How Top Companies Craft A Great Customer Experience
There are plenty of things that will influence the overall success or failure of a company. One such factor is the quality of the customer experience. If that experience is good, then the business can be reasonably sure that it’ll be successful. If the experience leaves a sour taste in the mouth of the customer, then the business will face an uphill battle.
The good news is that crafting a good customer experience is always possible! A good place to look when you’re seeking inspiration is at the top companies. If you can recreate what they do, then you’ll be on the right lines.
In this blog, we’re going to take a look at the ins and outs of sound customer experience principles. Take them all on board, and your customers will be leaving nothing but positive reviews!
What Do They Need?
You’ll find that it’s much easier to please your customers if you set up your company with them in mind. In the early days of the development of your venture, it’s essential that you perform robust customer research. This will help, first, make sure that there’s a market for your business. And it’ll also ensure that you know what your customers are looking for, what they like and dislike, and so on. You can think of your market research as a map that’ll lead you towards glory.
Clear Interface
If you’re running an online business, or have an online element, then make sure that you’re getting the website correct. Nothing will frustrate a customer more than a website that’s difficult to navigate! It’s best not to get too creative with your website, especially if you’re targeting the general public. A clean and clear user experience is key to ensuring they don’t hit the ‘x’ button before they have a chance to see what you’re all about.
Smooth Checkout Processes
If you’ve gone through all the hard work of getting a person to buy, then you won’t want to lose them at the last second. Yet that’s what happens to many online businesses. If your checkout process is too long and complicated (or there are nasty surprises the customer was not expecting, such as additional fees), then don’t be surprised if they go elsewhere. Customers want to buy from you; part of making their experience enjoyable is making sure they can do so without difficulty.
Faith in the Company
Everything’s more enjoyable when there’s trust. The big companies take great care to ensure that their customers trust that they’re in good hands. So how can small to medium sized companies foster trust? There are a few ways. Things like your branding will have an impact — excellent branding will foster an understated, bassline of trust. You should also keep an eye on your customer reviews on aggregator sites and reply to both positive and negative reviews.
Get Feedback
Not that you need to wait for reviews to come in before you know what your customers think of your business. Another excellent way to improve your customer experience is to learn what people currently think of it. There are plenty of ways to get the opinion of your customers, including just sending out feedback forms after the purchase process has been completed. This will be an excellent way to learn what things you’re doing well, what you’re not doing well, and what your customers would like to see in the future. With enough feedback, you can really craft the future direction of your business.
Communication Options
No matter how efficient your processes are, there’ll always be times when things go slightly wrong, and the customer needs to get in touch with you. At other times, people might just need some additional information that they can’t find on your website. As such, it’s important that your customers are able to contact you as and when they need to. In this day and age, there’s no shortage of communication options, so it’s best to give your customers a choice. This could involve adding the best live chat tool for website conversations, putting your phone number on your website, adding a ‘contact us’ form, and others. And, of course, you shouldn’t just make it so the customer can contact you — you’ll also need to ensure that you’re responding in a timely manner.
Shipping and Returns
If there’s one thing that customers are increasingly finding annoying, it’s shipping times that take too long. Even if they’re ultimately happy with the product, if it takes too long to arrive, then it’s possible that they’ll buy from somewhere else in the future. So it’s always a good idea to check that your parcels are reaching the customer as fast as possible. Also, take a look at your returns process. They’ll happen from time to time. The best companies are the ones that make it easy for customers to send back their unwanted or damaged products. You don’t want returns, of course, but the truth is that you can’t fight them, and your company will only look worse if you make it more difficult than it needs to be.
Don’t Take Them For Granted
If there’s one thing that will dampen the customer experience, it’s taking them for granted. This is an issue that many companies have. They assume that because a person is an existing customer, they’ll stay that way forever. Even big companies can have this issue — Netflix is a good example of that. You’ll be able to raise prices and change your operations a little, but you can’t always expect people to come along for the ride with you, no matter where you’re taking them. It’s always a good idea to treat your customers as individuals with their own needs. That’ll ensure that you don’t take them for granted. For instance, a restaurant may use background music services for business to have more control over what is playing in their establishment. Music taste may vary from location to location, so you want to ensure the music in your store is appropriate for the audience or demography. You also want to be able to filter any explicit content if your business is family-oriented. Anything less may negatively impact your customer experience.
Continued Innovation
The customer experience should never stand still for too long. And neither should your business. The two go hand in hand. If you have a mindset of innovation and always improving, then you’ll have set your standards high, and that will always have a positive impact on your customers.
Unexpected Bonuses
Everyone loves getting something for nothing, don’t they? You can put a smile on your customer’s faces by throwing in something that they did not expect. This could be a nice little gift, or, if that’s not possible, it could be a handwritten note saying thank you for the purchase. If you’re a software company, then you might give a free upgrade to a more premium version of your platform.
Customer Loyalty
Companies often go all out to bring new customers on board. But they don’t take quite as much care to ensure that their current customers are happy. An example of this would be companies that offer 20% discounts on the first order but then never offer another deal to those customers again. That’s not right. While you might make the bulk of your offers available to new customers, it’s always worthwhile looking to give some special offers to your existing customers, too. It’ll show that you care about more than just bringing them on board.
Valuable Content
Many companies improve their customer experience by giving them something without asking for anything in return. This is the case with, say, blogs. With blogs, companies give away a host of valuable content free of charge. That helps the customer learn more about the products that they sell, why they’re useful, and things like that. This will, of course, have a positive impact on your bottom line, too — blogs are an excellent way to boost your website’s SEO credentials and can be thought of as an effective, inexpensive lead generation tool.
Supporting Causes
People don’t just buy into a company’s products or services. They also buy into the causes that they support. In fact, this has been shown to be one of the driving factors behind customer loyalty — people aren’t really loyal to brands, exactly; they’re loyal to what the brands represent. So it’s a good idea to find an issue that’s close to your heart and which you know you can support on a long-term basis. People will be happier to buy from you, and that can only be positive for their experience!
They Invest In Staff
Finally, top companies boost their customer experience by having a team of well-trained, talented staff. If the employees are happy in their work and know exactly what they’re doing, then the interactions that your customers have with your company will be positive. Of course, it’s important to remember that happy employees don’t just happen — you’ll need to take steps to ensure that they’re happy!
Conclusion
There is no way to guarantee success for your business. But there are ways to make it more likely. And ensuring that your customers are fully happy seems to be one of the best methods for doing just that. After all, if they’re happy, then they will have no reason to look elsewhere — they’ll have everything they need from your business!
