Newsletters

Customer Support:   (972) 395-3225

Home

Articles, News, Announcements - click Main News Page
Previous Story       Next Story
    
Deliver an Unforgettably Great Customer Experience: 3 Quick Tips
Submitted by Chris Frascella, Velaro, Inc.

March 17, 2015

Deliver an Unforgettably Great Customer Experience: 3 Quick Tips 
(originally posted here: http://winthecustomer.com/3-quick-tips-deliver-unforgettable-customer-experience/ )

How much cheaper is it for you to retain a customer than to acquire a new one?

Why pull teeth for a testimonial from an unsatisfied customer when you could be receiving unsolicited testimonial quotes from delighted ones?

It sounds like a cheesy sales pitch, but it’s really just the result of a simple shift in perspective from inputs (what efforts you/your staff are making) to outcomes (the desired change in the customer’s immediate behavior and ongoing mindset).

Earlier this year, Flavio discussed exceptional customer service from the perspective of employee training and empowerment (inputs). Once you’ve gotten an understanding of the process on the staff side (inputs), you are beholden to move on and consider the actual results on the customer side (outcomes).

Scroll to the bottom if you’re already on board with why this matters and just want some quick tips for how to do it well. Read on if you don’t know what I’m talking about, or don’t believe that this impacts your business.


Customer Experience vs. Customer Service

Customer experience is an increasingly popular topic. According to Google, it beats customer service in terms of average monthly search volume 380k+ to 200k, and has since at least December 2012 (though admittedly not by so wide a margin as it has more recently). Why is it nearly twice as popular - what’s the big deal?

Quality customer service can reduce frustration, maybe even pleasantly surprise a customer—but customers won’t “like” your company any more than they did before if the interaction doesn’t leave the customer interested in engaging with you again. This could be as simple as a clever load screen or login screen for a software company or as involved as personal greetings from staff during the holidays. Just as you want your staff to convey promptness, knowledge and professionalism in their interactions with customers, you want your company to convey personality and continuity.

For instance, in terms of personality, if you’re a local company, include discounts to popular local restaurants or attractions in your customer welcome package. Don’t have a customer onboarding care package? That’s your first misstep in creating a positive customer experience (also, c’mon now, even the US Postal Service sends you a welcome package when you change addresses!).

If you’re a national or international B2B company, use an online, customers-only community to create a sense of connectedness both among your customers and between your customers and you. This is more private than social media but can accomplish many of the same things.

For B2C companies, though it probably goes without saying, social media is still the best way to go.

In terms of continuity, you need to be able to demonstrate to a customer that you know who they are based on the history of their interactions with your company, otherwise: rather than a person returning to you seeking your further assistance they’ll feel like a file lost in the system – which is not good for customer experience!


Customer Experience Happens, Like it or Not

A customer’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures how likely a customer is to recommend your products or services (or say negative things about them in the marketplace), is informed by every interaction that customer has (or attempts to have) with your company. Customer experience is a brand-building endeavor that occurs over each of these interactions. And here’s the tricky part: customer experience “happens” whether you pay attention to it or not! In fact, depending how negligent you’re being, it could be happening quite extensively!

Just like you don’t want to be the jerk who only engages his/her network when s/he needs something, you want to get some goodwill in the customer experience bank when you can. By doing this, customers won’t feel like they only hear from you when you want to sell them something, they’ll see you as sources of value to them, and are more likely to be more forgiving when issues arise (e.g. “hey guys, I need you to get it together” rather than “you guys stink #epicfail”) - because they have had interactions with you beyond your revenue-generating transactions with them.


The 3 Quick Tips (as promised)

Here are the 3 quick tips for going beyond customer service and delivering an exceptional customer experience:

1) Have personality and personalize when interacting with your customers

2) Be accessible, and understand that that is defined by the customer

3) Have “spontaneous” moments of providing value to your customers


But What Do Those Tips Mean?

1) Have personality and personalize when interacting with your customers

This is the most controversial of the three tips.

Utilize humor, play-up interesting aspects about your work environment (though nothing confidential or disparaging, obviously), reference things that are of interest to your customers even if it might be unrelated to your company, etc. For instance, a former employer of mine used to have themes each month for the team’s chat icons (e.g. favorite muppets characters, 80s movies, etc.). We also sent emails informing staff about relevant news in our sector, even if it didn’t have immediate implications for our own business. Both of these are examples of conversational material customers might find interesting. Details like these give your company “personality” and make a customer’s engagement with you more than merely transactional. Don’t let courtesy and professionalism fall to the wayside, but don’t stop at courtesy and professionalism either! Those are great inputs but they won’t necessarily translate into a memorable experience for the customer.

Personalizing interactions gets into omni-channel customer service. While personalizing can initially have a ‘big brother is watching’ effect (referencing previous purchases, conversations, etc.), it’s actually becoming an expectation from customers that any staff person be up to speed on previous interactions, regardless of communications channel (i.e. if I call Customer Support, I’m expecting them to be able to reference my email conversation from the week prior, even though I spoke with different people and through different communication channels).

You can read more about personalizing when engaging customers on the Win the Customer! blog here, courtesy of Robert Johnson.


2) Be accessible, and understand that that is defined by the customer

Reduced wait times are an important characteristic of accessible customer service, regardless of what communications channel you’re talking about, but allowing customers to select the channel by which they contact you and perhaps more importantly how you contact them back brings accessibility into the realm of customer experience. Live chat is an increasingly preferred communications channel by customers, you can learn more about how live chat specifically can impact customer experience here (full disclosure: I work for Velaro). Personally, I’m pleasantly surprised when a customer support team offers the ability to text rather than email information to me – but there are many other ways you can make support more accessible. Just keep in mind that accessibility is actual accessibility for the customer, not your idea of what makes your service/support more accessible.


3) Have “spontaneous” moments of providing value to your customers

Whether it’s a new customer welcome package or a holiday card or sharing a bit of relevant news, doing something “nice” for your customers without asking for a purchase or for forgiveness from them is a positive customer experience and helps build brand loyalty.

These three quick tips should help you shift your perspective from “aren’t we doing enough already?” to “how can we make our customers’ experience of doing business with us even more exceptional?” Please offer your thoughts in the comments!

 
Return to main news page