{"id":30932,"date":"2013-09-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-experience-lesson-from-superstar-athlete\/"},"modified":"2023-08-09T03:39:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T03:39:34","slug":"customer-experience-lesson-from-superstar-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-experience\/customer-experience-lesson-from-superstar-athlete\/","title":{"rendered":"Customer Experience Lesson from Superstar Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magic Johnson Learned It\u2019s Important to Understand Your Customers<\/h2>\r\n\"\"<\/a>Earvin \u201cMagic\u201d Johnson, recognized as one of the greatest basketball players ever to play the game, is also as successful, if not even more so, in business.\u00a0 On the basketball court, he understood his competition and how to beat them.\u00a0 In business, he demonstrates that he can understand his customers and how to bring them value.\u00a0 He is best known for taking typical suburban businesses and bringing them into urban America.\r\n\r\nRecently I had the pleasure of sitting in on a question and answer session with this sports and business legend.\u00a0 One of the questions asked was about his biggest success and biggest failures.\u00a0 Amazingly, these ventures succeeded and failed for the same reasons, the understanding \u2013 or lack of understanding \u2013 of what the customers wanted.\u00a0 And, no matter how nice you are or how nice the merchandise, you can\u2019t very well deliver an amazing customer experience<\/a> if you don\u2019t understand your customers.\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s start with the failure.\u00a0 Magic told us that it was associated with the Magic 32 retail store that sold Magic Johnson merchandise and other high-end sporting goods.\u00a0 While it started off strong, in the end, the store was a failure.\u00a0 After the \u201cmagic\u201d wore off, sales slumped, and in just under a year, the business folded.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t understand why until someone told him, \u201cYou are trying to sell us the stuff you like.\u00a0 Not what we like.\u201d\r\n

In short, Magic didn\u2019t <\/i>understand what his customer wanted.<\/h3>\r\nMagic quickly learned that the success of any business, as he would prove in future ventures, was about understanding the customer.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s what brings us to Magic\u2019s proudest business success story, which was his Starbucks adventure.\u00a0 Grinning from ear to ear, he told this story.\u00a0 Recognizing the popularity of Starbucks he noticed they didn\u2019t have locations in urban neighborhoods.\u00a0 He also understood the buying power of minorities, so he made a phone call to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and told him, and I quote, \u201cHoward, black people like to drink coffee, too.\u201d\u00a0 That call turned into a 125-unit chain of urban Starbucks that was wildly successful.\u00a0 But, before success could be claimed, changes had to be made.\u00a0 In the neighborhoods these Starbucks coffee houses were going into, the customers weren\u2019t used to some of the food items.\u00a0 He swapped out certain food items for ones that his customers wanted.\u00a0 He also changed the background music.\u00a0 And, there is the business lesson.\u00a0 In short, Magic understood what his customers wanted.\r\n\r\nHow well do you understand your customers?\u00a0 What unpopular items or services, if any, are you trying to sell to your customers?\u00a0 What do your customers want that you currently aren\u2019t selling?\u00a0 It\u2019s all about understanding your customers, which is one of the key ingredients to delivering your highest level customer experience.\r\n\r\nShep Hyken<\/a>\u00a0is a customer service\/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep\u2019s\u00a0customer service and customer experience keynote speeches<\/a>\u00a0and his\u00a0customer service training workshops<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0www.Hyken.com<\/a>. Connect with Shep on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n (Copyright \u00a9MMXIII, Shep Hyken)<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magic Johnson Learned It\u2019s Important to Understand Your Customers Earvin \u201cMagic\u201d Johnson, recognized as one of the greatest basketball players ever to play the game, is also as successful, if not even more so, in business.\u00a0 On the basketball court, he understood his competition and how to beat them.\u00a0 In business, he demonstrates that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6791],"tags":[2712,4981,4982],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCustomer Experience Lesson from Superstar Athlete<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this article, I share an example of how you must understand your customers and bring them value.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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