Forget spreadsheets and presentations, Qaalfa offers boardroom bigwigs the chance to find out what customers experience at point of sale, and whether this experience will ensure customer loyalty.
"What I'm concerned with is, as a customer, what does it feel like to walk in this store or receive this service," says Qaalfa. "I can walk in somewhere and the staff can follow all the procedures to the book, but as a customer I just don't get it. It's not working for me. Alternatively, I can walk in somewhere and none of the procedures are followed, but it works for me as a customer. I feel valued and respected."
Qaalfa holds the very impressive if slightly jargony sounding position of Vice President of Consulting and Thought Leadership at Beyond Philosophy, who have aided companies as diverse as Hamley's, T Mobile, Norwich Union, Britannia Building Society and The Barbican Theatre in testing and developing their `customer experience'.
Bread, milk and toilet roll aside, shopping is generally far more of an `experience' than a necessity in the modern Western world, and as soon as you move into the realm of `experience', emotions come into play. Just think of some of the emotive terms applied to shopping these days: retail therapy, buyer's remorse, panic-buying. And with rationality out the window, there's room for manipulation - which is, of course, what things like advertising depend on.
Thinking
This whole `emotional' way of thinking - and shopping - stems from an influential article published by Harvard university in the mid-90s.
"The article claimed that satisfied customers behave exactly the same as dissatisfied ones, in that they're not loyal," says Qaalfa. "They'll chase the cheapest price or the most convenient purchase regardless of whether they're satisfied or not. However, the article also said that customers who were `completely satisfied' do behave differently. They'll stay with a company through thick and thin, even if they can get something better or cheaper or easier elsewhere. This is because they feel emotionally attached to the brand or company."
And just in case you were thinking this all sounds like `soft science', Qaalfa has a few other surprising strings to his bow - as well as being a native New Yorker, now based in London, he trained as a neuroscientist.
"There's a new field, neuro-economics, which shows how things like the customer experience have a neurological equivalent," he says. "Things change in the brain when we shop. So this isn't just fluff. People's brains literally change due to the customer experiences provided to them. As products and services get increasingly complex, so do the means which need to be employed to give bosses an accurate picture of how staff treat their customers."
Complex, yes - but there's a distinctly wild side to what Qaalfa does for a living too. He admits there's a lot of enjoyment to be had in his line of work. As well as tamer things like taping conversations, using tandem videoing and writing detailed `customer' diary entries, Qaalfa and co have crashed cars, endured hours of hold music and even sailed up and down the east coast in ferries - all in the name of research.
Undercover
"I went undercover for a motor insurance company," he says. "We got hold of a car, took a policy out on it and drove it out to some woods where we dinged it up a bit. We called with the claim and procedurally everything happened as it was meant to, but when we mirrored the experience back to the company execs they were shocked.
"The policy says that the driver of the truck who came to collect the car was not permitted to take us as well as the car - but we were in the middle of nowhere, so what are people supposed to do? Also, because he was contractor and not in a company vehicle, the man taking the car away could have easily been a scam artist. When we asked for a receipt he tore a bit of brown paper off a sandwich bag and wrote his job number on that."
As for current work, he's investigating a couple of mobile phone companies. In general, he hasn't rated them too highly in the past. "I try never to approach anywhere negatively," he says, "but most staff in mobile phone shops are young and often unbothered."
As for his best experiences, he's happy to name names.
"John Lewis gets it right. It's not flash or jazzy, however it encourages trust and has integrity. I believed that the staff in there wouldn't just say something to me for the sake of making a sale. They know what they're talking about. They don't hire the hip crowd but people who genuinely care about their customers.
"Richer Sounds is another place that isn't showy but is very popular by word-of-mouth. The staff are treated very well there too, which is crucial."
Do you think customer service is up to scratch in Manchester? Have your say.
Tweet
