Your customers have high expectations — and if your business can’t meet them, they’re going to leave you for your competitors.
If that sounds harsh, well, it is. In addition to getting a product or service that works for them, they want to buy from companies that make it easy to get help when they need it, that go above and beyond for them, and that make them proud to support their corporate culture and philosophy.
You already know that the customer experience doesn’t end with a sale — it’s an ongoing work in progress that companies should be constantly seeking to improve and iterate on. To get you started, here are our suggestions for how you can make your customers love interacting with your business.
Customer interactions are instances when people communicate and engage with businesses. These moments occur throughout the customer journey and typically relate to marketing campaigns, sales promotions, and service-related issues.
There are plenty of reasons customers interact with businesses — not to mention the plethora of channels they use, too. In fact, the image below shows us five general examples that can be applied to most customer experiences.
The three main ways a customer is drawn to a business is through marketing, sales, and customer service. In each of these, customers have different needs, goals, and expectations from your brand, but that doesn’t make one reason more important than another. These are all opportunities for your brand to acquire, convert, and delight your customers.
Let’s look at some examples of customer interactions, categorized by marketing, sales, and customer service.
Across these functions of business, these various interactions are tracked in a single repository known as customer interaction management (CIM) software.
This CIM software is used to manage and record interactions between an organization and its customers. From the beginning of a buyer’s journey to its completion, this type of software tracks all historical data from customers through a multitude of digital and in-person channels.
Customers interact with your business in many different ways, and CIM software can help you manage this communication across many of the following channels:
So we’ve discussed the different types of information tracked by customer interaction management, but why do we want to record this data in the first place?
Customer interactions give businesses the data needed to improve customer satisfaction.
Without looking at customer interaction data, a business could be churning customers without knowing why. Reviewing that data can uncover gaps in communication, common occurrences that drive customers away, or other poor practices.
By taking the time to review the average customer interaction, your business can adjust its customer experience (CX) strategy to provide a more useful, pleasant shopping experience. And the more enjoyable the interactions become, the more likely customers are to become loyal to your business.
Now, let’s look at how you can make every customer interaction memorable with these handy tips.
Are you familiar with the golden rule? “Treat others as you want to be treated.”
The customer service golden rule should be “Treat customers as you want to be treated as a customer.” (I know it’s not as catchy, but I’m making a point here.)
We’ve written about the importance of empathy in a customer-facing role a few times before, and it deserves to be underscored again here.
It might sound simple, but making sure each and every one of your customer interactions demonstrate your empathy for your customers’ struggles, and your gratitude for their loyalty, goes a long way. Here are some ways to do that:
Customers are more likely to spend more and be loyal, longer, if they have a history of positive experiences with your company. Do your part to make each sign-off positive and gracious to make your customers feel good about working with you.
This is a lesson you may have learned when you were a student, or in your first job, and it’s important in your customer-facing job, too.
It’s of utmost importance to be conscientious and to responsibly follow-up to every customer communication you engage in with a solution, a forum for feedback, or helpful educational resources they can benefit from.
Whether you’re connecting with customers on the phones, via email, or by commenting on social media, your customers might think that reaching out won’t solve their problem (because — let’s face it — it can feel like that’s often the case when it comes to contacting customer service). Here are a few ways you can prove them wrong:
It’s extremely important to be transparent when you communicate with your customers — especially if it’s about a mistake or error caused by you or your product.
Using your empathy and gratitude muscles, don’t hesitate to explain the situation, apologize for the issue, and communicate how it happened — and how it won’t happen again. If it could happen again, be clear on that so your customer can prepare for the future.
Particularly if your product or service concerns customers’ personal data or information, or if your product serves as a system of record for a customer’s own business, you need to take your responsibility to your customers seriously. In today’s era of data breaches and credit card hacking, customers want to understand what you’re doing to fix problems and prevent them from happening again. Make sure you’re prepared with transparent customer communications during times like these — and if you’re not, ask your team manager or director for better guidance.
You can’t just give the term “valued customer” lip service — you need to walk the walk by regularly asking for and acting on customer feedback.
Regularly asking customers for feedback via surveys is an effective way to identify potential problems before they cause your customers to churn. Surveys also provide customers with an avenue to voice their thoughts on your product or your customer service in a way that makes them truly feel valued, and their specific feedback on 1:1 interactions with employees allows you to better hone your processes — or to shout out employees going above and beyond.
Your company may already have a process in place for regularly soliciting feedback, in which case you don’t want to inundate your customers with even more communications that could lead to survey fatigue.
If your company already has asking for feedback down pat, make sure you’re soliciting feedback in your 1:1 conversations with customers. Even if it’s not official or on the record, qualitative feedback will help you improve your service, and customers will appreciate the opportunity to be honest and share their views. And if your team isn’t already deploying post-call Net Promoter Score® surveys, it can be a helpful way to develop your skills and share learnings with the greater team.
We’re big advocates of delighting your customers, and a big element of delight is the surprise element.
Make sure to take time periodically to surprise your customers. You don’t necessarily need to surprise them with a gift or a discount (although those can be nice). Sometimes, something as simple as a thank you letter, company swag, or a shoutout on social media can go a long way towards building goodwill and an emotional connection with your customers. And an emotional connection can sometimes be a bigger predictor of loyalty than responses to customer satisfaction surveys.
As a customer, nothing annoys me more than when I send a Twitter DM to a company to complain about something, and they reply with a number I can call to voice my concerns. I’m already experiencing friction dealing with an issue with the product — I shouldn’t have to wait on hold to hear from a customer support rep, too.
It’s your job to make it as easy and painless as possible for your customers to get the answers they need to use your product or service. To do that, you should have a plan in place for providing service across a variety of channels where your customers typically reach out to you.
Strive to always respond to customer requests and issues on the same platform where they originally reached out. There are always exceptions to this — sometimes, you just have to talk out an issue or hop on a video call — but you should make every effort to keep communications on the same platform where your customer originally asked you for help. This helps you engage with customers faster to get them the answer they need.
Our final suggestion to make your customers love reaching out to you — even in cases of problems — is to talk like a human.
Your customers aren’t looking for scripted corporate-speak when they call or write to you in need of assistance. Particularly if you’re communicating with customers on social media, scripted, formal language can ring hollow and insincere.
If you’re in the middle of solving a customer issue, feel free to keep language professional. But once you’ve solved a customer’s problem, or if a customer is reaching out to share positive feedback, feel free to be less scripted, and more yourself.
Use good judgment to communicate with customers authentically in your own voice. For example, if customers are reaching out to you on Twitter, don’t be shy about responding back to them with a GIF or a hashtag. If you’re leaving them a comment on Instagram, try to work in an emoji. Little personal touches can endear you to your customers and make them more excited to connect with you.
Thank you cards are great, but customers admire it when brands go the extra mile by sending them nice little gifts. Not only do gifts instill memories in customers, but they also add a special layer of happiness. So the next time you want to thank your customers, consider emailing them a gift card, grocery coupon, or a discount on your service/products.
Consider leveraging reward platforms for this, as they do all the heavy-lifting for your business. Xoxoday is a good option here — it’s cloud-based, robust, and lets you send gifts from your existing workflows instantly.
We are living in a world that’s highly competitive, and the way you deal with a customer leaves a big impact on your brand name. That’s why customer interaction must be done with extra care, as it serves as an incredible opportunity to grow your business.
While there are bad days and it is okay to make mistakes, it shouldn’t be the case often. With little planning and well-thought-out actions, you can pull this off right. The journey from customer interaction to customer loyalty isn’t overnight, but it isn’t complicated either. All it takes is the right loyalty rewards to appreciate them. Happy customers = Loyal customers! Let’s not forget that.
The way your customers interact with your business will determine how you keep them engaged and coming back. We hope this article gave you a better understanding of how these interactions can be tracked, analyzed, and improved upon for happier, more satisfied customers to come.
Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.
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