The Top 7 Ways To Make Customer Experience More Personal

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According to recent research, 78% of consumers reported that their most satisfying experience took place when a capable and competent service support representative answered their queries.

Thus, it’s high time that you asked yourself: “Is my customer service good enough to support my brand development?”. It’s always easier to provide service support via phone or person-to-person than online, but customers do want everything fast, easy and as personal as possible. But how can you transform

Make sure you’re getting customer service experience right with these 7 tips to make customer experience more personal.

1. Make the service experience unique to each of your customers

Some businesses choose to delight their customers by capitalizing their expertise. For instance, the Ice Cream Parlor in Wisconsin offers its customers heaping cones with a jellybean at the bottom, which prevents the ice cream from dripping. Other ones choose to offer their customers unique experiences by mixing different environments under a single panel. A good example in this regard is the rise of laundromats which feature both organic food and coffee bars, and which rejoice from a high success rate.

You can successfully apply the above-mentioned models, or, you may increase your interactivity level through different personalized tasks. For instance, if you run a purely web-based business you could add in slideshows and quizzes, and also base your results on information provided by customer profiles and their associated browsing history.

2. Talk to your clients in a meaningful way

People want you to provide them a personalized experience, to be more expressive than informative. In this regard you have to add passion into each customer-representative discussion, since passion is the one which truly sells. Also, avoid persuading your customers and don’t force proof against them. People buy for emotional reasons, they like to have a sense of control over the situation, so do your best to help them by providing valuable information in a friendly way.

3. Make them comfortable with sharing experience-related information

To be able to provide a customized experience for each of your customers you have to know them better. And what better way to do this then by letting themselves to open to you? One example in this regard is the action of the Zane Bicycle retailer. When he faced strong competition from two major outlet centers, Zane offered a 1-year free bicycle maintenance to 35,000 of its customers in exchange for a “relationship survey” (Source: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?cid=11&aid=541). By analyzing the results they got and compelling an efficient one-to-one marketing strategy Zane has managed not only to hold up against its big opponents, but also to accelerate its growth.

4. Use technology to expand your universe

A constant Internet presence can be a powerful ally in connecting to your customers. In addition to using your websites for explicit customer feedback, you could also try to reach individuals by e-mail, via the so-called newsletters. In order to provide a pleasant and personal experience to your customers you have to firstly think who they are and which are the best ways to reach the customers. Often tools such as WalkMe Inc. can help. The interactive guidance system that assists customers in real time with their queries can give a personal touch to the customer experience. If they are happy, only then you’ll know how to convince them to listen to what you have to say.

5. Listen to the customer

It’s important to hear what customers need exactly from them. Anyone can try to guess their clients’ needs, but no one can know them for sure until they receive direct feedback. For this matter it’s important to listen to what your customers have to say and value their feedback, regardless whether you receive it through your website or through your social media accounts.

6. Don’t over-deliver

Nothing is more annoying than a shopping assistant which hovers around until you purchase one of the products. In the online word, this shopping assistant equals to spam, regardless whether it’s in form of a promotional tweet or an unrequested newsletter. Allow your customers to quickly “opt out” of your aid if they need to, and also offer them the possibility to re-subscribe if they want to.

7. Personalize communications

People enjoy talking to a real human being, and not to an automated software machine. Make sure that your customers know who to get in touch with, by providing them with your representative’s social media ID. Also, make sure that people who represent your company share the same values as it, and that they are able to provide a helpful and informative reply when needed.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Flavio Martins
Flavio Martins is the VP of Operations and Customer Support at DigiCert, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise authentication services and high-assurance SSL certificates trusted by thousands of government, education, and Fortune 500 organizations. Flavio is an award-winning customer service blogger, customer service fanatic, and on a mission to show that organizations can use customer experience as a competitive advantage win customer loyalty. Blog: Win the Customer!

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