Customer experience can create a reoccurring customer… or not!
We’ve all been there. You walk into a store and you find a product you like, but you just want one or two questions answered before you commit to buying it. So you look for a Sales Associate.
You hunt high and low for an elusive Sales Associate.
But there isn’t one to be found. Or perhaps they are there, but they’re overworked and understaffed (we’ve all been there too), and simply can’t get to you. Either way, you’re standing there, product in hand, waiting and waiting until eventually you just give up. You leave the product where you found it and walk out, empty-handed.
These days of marketing and retail are on the way out, however, and being replaced by a new set of ideals. Now, instead of selling only their products, companies are leaning more towards selling an experience along with the product. These companies have recognized that having a positive experience within a brick-and-mortar store, or a user-friendly experience on a website, can ensure that customers return to their business.
Here are some of the most common customer experience tactics that are being used by companies today:
Face-to-Face Consultations
Face-to-face consultations are just one of the ways companies are taking the initiative and moving towards promoting the customer experience. Face-to-face consultations don’t necessarily have to be in-person consultations in a brick-and-mortar store. They can be via Skype, FaceTime, or another video calling service.
Any way that you can see your client’s face and they can see yours when you’re talking about the products and services available. Sometimes, body language and facial expressions can say a lot more than words alone. And, as everyone on the internet knows (and has probably experienced) – tone is impossible to read online.
For example:
You run a business that specializes in customized hats. You have a brick-and-mortar store, but you also run an online store as well. You could offer face-to-face consultations in-store, or face-to-face consultations online via Skype or FaceTime.
This way, you get to meet your customer, and your customer gets to meet you so that you can each put a face to the name of the person wearing the hat.
Personalized Solutions
Companies are now making sure to offer personalized solutions. No single customer will be the same, so no single solution will be the same either. By ensuring that they offer personalized solutions to a customer’s inquiry, companies are driving the customer experience model and providing a positive user experience for anyone who uses their company.
For example:
Your customized hat business has taken on face-to-face consultations. Your customers now know who they’re dealing with, and you know who you’re dealing with.
By offering a personalized solution to an individual’s hat, for example, changing the width of a brim, widening a ribbon band, adding a feather, you’re going to be ensuring that your customers get exactly what they want at every point in the process.
Follow Up and Feedback
Companies are also using feedback and follow-up in order to better their customer experience. When a customer has finished their initial relationship with your company (i.e. they’ve received their final finished product), it’s still a worthwhile endeavor to follow up and make sure that they’re entirely satisfied with their products as well as ask for feedback on how they could improve the process.
One of the best ways to do this is through customer satisfaction surveys.
For example:
Your customer has received their customized hat from your business. They went through the whole process: face-to-face consultation, customization and selection, and ultimately receiving the customized hat.
Now you need to know what they think.
- Do they like their hat?
- Did they enjoy the customer experience?
Send them a short customer satisfaction survey along with their finished product to find out.
And there you have it!
Now you can use this information and make your business one that sells the full customer experience, not just a product.
How will your business drive the customer experience revolution?
Let us know in the comments!
Book Your Free Consultation Today
