A good customer service experience is easy to recognize and something worth talking about. On the other hand, a bad customer service experience leaves its “victim” frustrated and more than willing to verbally sabotage the offending business/service in any way he or she can.
It’s human nature. We expect good in most situations, but when the opposite happens, we notice. In many cases, we really notice. Fortunately, great experiences can be more noticeable and impacting than good or bad experiences.
Small actions with big impact.
As a business owner or service provider, how do you create great experiences? We have gathered some helpful ideas that you can start applying right now to provide great experiences for your customers:
- Apply the Golden Rule.
We all know it, but do we apply it when interacting with customers? At FoxyCart, we do our best to treat our users the way we want to be treated by the services we use. Placing yourself in your customers’ shoes will give you a whole new perspective on how to better serve them. - Communicate.
There’s nothing worse than blindly waiting on your order to be fulfilled or wondering what needs to happen next. Communicating with your customers before, during, and after the purchase will make for a solid experience. For FoxyCart users, Order Desk is the perfect tool for keeping your customers up-to-date on the status of their order and much more. Check it out! - Be transparent.
Along with communication comes transparency. Be clear and upfront about your purpose, policies, pricing, fees, conditions, included features, etc. Leave the fine print at the front door. Keeping negative surprises to a minimum will ensure a great experience for your customers. - Be accessible.
Every once in a while customers of FoxyCart merchants call or email us needing assistance with their order. We kindly tell them that we just handle the shopping cart and that they will need to contact the merchant directly. Their response is usually the same: “I couldn’t find a way to contact them”. Having your contact information clearly placed on your website, product, and on all marketing materials is an important step in building trust with your current and potential customers along with keeping frustration levels down. - Do the unexpected.
Do what’s expected and no one will notice. Do the unexpected and you’ll have an audience. Begin looking for areas you can go above and beyond for your customers. For some great examples of this, check out 10 Stories of Unforgettable Customer Service from our good friends at Help Scout. - Be pliable.
Many times it is strict rules and regulations that keep teams from creating great experiences. At FoxyCart, each team member is given the freedom to make overriding decisions when needed. For example, comping users a free month of service isn’t normal procedure, but if someone contacts us with issues they are running into due to our system, a team member would have the power to take care of the user however he or she sees fit.
Great experiences don’t require a marketing budget.
We’ve all heard about companies (and may even be guilty of it ourselves) spending a ton of money on marketing. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) the return of this massive financial investment is equivalent to a bag of oats. The fact that traditional marketing just doesn’t work anymore is a blessing in disguise. It’s an opportunity to invest in people and build a solid business.
Giving your customers a great experience costs next to nothing and will have a longer lasting impact than even the largest of marketing campaigns. Great experiences will generate word of mouth marketing for your business and create more solid leads than traditional marketing can shake a stick at.
So what about you?
We hope something we have shared today has inspired and challenged you. Please comment below, sharing ways you create great experiences for your customers. We look forward to hearing from you. Go ahead. You know you want to share something.
