The 5 Steps to Creating an Exceptional Customer Experience
According to Gallup, when customers don’t believe a business is meeting its promises, the business sees around a 19% decline. It’s unclear to me what that looks like month over month or year over year. Nor is it clear how this decline affects the lifetime spend and lifetime value of a business’ customers. But we do know, that customer experience is a driving force for any business, and when it goes wrong, it can cost you money, damage your reputation, and even cause legal problems.
In this article, we uncover tips on how to exceed expectations in all aspects of your business.
Know Who You Are Serving.
Do you know who your customers are?
“I want to market outside the community,” said the hotel owner. “The local community does not stay in my hotel, so why waste the energy?”
When I started working with that hotel brand, we did an impact assessment to find out where our customers were hearing about us and why they were booking. As it turned out, the hotel, located one-hour from Edmonton, Alberta, saw 65% of its room bookings from the Energy and construction sector, booking employees closer to their job sites on the weekdays and the weekends were packed with 97.3% of room occupancy being filled with weddings, sports teams, local events and family reunions… Business that was all driven by the local community.
As a business owner, it is imperative to figure out who you are serving. This will help you understand what kind of customer service you need to provide and how and where to talk to your clients. If you’re selling products, then having a solid understanding of your clients will help you define product support. If you’ve got a restaurant or retail operation, then you might want to focus on making sure your guests feel welcome.
Understand Their Needs.
Next, identify the needs of your customers. What do they want? How can you make them happy?
I’ve seen lightbulbs go off when I’ve done Stakeholder Alignment exercises and
Marc Haine facilitating a Customer Journey Mapping Workshop
Customer Journey Mapping with business owners and their teams. “Until I went through the customer journey mapping, I had no idea I was focussed on entirely the wrong demographic,” said business owner Brittany Miller.
Once you know their expectations and their needs, you can start thinking about how to meet those needs.
Create a Clear Value Proposition.
You need to clearly define what value you offer to your customers. This should be something that will help them solve a problem or achieve a goal. It should also be something that makes sense to them. If you can’t explain why your product or service is worth paying for, then you won’t be able to convince people to buy it.
Deliver That Promise.
Once you’ve defined your value proposition, you need to deliver on it. This means providing excellent customer service, delivering products and services as promised, and responding quickly when customers contact you.
Measure & Learn.
I suggest you subscribe to a Net Promoter Score service or develop your own program to get the data you need. To measure how well you’re doing, ask yourself these questions: How often do I provide exceptional customer service? Do my employees treat customers with respect? Are my products and services delivered on time? Is my website easy to use? If not, what changes should I make? What are my customers saying about us?
It can be a humbling experience analyzing where you are today vs where you’d like to be. Finding and dealing with the gaps in your offering and service is paramount to you continuing to build your business and build customer loyalty.
If you would like some help or would like to brainstorm your business, feel free to book a complimentary 30-minute discovery call with Marc.
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Marc Haine
Marc is a service expert and a master of experiences. He's also an author, speaker, facilitator and coach. He will help your teams ignite their passions, enable your leaders to recentre their focus, and drive continuous improvement through connected and engaged employees. This will allow you to realize your competitive advantage with a connected purpose and consistency of customer experience across your brand. He will dare your people to cultivate a generous attitude and lead with love and kindness first.
Marc, this is great. It is applicable to Consultants also. I’m always trying to make things better for my clients, and these 5 steps make sense. Thanks!
Thank you so much for your comments. The more we focus on customer experience, the better we are equipped to meet their expectation.