The 3 Proven Ways to Improve Customer Experiences
Why would you even need to improve customer experience?
In my experience, when I worked with businesses and helped them increase conversions, sales, and leads, one of the most overlooked parts of their business was customer experience and their journey. The customer journey was essential to make more interested and responsive leads, rather than cold and uninterested leads. When phrased correctly, this suddenly becomes common sense:
People don’t just buy off of logic, they buy off of emotion.
So how do you improve this essential part of your business? I have it outlined in three easy steps.
STEP 1: DEISGN
I know to some people it may seem too obvious, and to some it might seem irrelevant, but your business’s design can make or break a potential customer’s experience.
Have you even come into a restaurant, a diner, or a coffee shop and thought, “man, this place looks amazing!” or “this place looks so cozy” or any combination of “this place looks (insert positive adjective)”. Because I sure have. Now, this on its own won’t make the food taste better, but imagine the situation the other way around.
You come into a restaurant, a coffee shop, or any establishment, really, and think “oh my, this place looks awful”, or “this place looks dirty” or any combination of “this place looks (insert negative adjective).” Now you aren’t even sure if you want to buy the food, because you’re afraid it will be infested with roaches or have hair in it. The same thing applies to your business.
Now, a common objection is, “well I don’t run a physical business, so it doesn’t matter”. What I tell those people is that web design is just as, if not even more important than physical design.
Good web design can radically increase trust, conversions, and even profit margins when done right. How’s that for unimportant!
STEP 2: PERSONALIZATION
This is probably the most important way of improving how your customers feel and how they enjoy their overall experience.
A simple thing to make an idea of, but a little bit hard to implement, especially online. Some ways to do it online would be to use customer data to recommend things to them on your website, or give them a personal assistant chat on the bottom corner like some website do. Another good way to personalize a potential customer’s online experience is through targeted ads, which create tighter segments of people that they reach, which are especially useful for getting a more personal message out to certain people.
In person there are more options to do this. A simple one is getting a store assistant to help out a customer while purchasing, but it can often be annoying and lead to more harm than good. Some other great ways to get more personalized experience is through the product. Especially with physical goods, and not as much services, there isn’t a lot of personalization that meets the eye. Still, there is always a way to add a more unique touch to a product. Write a handwritten note, or sell a more interesting history on the product if that’s what it takes.
At the end of the day, there is always something that you could do, add, or implement to your business that will make the customers feel more appreciated, heard, and most of all, important. This is one of the keys to success that many businesses miss, which ultimately causes them big losses down the line.
STEP 3: CONSISTENCY
You know what people hate? Inconsistency. They see one thing on the google maps listing, the other on the website, and head a third on a phone call, and don’t know what to trust. I’ve been in this situation multiple times, and let me tell you, it isn’t fun.
All hope isn’t lost, and there are many ways to work around this. One of the best ways is to train staff to have a list of consistent information that they can reference, to make sure that everything is dependable and homogenous. Another things to keep in mind is to have a consistent order of conduct and procedures in place, just in case any unexpected circumstances come up.
This, however, isn’t all. Online, you can have a small forum on your website, or an active comment and review section, where you can use some of the feedback to improve your business, and the consistency of your delivery. A lot of reviews give very deep insight into global things that you could work on, which ultimately allows you to effectively create a pleasant environment for your existing and potential customers.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the best way to create a better customer experience is to put yourself in their shoes, and pick out what you could be doing differently. Because this is such an important part of your business, it is really important that it is done right. We can help with that. With our consultation and analysis service, we can pinpoint exactly what is limiting your business and provide a detailed guide on how to solve the issue, and help propel your business into new heights. If that sounds interesting to you, click “Contact” at the top of the page, or book an appointment here. To learn more about our service, click here. We hope to see you there!
