In a world of standardised anonymous responses, scripted replies and ever increasing automation, as a customer it’s always lovely to get a personalised response. Here’s a heart warming and touching story from my good friend Faye Smith of Keep Your Fork that demonstrates this in a lovely and compassionate way.
Earlier this month, Faye sent a Christmas card to Angeli, the child she and her daughter Gabi have been sponsoring through Compassion, a Christian organisation dedicated to eliminating poverty around the world.
Sadly, Faye had to break the very sad news to Angeli that her 12 year old UK pen pal Gabi had tragically died earlier this year and that it would only be her writing from now on.
A few days later Faye received a lovely card handwritten and signed by the whole Compassion child sponsorship team expressing their sadness about her loss and that they were thinking about her.
It’s a lovely touch, and is a timely reminder that simple, personalised responses can go a long, long way to touch a customer and make them feel valued.
Hope this doesn’t sound too ‘clinical’ when looking at this, but I think it’s a great example of a genuine personalised customer experience, and demonstrates all 6 things our research has identified as ingredients of customer delight….
- It produces a wow reaction!
- It appears spontaneous or unexpected!
- It’s the personal touch!
- It makes the customer feel valued!
- It’s genuine… and…
- It creates a ‘talking point’!
The result also demonstrated the benefits of customer delight:
- It touched Faye and made her as a ‘customer’ feel valued!
- It created a talking point – She told lots of other people and put it on her Facebook page
- The news spread – she got lots of lovely comments from family and friends!
So, what could you do to ‘delight’ your customers? Why not think about those ingredients and work out how you could make them work for the way you interact with your customers
You could start by considering these questions. When it comes to your customers….
- How good are you and your people at ‘personalising’ the experience and doing it genuinely?
- What do you do to help, support and encourage them to do it?
- What could you do to make your customers feel ‘valued’?
Can’t help thinking that this time of year might be a good time to start!
For a more in-depth insight of Customer Delight, you may want to download my free e-book Customer Delight As Competitive Advantage – 44 pages to help you make this stuff work in your business.
