Grow Your Business by Focusing on the Customer Experience
On paper, business seems simple. You offer customers your product or service, and they decide whether they should buy it or not. There is a lot of focus on marketing, and incentivizing customers to make your brand a part of their life. But the simple reality is that this is only the beginning. If you really want a business with potential, it’s important to give customers the best experience possible.
What Is The Customer Experience?
In simple terms, customer experience is how your client feels while using your product or service. We all know what happens when your customer has a negative experience. One bad event can change the way the public perceives your company forever. However, there is a lot of value to a positive experience, and that is often overlooked. For a customer visiting a theme park or taking a limo ride, the experience is obvious. The thrill of an environment they’re not used to is the experience they’re paying for. But it’s not always obvious. If you run a website, are your visitors able to find the information they want quickly? Is your product easy to use, or hard to learn? These are the kinds of questions that you can ask yourself to help understand what your customer’s experience is actually like.
Why You Want to Create a Remarkable Customer Experience
You’ve surely heard one of your buddies talk about the terrible experience he had with airport security. Maybe another friend is sharing the details of the free upgrade they got while on a recent trip. What both of these experiences have in common is the fact that they were unexpected. These two people went into a situation expecting one thing and got something else. As a result, they’re either recommending or criticizing a company they worked with. If you can create unexpectedly positive experiences for your customers, you’ll be able to sell your services through word of mouth.
How Small Businesses Can Improve Their Customer Experience
Once a customer has ordered your product or finished their transaction, you have the opportunity to reach out to them. A simple phone call or email can help you get some valuable insight. Is the customer having problems with their purchase? Is there any information they need to know? Not only is the process of reaching out a sign of great customerservice, but you’ll know if there are any common problems that need to be addressed. It could be something simple like improving the packaging, or including batteries.
How This Can Change Your Business
It might seem simple, but too many companies are focusing on optimizing their sales process instead of looking at the experience as a whole. Taking the time to make sure that your products or services enhance the lives of your customers as much as possible means that you’ll give them something to tell their friends about. If a consumer makes a purchase from you and ends up disappointed, the money you earned from the sale can’t compensate for the lost potential you get with an unhappy client. On the other hand, if their purchase is all or more than they had in mind, you could get some priceless word-of-mouth recommendations.