Today’s definition of customer satisfaction is no longer limited to how your product performs.
The actual experience they have in the course of working with your company matters just as much as the product itself. With the proliferation of online reviews, it’s more important than ever to delight customers. As Comcast famously discovered, a poor customer experience can significantly shape public opinion of your company.
At Webconnex, we strive to turn our customers into true brand fans. To do that, we work to create truly unique, delightful experiences for our customers. Here are six tactics you can use to do the same for your customers
Don’t be a robot
Train your staff to be relational in addition to being informational. Many companies do a good job in training staff to be informational, but then don’t liberate them to be relational with customers. We welcome our staff to inquire about people’s personal lives in the course of solving customer issues. You would be shocked by how people respond to developing personal connections with employees of your company. The result for us has created deep customer loyalty and wild customer reviews.
Be transparent
Consumers have a different relationship with brands than they did a few years ago. Today, consumers take great interest in knowing behind-the-scenes information about a company. Buffer, a social media tool, has an entire section of their website dedicated to transparency with a mission of being the most transparent company ever. They disclose sales figures, financials, salaries, and many other interesting posts revealing the inward workings at the company. Buffer has validated the enormous consumer interest in corporate transparency. While you don’t have to take it to this extreme, you could champion transparency by writing a blog detailing experiences at the company, starting a behind-the-scenes podcast, or hosting an AMA (ask me anything) session where your customers can learn unique tidbits about your company.
Let personalities shine
Your staff is diverse and interesting. If they are working with customers, celebrate who they are and provide information about them to your customers on your website, help center, live chat, or directory. For our entire customer support department, we spent time writing fun Chuck-Norris-like bios that describe their personal interests and include fun, impossible facts. Customers love it. You wouldn’t think customers take the time to read them, but they do. Now, when a customer works with our staff, they feel like they are working with someone they already know.
Celebrate customer wins
When a customer succeeds by using your product or service, don’t hesitate to celebrate the win. We try to celebrate customer successes whenever possible. Whether it is a celebratory animated gif, a quick, fun team video, or a full-blown care package mailed to them, we want our customers to know we are rooting for them. They are shocked to know that you noticed and blown away to receive the celebratory gesture.
Let customer voices be heard at the top
If something doesn’t go exactly right for a customer, give them access to the most important people who might take their call. Key influential people sometimes tend to be isolated from the regular voices of customers. If someone wants to share their experience (good or bad), let them know that they can share it with the most important people who have the most authority. My co-founder and I do this regularly, and we encourage any customer to send us an email or speak to us any time about any issue, idea, or suggestion for the company. Our customers feel like they are receiving exceptional service when they are not limited by who they can engage with.
Invite customers to visit you
If you want to take customer experiences to the next level, have an open-door policy for your customers. We openly welcome any customer, prospective customer, or even insurance solicitor, to stop by and play a game of ping-pong with us. We promise to take customers out to happy hour after work with a few people from our team. You would not believe the effect this kind of interaction can have with your customers. Customers who have these experiences with us lavish us with praise and are some of our best referrals.
Among the surest ways to build customer loyalty is through ensuring the best possible experience. You need to constantly think about ways to wow and delight your customers. You might have great products and/or services, but building true brand loyalists is all about the ways you help customers become closer to your company. When they feel you have a stake in their happiness, the stronger your relationships become. And when your customers are real fans, you gain several benefits, including: more referrals, the opportunity to upsell, a more powerful image and brand, and, of course, increased revenue.
