Taking a Closer Look at Customer Experience - What is the Experience You Want to Create?
September 10, 2021
Jacqueline Green
CEO & Chief Strategiest at Behind the Design
If you want to continue improving and growing your business, it is important to notice how you are handling your customer experience.
Customer experience could be making the difference between a successful and growing business to a stagnant and stale business. Therefore, it is imperative to note how your company is handling customer experience from start to finish.
Are your employees taking the right steps during their customer interactions? Are they following through with communication at the right time? There are many components to ensuring that the overall customer experience ends in satisfaction. Here are some that you should be taking into consideration when dealing with your customer relationships.
Great Customer Experience Begins With Great Employees
If you want your clients to be happy, then you have to have happy employees. It truly is that simple. It is important to make sure that you develop employees who feel empowered, wanted, and appreciated. If they have a heart for your business, they will have a heart for your customers. It all begins with how they are treated. Make it a point to have a system within your business that recognizes great employees.
Reward those that do well and just make it a habit to point out when someone does something that you liked. Just these small gestures will have your team feeling appreciated. In return, when they have to talk with customers, especially those who may be difficult, they are already in great spirits to handle whatever comes their way. It all begins with the relationships you form within your company, then they will reflect into the relationships that form around your business.
Allow Your Employees to Bring Ideas to the Table
When you allow your employees to have a say in how things are going within your company, they feel heard. They feel like what they have to say is important. You do not have to take everything they say and make it happen, but just giving each of your employees a voice within your company is so important.
This allows them to build confidence in how they communicate, but again, it is just another way to help your employees to feel valued. Happy employees, in turn, can create happy customers. It all works together. This also can give them opportunities to grow and learn with those new ideas that they may have. It could be an opportunity for you to see how they can shine as a leader with their new idea as their new project.
Consider Using Chatbots, So You Do Not Miss Messages
If you get messages constantly, even after working hours, consider using chatbots. Chatbots allow you to step away from the office when you need to, but your customers still get an immediate response from you, letting them know that you will take care of their request as soon as possible. This is just another way to begin your communication relationship with your customers and increase your overall experience.
Consider Using a CRM (Customer Relations Management) System
Using a CRM allows you to track your entire relationship in one place. First, the CRM helps you create your customer profile, then it tracks all of their information, conversations, emails, etc., all in one place. For example, you can search for their name, and everything related to that customer will be right there in front of you.
This will help you and your employees stay on the same page and allow you to eliminate any misunderstandings or lost communication. If your customer then converts to a client, it is an easy switch within the CRM to begin tracking them as a client. There are many CRM services available. Do your research and find one that fits your needs. Staying organized is so important if you want to have great customer experiences. This will just further help you stay on that path.
Send Out Surveys to Your Customers
This is a great approach to help you improve your customer experience. Take the time to sit down and develop a questionnaire that will help you assess how your customer’s experience was from start to finish. Of course, not all of your customers will be willing to take the survey, but some will.
Use these to answer some questions and compile feedback that will help you better develop your overall customer experience. You can make it as in-depth as you would like. You can even send out different ones to get different types of feedback from different customers. Ask questions about their overall experience and ask about their experience with the representative that they spoke with.
Look At how well their needs were met and what the timeline of results looked like for them. Find Out how satisfied they were with their experience. It is very important to have these surveys in place to get feedback directly from the customers that your team is working with. The insight from this tactic alone could truly change the course of your customer service. You never truly know how your customers feel until you ask.
Do Your Best to Personalize Your Customer Experience
You want to stand out among your competitors, even within your customer service department. In addition, you want to have a unique approach to handling your business and even how you handle your customer relationships.
Do your best to think outside the box. Find ways to personalize how you interact with your customers. What can you do to stand out? How can you leave a lasting impression on your customers who want to come back for more? If you do not leave your customers excited about your business, the reality is, they are just going to take your business elsewhere.
It all begins with how you begin your relationship with them. How do you stand out? Take a look at how your competitors are working their businesses. What are they doing that seems to work? Now, I am not saying take their ideas and run with them, but I am saying that you need to take inspiration where you can find it. Then, you need to take that inspiration, make it your own design, and make it better than before!
The possibilities are truly endless; you just have to get creative. Ask your employees to help you brainstorm ideas to create a unique and memorable experience for your customers. Whatever you end up doing, your ultimate goal is to just make that lasting impression to get them to come back, so make it a good one!
Improving Customer Experience Reinforces Your Brand!
I hope this gives you some insight on how to develop a great experience for your customers. However you choose to approach your customer service development, let me leave you with this.
In my blog, Improving the Customer Experience Reinforces Your Brand, you will read about a time my husband and I went car shopping. Our car buying experience got me thinking about how customer experience impacts purchasing decisions and, ultimately, a company’s brand. We visited several dealerships, and let me tell you, each experience was unique, to say the least.
At one dealership, I was belittled and made to look like I knew absolutely nothing about what I was talking about. I am a grown woman looking for a car, which I researched before I went. Needless to say, we did not purchase a car from that dealership.
At the next dealership, the place was just disgusting, outdated, and had a terrible odor. On top of it, we had a new salesperson trying to sell us a car every few minutes. The inconsistency was off-putting, and again, I was made out to look like a fool because I did not agree with how a car looked. I wasn’t about to spend my money there.
Finally, we ended up at two other places that just knew how to handle their customers. They were polite, we felt like our requests were heard, their buildings were clean and updated, and overall extremely welcoming. We finally found the car we wanted, and I felt right making that purchase because the customer service I received was better than I had experienced anywhere else.
I say all of this to say, the customer’s experience truly means everything from start to finish. Experience does not just mean how you communicate with them; it also means how your business is presented to them, from all aspects.
It is important that you are polite, that your office is clean and welcoming, and create an atmosphere that they would want to return to. Take the right steps to ensure that the entire process is enjoyable, and they just might return for more of your services.
Ultimately, your number one goal is this: create an experience for your customers that you would want to experience yourself, then you will be well on your way to having a great customer service department.
Author Bio - Jacqueline Green
Jacqueline Green is the driving force behind Behind the Design, a company dedicated to helping interior designers, architects, and creative entrepreneurs thrive through education, training, and marketing services. As founder, CEO, and Chief Strategist, she combines education, coaching, and marketing to empower business owners to achieve their goals. Her leadership is transforming how creative professionals build successful businesses, creating a community of empowered entrepreneurs.