Is it possible to provide great customer service without ever speaking to your customer?  I think so.  Actually, I know so.  Since its inception, I have been a regular customer of Netflix.  There have been a couple times where I’ve canceled the membership because of traveling, moving, etc but I’ve always come back.  Why?  Well, beyond the fact that it’s a genius system for a great price, I have always loved their care for the customer experience.  I’ve never talked to one representative at Netflix.  Do they even have customer service reps?  I’m sure they must have to but I’ve never had a need to go looking for a number.  Yet, I always feel like they are continually trying to improve customer service thus improving the overall customer experience.  How so?

One of the big ways is through the below email I get randomly from Netflix.

It usually comes about once every couple weeks.  It simply asks what day I dropped the movie I was returning in the mail.  But, it is so much more than just remembering that you dropped it 2 days ago.  Netflix is using that data to track the delivery time from mailbox to shipping facility.  Sure, that allows them to know it takes 1-2 days from the greater Boston area because they have a shipping facility in Worcester, MA (about 1.25hr drive from Boston).  It also allows them to strategically determine where to open new shipping facilities.  If they see that the average delivery time moves from 1.3 days from Boston to Worcester up to 2.2 days, that will show them that maybe the Worcester shipping facility is overburdened because of the number of customers in the area.  Netflix could then build a new shipping facility closer to Boston using their customer address data and the average return time of a movie based on what customers tell them on these email surveys.

Those are just a few examples of the many possibilities for using the data that Netflix receives just by you telling them what day you sent back a movie.  Also, that’s only one way of many that Netflix is working to improve their customer experience and they’re doing it, at least in the above example, without ever speaking via phone to their customers.  Furthermore, they’re making the customer feel as though they’re valued by the company.  Remember, every customer matters!

So, how are you working to improve your customer’s experience?  Do you analyze every touch point that your customers have with your brand?  Do you strive to continually improve those touch points?

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