In this world, we are all consumers. We are all customers, and customer experience is what we go through every day. Between the variety of products and services, what makes a business unique is the customer experience. If you want to build a business that will last, you have to make an effort to provide your customers with a great customer experience.
Once Steve Jobs mentioned in one of his talks that you must begin with the customer experience and work backward to the technology for a successful business. You can’t start with the technology and, after that, figure out where you are going to sell it. In the vision of Apple, they came up with the strategy starting with the question “what incredible benefits can we give to the customer?”.
Have you noticed that most businesses have started to think more about the process, not the people? The problem is that companies spend time and effort to make everything perfect but forget about making people grateful and happy. Startups put every effort into creating a website with incredible design, spend months developing an excellent fast working website with lots of functions and modern design. Maybe these words may seem pathetic to you, but we think there is no soul in the work they do.
These 5 tips will help you to change your attitude towards customer experience and beat your competitors once and forever.
1. Get an Individual approach
We don’t want to be an audience. We all want to be an individual. If you want to make an impression and make people feel sympathy towards you, you should try to remember people’s names. What can be more pleasant for someone than hearing his own name? In business and marketing, you need to make customers feel important and unique. Simply by remembering their names and adding them to your offer, you can make a strong impression.
If the companies could see their profit every time they greet their customers with names, they would use their names more often. Individual approach is the cornerstone of a great customer experience. It is one of the main things that differentiates good customer service from bad one. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don’t give much importance to the individual approach. They try to create excellent products or services but don’t even try to remember their best clients.
Both business and marketing, and casinos rely on a personalized approach to customers to create a strong impression and arouse interest. In both business and gaming, remembering customer names is important because it gives a sense of importance and uniqueness. The casino offers various opportunities for entertainment and winnings. They provide a wide range of games including slots, poker, blackjack, mobil roulette and more to cater to the different tastes of players. In addition, the casino offers beneficial bonuses for new and regular customers, which may include free spins, bonus money or unique offers.
But some companies that know the importance of providing individual approach, successfully use that. They manage to steal customers from competitors. So, personalize your offers and messages. Besides your customers’ names, get the list of their birthdays or important dates and use them to make some special offers or just congratulate them.
According to 2019 Luxury Institute research, 98% of marketing leaders from both B2B and B2C companies claim that personalization helps advance customer relationships.
2. Connect to your customers
All good relationships are built on communication. So, the future belongs to the companies who communicate with their customers. Communication allows you to be near your customers, listen to their needs, support them, and offer the right solutions to their problems at the right time.
In this age of machines and automation, human connection is one of the most valuable things you can get. If something moves your heart, then a problem turns into a human. Genuine empathy and care make people feel connected to your business. That also helps to understand
your customers better. Be sincere and offer your customers what they need, not what you want to sell.
- Love humans as you love technologies.
- Humanize customers’ journey.
- Don’t speak to them like in a default mode.
- Make them remember you.
We remember the experience; moments; emotions. Memorable: that should be about you. Satisfied customers will share their emotions. They are willing to share their experience. For example, a hotel hostess, who welcomes you, gives you the key with learned by heart phrases, and a hostess who notices that you carry heavy bags and offers help. Do you feel the difference?
3. Walk in the shoes of your customers
Understand how customers use the internet. There’s no point in getting visitors to your website if they can’t use it when they get there. That’s what I understood when I was trying to find out a pool membership card fee. I found the best sports complex’s page on social media and wrote them asking for a membership card fee. I got the response within a few minutes. That was pleasant. But in response, there was a default greeting and link to another page. That wasn’t pleasant. That response didn’t have any connection with my question. Even the second message didn’t include the answer.
So that’s where the real horror began. Pages after pages! Asking me to go from one place to another! Asking to click on one of the answers! It seemed like I’m running in a labyrinth: when the answer seemed very close, the cycle began again and again. It was more than I could bear, so I put the pieces of my broken nerves and left the chat. I couldn’t get any information concerning the fees. Feeling unimportant, ignored I left the chat, but still needed a membership card.
I was so offended that I complained to all my friends and the people I saw at the other pool I easily managed to buy a membership card from. Though this second pool wasn’t as famous and had less convenient conditions, their service was better; at least you could quickly get answers to your single simple question.
What lesson did I learn about customer experience?
The same refers to your website. When potential customers visit a website intended to make a purchase but leave the website because of
- Barriers
- Pop-ups
- Fill-ins
- No information
According to American Express Survey, a poor service experience caused 78% of consumers to bail on a transaction or not to make an intended purchase.
In this case, it is better not to have a website than to fail to satisfy your customers. Remember, when they have a terrible experience, they will tell others too, as I did.
4. Surprise your customers with a great customer experience
When you get what you expected, it is a value, but it is a surprise when you get what you didn’t expect. Meet customers’ expectations; in other words, be the host and surprise them with your attitude. It’s not even about giveaways or special offers. They are also important. But begin with small things, little surprise rising things. For example, if you own a restaurant, you may serve special sauces with the pasta your client has ordered. And the magic happens not due to the sauce but due to your attention. Many restaurants have flavored water on the tables. Good! But!
But imagine a situation: one hot summer day, you enter the restaurant, sit near the table, and while you order your meal, waiter or waitress brings YOU a cup of cold flavored water. Isn’t it much better?
5. Thank your customers
Thank you is a magic word. This is the last point in our article, but it’s not the least. Show your gratitude. Even after a successful business, don’t forget to thank customers. Say thank you even when there’s a problem. Thank them for understanding. This will mean that you understand your fault and you’re willing to help them.
So, what is the moral of this whole story? The cornerstone of any successful business is providing a great customer experience. Let customers get impressed and satisfied so that they can’t help speaking about your business.
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