If you'd like to sell products online through your business, then it's a good idea to learn how to create a positive experience for your customers. We're not just talking about talking to someone on the phone; we're talking about going above and beyond for them. If you take the time to focus on making your customers happy truly, you'll get more conversions and build a profitable business. We also talk about this during our free webinar training.
Super Office explains how to make a customers' experience excellent and how, as we just mentioned, can make that happen. Luckily there are many creative ways to make customers feel appreciated, such as using technology to your advantage.
How is customer experience different from customer service?
In most cases, a customer’s first point of contact with a company is usually through interacting with an employee (either by visiting a store or by speaking on the phone). This gives your business an opportunity to deliver excellent customer service.
However, customer service is only one aspect of the entire customer experience.
For example, if you book a vacation on the phone and the person you are speaking with is friendly and helpful, that’s good customer service. Yet, if your tickets arrive early and the hotel upgrades your room, then that’s a good customer experience.
That’s how the two are different!
Like most things in today’s market place, customer experience has changed – it’s more than person-to-person service and thanks to technology, companies can connect with their customers in new and exciting ways.
For example, using CRM software, you can view customer purchase history and to predict future needs even before the customer knows they need it. Having the ability to predict a future need will let you be proactive and attentive and, it means you can do things like;
Provide related products based on purchase history
Create and deliver targeted email marketing campaigns
Understand the 360 degree view of the customer
Customer service is still as important as ever, it’s no longer the sole focus of customer experience. Now, the customer experience brings new ways to strengthen customer relationships through technological breakthroughs.
Have you heard of a talk trigger? If you haven't, Convince and Convert explains how to create an active talk trigger. Furthermore, they also tell why it must be remarkable and repeatable.
How to Create Your Talk Trigger and Improve CX
Stories not worth telling are simply left untold. Fortunately, achieving a story worth talking about doesn’t require a massive operational push. It requires a talk trigger.
It Must Be Remarkable
The first requirement is that your talk trigger is remarkable. With their insanely long receipts, CVS Pharmacy certainly accomplishes this.
Regardless of whether you’re in their membership program or you’re just buying a rogue packet of Wrigley’s, you get a receipt twice as long as your arm. CVS’ receipts are so lengthy, customers are using them as wrapping paper and sharing the results! Seriously, check it out — its next level.
It Must Be Repeatable
Customers hate inconsistency.
Making your talk trigger repeatable means doing something every day for your customer that has the opportunity to create conversations every day, week, month, quarter, and year.
It is a strategy—not a lottery ticket.
One of the best examples of a repeatable talk trigger is the menu of The Cheesecake Factory. The length of the restaurant’s menu is so epic (5,940 words!), you could say it is the CVS receipt of menus.
While the menu the size of a novella may be absurd, it is a brilliant CX decision. When my co-author, Daniel Lemin, and I were doing our research for the book Talk Triggers, we discovered that 38% of Cheesecake Factory patrons had told stories specifically about the menu, either online or offline.
Entrepreneur explains why you should study where your customers are in their journeys. Look for trends and habits, and change your products and site accordingly. That way, you will develop positive customer experience.
Identify where the customer lands in the customer journey.
You'll need to know what stage your customers are in, in their journey, before that interaction results in a sale. Are people just browsing? Looking for a specific product but unsure which brand is their best choice? Those customers will be in one of these four stages:
Discovery. Customers are looking but aren't yet ready to buy. Reliable and accurate information can help them move to the next phase, but they won’t respond to hard-sell tactics.
Assessment. Customers are thinking about their exact needs and how a particular product is going to help them. Customers still have a lot of questions at this juncture. Sometimes they will reach out directly to businesses to find out more.
Selection. Customers are ready to make a decision about the business they’re going to purchase from. Building trust at this phase through personalized offers and relevance can lead to a purchase.
Purchase. Customers believe they’ve found a solution that’s right for them, and will finally buy a product.
The exact customer journey your prospects go through will vary, depending on the specific products you’re selling, as well as who your ideal customer is. You can even break that journey down into smaller micro-phases if it helps you visualize this path. Once you've figured out where customers stand, you can begin to assume what problems they might run into.
For example, if they are in the “selection” stage, they will most likely be questioning which brand is more reliable and will bring the most value for the price. Because you have now identified their dilemma, you'll know it's time to provide the final incentive. Customers at this stage are ready to swipe their credit card. So, go ahead and create that final push. Use special offers such as free shipping, percentage off on the next purchase or even free samples.
There's a way to create an emotional connection with your customers, and Super Office does an excellent job on how to do that below.
Create an emotional connection with your customers
You’ve heard the phrase “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it”?
Well, the best customer experiences are achieved when a member of your team creates an emotional connection with a customer.
One of the best examples of creating an emotional connection comes from Zappos, when a customer was late on returning a pair of shoes due to her mother passing away. When Zappos found out what happened, they took care of the return shipping and had a courier pick up the shoes without cost. But, Zappos didn’t stop there. The next day, the customer arrived home to a bouquet of flowers with a note from the Zappos customer service team who sent their condolences.
Research by the Journal of Consumer Research has found that more than 50% of an experience is based on an emotion as emotions shape the attitudes that drive decisions.
Customers become loyal because they are emotionally attached and they remember how they feel when they use a product or service. A business that optimizes for an emotional connection outperforms competitors by 85% in sales growth.
And, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study titled “The New Science of Customer Emotions“, emotionally engaged customers are:
At least three times more likely to recommend your product or service
Three times more likely to re-purchase
Less likely to shop around (44% said they rarely or never shop around)
Much less price sensitive (33% said they would need a discount of over 20% before they would defect).
If your existing strategy isn't working it may be time to change it. In contrast, if it is working, there are ways to improve it. Forbes elaborates below on what steps to follow after creating a strategy. For starters, they recommend staying abreast on the trends and applying them to your business. Continue to nurture your business and customers will notice your dedication.
Refine your strategy.
Once you’ve developed your customer experience strategy, be prepared to change it. Your strategy should be constantly evolving to meet your customers needs and align to your business goals. Stay current on what’s trending within your industry and in customer service so you can stay at the forefront of those trends. As your business and your customers evolve, your CX strategies need to evolve, as well. Be self-critical and continue to innovate and refine your customer experience strategy when necessary.
As innovative as a service or product may be, what really makes a business stand out is wonderfully memorable customer experience. By implementing these tips into your customer experience strategy, you could be helping your company secure lifelong customers who will always champion your brand.
Every online business should focus on building positive customer experience. Working on connecting with your customers will help them stick around, moving forward. If they continue to communicate with you and your brand, they'll be more willing to tell friends about your business. To learn more on how to create a compelling customer experience, and gain additional tips that can better your business, check out our free webinar training.
Sources: Convince and Convert, Super Office, Entrepreneur, Forbes
CHALLENGE Yourself to Profit!
Free Download: Build Your Profit-Generating Online Business With This Free Blueprint
Sign Up, follow the easy steps and You'll get the tactics, strategies & techniques needed to create your online profit stream. It's free!
