7 Amazing Ways In Delivering The Best Customer Experience
Chances are that you are wondering what exactly I have to say that is amazing. I say amazing because these are essential steps that are so sensitive yet a lot of brands fall short in executing them brilliantly. No, I’m not here to advise you on how break sales and all that regular stuff. I’m here to point out 7 different things your competitors are not doing that can make you stand out from the crowd. Before I go further, if what your company is offering isn’t adding value to it’s customers’ lives then I advise you close this page and walk away.
1. Reply enquiries almost immediately: do this and customers will be astonished. No shade but please if you know any Nigerian company that replied your email in the shortest possible time, email me so I can applaud them. This is no joke because I have never come across one, ever. I recently emailed Amazon with an issue I had with my order, I got a reply in less than 10 minutes and that alone made my afternoon because even my friends don’t reply my emails till hours later. It might seem ridiculous but these little things actually build up emotions in our customers towards our brands.
"Replying company emails within 15 minutes will be great but replying emails within 5 minutes is divine [seems ridiculous but not impossible]."
Also, on social media platforms like twitter, you should provide a support account that is swift in replying customers’ questions in your mentions. This is because a lot of customers have urgent and short enquiries that they will rather tweet at you as opposed to sending emails. Also pick up phone calls as soon as you can. Don’t make us wait all through an episode of "Friends" like most telecoms company in Nigeria will do.
2. Own a blog: A blog is almost mandatory if you have got an active company website. Your blog is creating a community. What’s not to love about an online community? Trust me people love discussions. The idea of a blog is to provide free enlightening and entertaining content to your customers and the general public. Remember I said enlightening i.e. useful and entertaining i.e. not boring so please this isn’t about journaling or giving reports, save that for boring end of the week meetings. Your blog should discuss topics that are directly or indirectly related to your industry so please try avoiding being vague if not it lacks purpose. You may be wondering, what on earth do I want you to discuss about a boring product like door knobs [I doubt if anyone selling door knobs will be reading this post but you get my point] and you will be amazed about the exciting knowledge you find out there relating to industry.
General Electric has a blog that breaks through with great visuals and wonderful story telling:
Your blog should also give tips and advice on how best to use your product. Another approach could be involving your customers in sharing their ideas on your product like Starbuck does on their blog.
3. Don’t just be active on social networks, also be cool: and I mean it. Why? because millions of people are active but only a few people are popular on Twitter / Instagram and they are the cool kids. This sound like a cliche thing to say but is scientifically proven and you can’t argue with me. Being well known isn't enough; you need to be cool to gain recognition on social networks. Be up-to-date with happenings of our youth and make your product appealing through that. Norm Kelly is a perfect example of a social media cool kid; he gained major social media reverence during the "Drake vs. Meek Mill beef" he made himself approachable and likeable on social media while associating with this trending topic. This also applies to brands because you need to stand out to gain the attention of your customers.
How can you be cool? [few tips]
On Instagram, have great quality pictures because no one likes pictures that aren’t pretty so close your eyes and invest in a good camera [you can start with an iPhone if you a small growing company]. If you are not going to post clean pictures then please don’t post anything at all because customers will judge you as a tacky brand and we don’t want that. This isn’t the first time you will hear that a picture is worth a thousand words, so please make sure every picture you post tells the right story because everyone is judging your brand. At this point, if you posted any tacky pictures in the past, please just pause for a moment and go delete them. Asides from posting quality pictures, you also need to be creative with your pictures so you don’t come off as a boring, remember I said social networks are only great for the cool kids. Actually settle down to construct a brilliant caption before posting anything because everything you say matters [customers are watching and judging you].
Warby Parker [a glasses company] has the coolest Instagram page.
On Twitter, jump on popular trends from time to time and jump on them fast. I get anrgy when brands make jokes about trends days after we have all moved on to something else. Please if you find out about a trend when the heat has died down, it’s better you don’t say anything. So this isn’t a casual job to be done at free work time, this is serious business that requires dedication and speed. Much more importantly, you need to execute this brilliantly and come up with sarcastic comments related to the trend.
Like Tesco did a brilliant job on "Drake vs. Meek Mill beef":
On Snapchat, show existing moments at work or experiences at meetings and company outings. Well you can skip this platform if your work environment is not the exciting type. But if it is please do because it shows your customers the fun and free side of your company and they fall in love with you even more. If you follow @mashable on snapchat then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
4. Be different with your emails: You need to first understand that sending out emails is the closest you will ever get to your customers. This is because emails are entirely different from social networks as they are extremely personal and you can agree with me that an average person has over 15 companies emailing them about one boring thing or another. Well I have over 40 and this makes me frown at ever other email I get so I want to think of your customers like myself. This is why I say be different with almost every email you send out to stand out.
But how?
First, you need to use the best possible email templates because we can’t overstate the power of visuals.
This screenshot is from a template used by Spotfiy:
Secondly, your title might be the only shot you get in making your customers open your email so you better have a killer tittle. Well I don’t mean you do this every time [expect you are so badass] but once in a while step out of the box and let the subject of your email be captivating.
Petco used a Lana Del Ray line as their subject, brilliant:
You can also start the email by teasing your customer of how thrilled you are that they are actually opened your email [but please don’t push it]. Another thing you can do is to send out emails that are in no way related to your company’s product. You can do this by sending words of encouragement or telling subtle jokes. This can be very tricky and if not brilliantly executed might be seen as extra so please be creative with your words.
5. Do something randomly awesome today: This is similar to Corporate Social Responsibility but I like to call it Customer Appreciation Day. You can do this monthly [if your budget permits] and pick out a day to appreciate your customers in the littlest ways. You could randomly select a customer every month and send them a cake on their birthdays attaching a card with a heart warming or sarcastic message [as long as it creates emotions]. A lot of your customers will embrace your brand much more than ever and tell everyone about how you made their day. Whatever it is, just make sure it’s not a cliche giveaway that every other brand is doing on Instagram.
6. You are a professional so be professional: First rule here is to never say these 3 words to a customer “I don’t know”. This is really critical so you better let it stick with every employee dealing directly with customers. "I don’t know" should be the highest level of unprofessionalism and even if the security guard doesn’t have a clue about the return policy he should never use those 3 words. Instead, you refer the person to a senior officer that can help out and that’s okay.
I walked into a bank the other day and I asked the lady at the counter to explain the difference between two services they were offering and she boldly said to me “I don’t know the difference". What this tells your customers is that you don’t have a clue of how your product works and they begin to wonder if they are making the right financial decision with a company that is in doubt. It’s your job to think of almost all possible questions and enquiries that could come up, then determine their possible solutions and alternatives. After this you need to educate your entire staff about this, cleaners and security guards included among others. Note that if you are faced with a very complicated situation then say we will get back to you shortly [giving an estimate of how long it will take, say a few hours] and make sure you actually get back to them with or without a definite solution.
Another important thing about being professional is to ensure you double check, no scratch that - triple check all your content going out to the public [even your tweets]. There is nothing worse than having typographical errors especially in emails. A lot of customers will lose so much respect for you by just seeing a typographical error on your social media page because believe it or not it is unprofessional. I lay emphasis on this because you don’t get second shots with customers.
7. Have a backup plan: Have a refund policy for your customers so they trust you even much more. Telling your customers they will get their money back if they are not happy with the product actually makes the product look twice as better and it works every time [except your product isn’t what it claims to be]. Also in the event that your customer isn’t genuinely happy with your service you should actually try and fix it by providing an alternative service or refunding back their money. This will go a long way in helping your brand because the customer sees that you are not like other companies that are all about their satisfaction. Also these customers will share their testimonies with everyone around them which is the greatest form of marketing your company can get.
Have a Nice Ad,
Wura.