There is a lot of noise around the likes of ChatGPT at the moment. I even had someone show me how this article could be written for me and all I had to do was type in the big question. As these technologies become more available and the time/cost saving benefits are analysed I want to shine a light on the idea of the ‘Customer Experience’ for a moment to help balance things out.

Do we understand the idea of Customer Experience?

There are a few definitions of this but let’s go with this one for now….

Quite a broad definition but when I think about this in the context of ‘water’ a few thoughts spring to mind. Mainly that I would quite like my experience to have little or no interaction beyond a bill because as long as the water is running and the toilets are flushing it’s all good.

But, when I do have a problem, one thing that I would really value in my experience would be the ability to speak to an actual person.

The Amazon experience though?

I’ve had this thrown at me quite a few times and I’m not that convinced.

Yes, I am an amazon Customer and I absolutely get a great experience from them 99.9% of the time. It’s frictionless. At least until it’s not. I had a problem once with a parcel and couldn’t seem to get the help I needed from all of the online automated chats. It became really frustrating until finally I got the option for a human conversation. They weren’t great at dealing with ‘failure demand’ but they are amazing at doing the ‘value’.

In water, it’s a break-fix system, which means something breaks and then we go and fix it. This means that pretty much all of the demand is going to be as a result of a ‘failure’ somewhere e.g. a leak, an escape etc. It’s not the same as Amazon.

So if we’re dealing with this type of demand more often than not the Amazon example isn’t that relevant is it?

Different people will experience differently

Our experience is made up from our sensing and a big part of this is how we feel. If I have a ‘problem’ and I know or suspect I’m not talking to a real person I struggle to get a good feeling about this. What I crave at this point is someone to actually listen and to feel listened to. It may just be me but the only way I can get this feeling is from interaction and connection with another person.

It’s fair to say that when people encounter problems with their water, there will already be some level of emotion attached. They will have been triggered in some way, whether that be small or large. The emotions attached will not be positive ones. Have you ever been triggered into an unhelpful feeling by a problem and how important was it to talk to someone and have it listened to?

Cost vs Customer Experience

In ‘water’ where a large part of the demand is around ‘problems’, this will become a challenge (if not already). The cost savings of utilising new technologies is very appealing and is definitely worth a look at how they can be deployed BUT there is a real danger that in viewing the argument through examples like the Amazon one that we actually make the Experience for those encountering problems, far worse. Any perceived benefit could very quickly get flushed down the toilet (sorry).

How are you promoting and protecting the idea of ‘listening’ to your individual customers to support their experience?