Satisfied customers are not loyal customers
In today’s competitive landscape, satisfied customers are rarely enough. Satisfied customers rarely drive loyalty. It’s the total customer experience, not just customer service alone, that drives customer loyalty.
The ‘cult of amazement’ is the highest level of customer engagement. It’s where a customer becomes an evangelist for your brand. The cult of amazement results only when you deliver magics of moments consistently. To move up the ladder of cult of amazement, you must engage not only your external customers but also your internal customers who may or may not talk to outside customers.
What got you here may not get you there
When you’re a solo entrepreneur, it’s often easy to focus on your relationship with customers. But when you’re running a large enterprise, it’s no longer that simple. When you are responsible for the forces of many, you’re creating not only evangelists outside, you’re developing evangelists inside the organization. When there’s not amazing for customers, they’re more likely to be unforgiving when they receive unacceptable levels of service. And thus, they’re more likely to leave you for the competition.
The upward trend towards customer experience
Companies today operate under radical uncertainty. But one thing that’s certain and consistent is the upward movement toward customer service. It’s easy for you to settle into a sense of complacency and miss the clues that there are problems with customers or employees. When you find your attrition rate is increasing, it’s often you’re not delivering consistently and incrementally or you’re not empowering employees with tools and training to deliver extraordinary experiences. So every once in a while, take a good look at where you stand and where you need to go.
A right mantra attract the right customers
Your organization mantra keeps your people focused. It’s a key phrase that is short and simple enough that when employees and customers hear it, they know exactly what your company stands for. It’s not uncommon for companies to have two different mantras – one for customers and one for employees. However, these two mantras must complement one another.
Employees are your top customers
Treat your employees the way you would treat your customers, if not better. Model the behavior you want your employees to show the customer. And start asking questions that focus on the experience:
- How easy are we for employees to connect with?
- How easy are we for customers to connect with?
- What was the best thing that happened to our team this week?
- Who else should know about that?
- What can we do to keep that kind of success?
- Who had the best idea in our team this week?
- Who else should know about that idea?
Make ‘WOW’ a verb in your company’s dictionary
Opportunities to WOW your customers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are a lot easier to pull off than you might think, and some won’t even cost a dime. Sometimes, all you need is an extra attention to detail. Other times, you can trigger a WOW experience just by recognizing the opportunity to do so. Whenever you see an opportunity to seize, act on it. And train your employees to do the same.