.
Smaller companies have a distinct advantage when it comes to customer experience management. Their very survival depends on managing each and every customer relationship; therefore a customer-centric mindset comes naturally. They are not unencumbered by politics or corporate policies that can get in the way of delivering great customer service. In addition, a handful of employees know every customer and every aspect of the business, which makes them nearly omnipotent when it comes to serving customers. Clearly, sometimes small is truly beautiful when it comes to delivering a great customer experience.
Does that mean that larger companies have no chance of cashing in on customer experience management? Not necessarily; big businesses can overcome many of the barriers that are presented by size and scale. In fact, some large companies have relied on a customer experience differentiation to rise to the very top of their industry.
Being big isn’t always easy. As companies grow, they add channels, markets, products, employees, and thousands of other touch points. They may also add new layers of hierarchy in an attempt to manage new offerings. Each addition can contribute to the exponential growth in the overall complexity of the customer experience. As a result, large corporations can begin to lose touch with their customer’s needs and expectations.
However, being big doesn’t preclude companies from being a leader in customer satisfaction.
Consider the most recent results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for the Internet Retail industry. The overall king of customer satisfaction in this group is none other that the largest company in the sector – Amazon.com:
Internet Retail
American Customer Satisfaction Index – 2008
Scaled of 1-100, 100 being the best
ACSI Score by Company (Scale=1-100)
- 88 Amazon.com, Inc.
- 87 Newegg Inc.
- 84 Netflix, Inc.
- 83 Internet Retail Average
- 81 eBay Inc.
- 80 Overstock.com, Inc.
Source: American Customer Satisfaction Index. Retrieved from www.theacsi.org on February 12, 2009.
Indeed, big can be beautiful as demonstrated by Amazon.com. Amazon is the oft-mentioned benchmark for customer personalization. Their focus on customer experience has been well documented and discussed. They have utilized technology to provide personalization on a broad scale to provide each and every customer with a sense of familiarity and insight. By leading in customer satisfaction, they are on track to exceed $19B in Net Sales for 2008 according to available 2008 quarterly earnings reports.
Amazon has avoided many complexities that plague other large businesses. They predominantly operate within the on-line channel, which reduces the number of physical locations or markets that they must coordinate. As a fairly young company, they have yet to experience the bureaucracy and paralyzing politics that can build up over decades of growth. And the company still embodies the spirit and vision of its founder, Jeff Bezos, who still runs the company.
Companies like Amazon are proof that large businesses in any industry can indeed compete with a differentiated customer experience. If businesses can overcome the complexities that are presented by size and scale, they can excel at customer satisfaction. By doing so, big can indeed be beautiful.