Examples of Awesome Customer Service From Lowes

I’d like to introduce you to Kyle. Kyle is an example of the things that are right in Lowes customer service. It’s not that Kyle is the only example of great customer service. But I was so delighted with my new Samsung Galaxy S5 that I didn’t get a picture of Jeff, who signed me up. Suffice it to say he looked like he just started to shave. But the perfect customer-focused sales agent who knew all the lessons in customer service.

winning with customer experience — Winning with customer experience and service.

He was very aware of how much feelings impact the ways customers are influenced.

Here is how the story goes:

A customer walks into a store

A couple of weeks ago, I walked into my local Best Buy store to shop for a smartphone. What I wanted was to buy an Android phone that was not going to lock me into a particular service plan for two years and a plan that would give me unlimited phone minutes, data, and text for a price that I was happy with.

I certainly got that, but I also came out with an extraordinary impression of Best Buy. I’ve been thinking a lot about customer service myself as my agency works with its clients on this subject. Over the first two weeks or so I owned my new phone, Best Buy’s customer service did nothing but reinforce my initial impression.

This may surprise you, but receiving actual extraordinary customer service is rare enough in my life that I find it difficult to find examples to learn from. So I thought I’d deconstruct Kyle’s and Best Buy’s customer service for what I could learn.

Lessons I’ve Learned

Be patient

I gave every Android phone there a thorough working over and asked lots of questions, and Kyle never once treated me as if he was in a hurry to move to a new customer. Instead, he showed patience and understanding that this was a significant purchase that I’d be affected by for months, if not years, to come. My clients are spending a heck of a lot more money with me than I ever will with Best Buy, for a design that is far more business-critical than my cell phone is to me. No matter what other projects I have going, I need to constantly remind myself to take whatever time I need to take to ensure the clients’ designs are the correct ones for them.

Be classy

When someone is switching to your services from working with another company, often they’ll explain to you what their reasons are for switching. I was pretty clear about what my reasons for switching were when I was buying my phone from Kyle. While he was always helpful, he never once took my whining as an excuse to pile on the competitor. I’m not sure if this is something trained for Best Buy’s employees or if it is just how Kyle is, but I was impressed with the class he used in handling the situation.

Pay attention and be friendly

Kyle took a few moments out whenever a new customer came into the department to greet him or her. And it was a genuine, friendly greeting. I had the feeling that Kyle knew exactly how each person’s kids were doing in little league. I really appreciated knowing that existing customers were treated so well. And, of course, the implication was not lost on me that if I became a Best Buy customer, this is how I’d be treated.

Avoid paranoia

One of the things that Kyle said to me as he closed the sale was, “We want you to be with Best Buy because you want to be with Best Buy.” This was in stark contrast to my previous experience. Even though I’d been with them for eight years, they refused to sell me a phone I’d be happy with at a reasonable price without locking me into a 2-year contract.

That particular company exacerbated the problem by associating themselves closely with the manufacturer of their most over-hyped phone, one that claims to deliver wonderful experiences by forcing you to have exactly the experience they want.

Shortly after I went into business, I had several clients not pay me, to the tune of enough money that it pretty well fouled up my credit. So for a while, I was all about ensuring that my clients were locked down about as tight as I could get them. But you know what? If you do that for long enough and don’t ever extend any trust to your clients, sooner or later they’ll start not trusting you. And start counting the days until they are allowed to leave.

I don’t want my clients to think about me like that.

Don’t make clients feel bad

As I mentioned before, between having a couple of clients not pay early on and having my property hit by a major hurricane, my credit is not perfect. When Kyle ran my credit, Best Buy already had a plan in place that was perfect for where I am in the credit repair process. Everything went smoothly, and I didn’t have to stammer out any explanations about hurricanes and bad clients.

Once I had my phone, I had an issue where the flash would go on and off while I was trying to use the camera for QR code scanning. I called up the store with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was afraid I’d allowed myself to get stuck with a bum device, despite the fact that they’d explained I could return the phone within 14 days for a full refund.

“If I can’t get this resolved, I’m going to have to return it,” I proclaimed.

“OK,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Completely took the wind out of my sails. And when I took the phone into the shop, Kyle competently verified the problem, not remotely implying that I was stupid or insane to even have a problem. Amazingly, she even knew what to do to fix it, though we were both surprised that it worked.

How many times do we as designers feel the need to “prove” that a problem that the customer is having is because they’re doing something wrong? Even if they are, a better way to handle all around is just to tell them what the right procedure is, going to screen sharing if necessary.

If it really is your problem, you haven’t said something nasty to someone you then need to apologize for.

When I left with my new Behold II, I had something else as well–a business card from Best Buy with Kyle’s personal phone number on it, in case I had questions. I strongly doubt that Best Buy insists its employees do this, but it’s hard to beat having motivated employees who will take it upon themselves to extend this kind of personal touch.

What Have You Learned?

How about you? Do you have stories of people or companies that have completely “wowed” you with their customer service? Please share.

Do you have a lesson about making your customer service better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.

Essential Requirements for Customer Engagement

Be useful, and entertaining, or you will be ignored.

Want to see some great tips on how to build customer relationships?

So how do we propose to build a world-class social commerce business with consumer engagement?1 Here are 12 essential requirements we believe you must pay strict attention to:

Start with observations

Consider starting questions with this phrase: “I noticed that you …” What happens when you are forced to think about this is that you start to consider what you know about someone before you meet them based on where you are, what they look like or what you know about them already.

One of the best conversations I had at an event recently was because I noticed that someone was using two different phones at the same time. Asking why led to an amazing conversation about time optimization and technology.

Message relevance

People have many priorities and rarely enough time. So pay attention and don’t use it with irrelevant messages and conversations. Engage them with only the messages and topics that are relevant to them. Strictly avoid broadcast messaging.

Interrupt with questions

Many people think good listening means always letting someone finish every thought and nodding along. Instead, active listening requires that you ask questions WHILE you are listening.1 Sometimes this means interrupting – but this isn’t something to be afraid of.

Often the interruptions will lead to tangents that create more intersections for both of the people in a conversation.

Be credible

The most important element that people rely on the most? It is trust, hands down in my opinion. Relationships breed trust so they are a good place to start, People prefer to do business with people they know and have established relationships with. Those are the ones they trust the most.

Seek stories instead of answers

There are questions that lead to answers, and then there are questions that lead to stories. Here’s one way you might start a story-seeking question, “What inspired you to …” When people share stories, they go beyond feeling like they are being interrogated.

They open up and they connect. The more stories you can hear, the more connection you’ll feel to everyone you speak to.

Be human

People are human. It is as simple as that. They are real and want to be treated as such. They dislike being treated as a number. And they prefer relationships that work best for them.

Friendly and social

Be friendly and socialize your business. People do business with people, so make it personal. Customers should want to do business with you because of you and your employees. Make your customers feel at home. You may have a great location, cool displays, great value, etc. That’s all great, but if your people can’t make your customers feel welcome and appreciated, all of the other doesn’t matter so much.

Communication

People like to talk with and be around friendly people. In such situations, they share quite a bit about themselves. And it obviously makes sense they expect the same in kind.

Customer care

Assume you are the company owner. Not all owners or executives make great leaders, but the ones that are should be emulated. Watch how they take pride in how they deal with customers and employees, and then follow their lead.

All the time

Amazing companies don’t always deliver ‘Wow!’ type experiences, they are just better than average all of the time. Consistently all of the time is the secret sauce.

Experience

People are always looking for memorable experiences in their lives. They tend to remember both the very best and the very worse experiences. They prefer those they treasure and will share with friends.

Attention to details

Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest impact. Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you. Be vigilant … always listening and learning. Try and remember things customers tell you and then show them you listened.

Trying new ideas. Put your social commerce business in motion by being adaptable.

Here is a story that helps me with better customer engagement:

When my son was about two and a half, he developed a funny habit of walking around the house from time to time, chiming out, “I’m here.”

Although this little boy was strongly connected to his family and his small class of school friends, he still had that need to express it.

I’m here. I exist. I want to be seen, and heard. I want to be recognized.

And as human beings, we never quite lose that. We might get a little more sophisticated about how we say it, but ultimately we all want to let the world know:

I’m here.

If you intend to market something — to ask for someone’s hard-earned money and irreplaceable time — you must begin by seeing (and honoring) who they are. And clearly acknowledging their presence.

You need to know them as well as you know yourself, as well as you know your family and closest friends.

Key takeaway

Now it’s up to you. Choose one customer service strategy to start with. Have a meeting around it. Discuss how to implement it. Then, do it and repeat the process, creating something good for your customers to talk about! Soon you will have a much stronger social commerce business.

Please share a social commerce business experience with us. Any comments or questions to add below?

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer engagement and relationship-building performance and creativity.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

Disney World Customer Experience Design … a Difference Maker

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney World customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.

Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.

David Freemantle

Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience … in fact; one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history. Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.

What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on–stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience? Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:

Care for Customers

In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking – and in Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children. There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them. In most places, this might create chaos.

At Disney, they have a “stroller guy” whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers. We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized. All customer-facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.

Immerse Customers in Brand

At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around. In the park, it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment … even when some parts of the park are under construction. Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.

Lots of help and directions

All-stage employees are encouraged to be “assertively friendly”. They are to seek out those who look like they need help before they come looking for help.

The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for. As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another.

Disney does a great job keeping its signs easy to understand. They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.

Random acts of kindness

Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.

The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way. To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait. Only one is active at any one time, however. However, at several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride.

Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride at the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day. A random act of kindness that costs nothing.

Be flexible with rules

Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board. Those photos are sold to riders after the ride – a classic amusement park upselling technique. At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.

Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one. Many places would put up big signs preventing that. Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo … but they don’t outlaw it.

The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it, but they don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with a lower-quality photo they take themselves.

Educating while entertaining

In many places in all the parks, Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom … and special events like the annual garden show. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.

Offer Reassurance

Everyone “on the stage” has a casting role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.

When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person. We all know people like that. They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something. Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.

Show Ready

Each customer-facing employee is expected to be “show ready” whenever they are on stage. Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on … everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.

Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.

Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.

Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.

What can your business apply from Disney operations that would improve your customer experience? Please share a story about your experience.

Remember, customers, create the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.

Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, and stories per week.

Please share a story about a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.

Customer Choices … How to Win Customers From Your Competitors

There is obviously not one answer that fits all the questions of customer choices. But there are three possible answers that should be at the top of your list of how to win customers from your competitors.

The first, and perhaps the most significant reason, is value discrimination … a better product/service for essentially the same price. Know the key end results that your customers are looking for and use these as your guide to defining values that can discriminate your business.

A second important reason is the strength of the relationship between the customer and your staff. A business is about its employees and customers. Social and social engagement are big parts of the equation. Be personable, friendly, and social … and you will be on your way!

This strength of relationship relates heavily to the third reason for a customer’s selection … trust and confidence. The stronger the relationship, the more trust and confidence the customer has for the business and the belief that the business will deliver on its promises. Being honest and open and delivering on your promises is the only way to maintain relationships.

Price is often a factor, but if a business can win the battle against value discrimination, with a strong customer trust/relationship, then often a customer eliminates cost as a major factor and may even pay a premium price for the product and/or service.

So, if you were wondering where to put your marketing time and energy to optimize how to win customers from your competitors, focus on defining and delivering winning value propositions, keeping your promises, and establishing as well as maintaining strong social relationships.

Please share a story or two from your customer-winning experiences with this community.

Like this story?

Customer Experience Design through Data Analytics … a Story of Caesar’s Palace

Have you ever stayed at Caesar’s Palace Casino in Las Vegas? It is a very high-end, luxury casino and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. It represents high-end customer experience design.

They issue a rewards card to their customers and then use analytics derived from its usage to build models of customer behavior in general and individual customers in particular. So the casino can know what might trigger a good customer to stop gambling and leave.

By using the technology to predict that a customer is about to hit that trigger, a floor manager can stop by with an offer of, say, a discounted buffet meal. Customers start to feel that Caesars’ casinos know and understand them. Other casinos might draw people with glitz. Caesars does it with knowledge and service.

But it’s important to be transparent. If you know too much about customers and they don’t understand why they may get spooked. A little honesty wins a lot of leeway from customers.

Spooked … a good customer experience?

Will this type of honesty win a positive customer experience?

I think not. What is your opinion?

Please share a story on your business’s customer experience design with this community.

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Customer Data: 10 Lessons from the Yale Customer Insights Conference

Be in touch with your customers and customer data. It is the best way to gain meaningful insights. Do you often attend conferences to network and learn new things?

They can be very valuable on both counts but time-consuming and expensive. We have found that selecting conferences with high priority subjects, and then reading the briefings after the conference can be an acceptable substitute. That is the case in the 2015 Yale Customer Insights Conference.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

At the Yale Customer Insights Conference, leading thinkers and doers came together to share notes at an event exploring the frontiers of marketing strategy, consumer choice, and product innovation.

Before we continue, let me ask you a question.

What works best for gathering customer insights in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

Keep reading and we will share with you the five key topics we learned from our reading, study, and further research from the customer insights conference.:

Customer data … customer control is growing

Call of Duty is a first-person video game franchise. In fact, it is the number 1 gaming channel on all the major social media channels (Facebook, YouTube, etc.is). Its videos have been viewed 500+ million times. The series began on the PC and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. Several spin-off games have also been released.

Customer data examples … the surprising fact

Is that user-generated videos about Call of Duty have been viewed 10 billion + times? Wow, now that is what I would call customer control, how about you? So the community is a big key here and brands need to give up the control.

Customer natural desire for control is a theme that plays continuously in advertising. In 2010 for example, National Car Rental ads showed how customers could register online, avoid the counter and pick any car in the lot. The campaign featured tennis star John McEnroe, famous for his mid-match tantrums, discovering he can select any car he wants and shouting, “Choose any car? You cannot be serious!”

Most car rental companies had already given drivers some control over the rental process by letting them choose the size or request a specific model. But National Car Rental went a step further to let the customer choose any specific car they wanted!

Related material: 10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn

For businesses, this translates into providing customers with greater control over their purchasing decisions, allowing customers to experience their buying behavior as self-determined and internally motivated.

It gets better:

for example, when the Apple iPod came out, it was a radical innovation in terms of allowing consumers to control what they listened to. Music consumers no longer needed to wade through an entire collection of songs to enjoy the two or three they wanted to hear.

The iPod users were their own DJs, putting together playlists as they skipped from album to album or experiencing a sense of discovery by setting their iPod to “random.” Apple innovators showed a clear insight understanding of people’s deep desire to control their music.

The bottom line

Clearly, putting customer insights to work by giving up control makes good business sense. Several conference reports suggest that more enterprises are realizing that their customers hold the key when given control.

Business collaboration with customers

But giving customers the control is only one of key changes occurring. Businesses are also vastly increasing the amount of partnering with customers.

For example, Call to Duty partnered with 200 YouTube influencers to produce 5000 videos and 360 M views. What an awesome example of business collaboration with customers.

You may be wondering …

about the huge customer experience divide:

81% of businesses say they have a holistic view of customers

While

37% of customers say their favorite retailer understands them

And many challenges remain to keep this the status quo. Among these: data explosion, social media growth, many more channels and devices, and continually shifting demographics.

So for those organizations that haven’t quite got it figured out yet, here are the three awesome examples of making customer collaboration work better:

Make it open

For decades, LEGO was a closed organization, even going so far as to be on the record as saying, “We don’t accept unsolicited ideas.”

But that all changed in 2004 when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp was appointed CEO. At a 2005 user convention, he declared to the attendees, “We think innovation will come from a dialogue with the community.” A new era of customer collaboration and innovation was ushered in.

The bottom line

In 1999, LEGO had 11 user groups. By 2012, that number had swelled to 150 groups dedicated to the LEGO brand.

From 2004 to today, LEGO has seen some of the greatest innovations of their product start with these user groups. In addition to simply being open to new ideas from outside the organization, good customer collaboration encourages real feedback for areas of improvement.

Customer Insights Conference … make them partners

Here is another great example of a business / customer partnership. When launching their 2011 album, The Future is Medieval, the band Kaiser Chiefs turned to customer collaboration and transformed their customers into partners.

First, the band provided fans the chance to create their own Kaiser Chief album. Visitors to their site could download 10 songs of their choice (out of 20 available options) and then design their own cover. And that’s when things got really creative.

Collaborators could then share their personalized version of the album on a customizable website, along with banner ads and posters to promote “their” album. Even better, fans made £1 commission on every album they sold. Wow, now that was a real collaborative business model, yes?

By involving customers in the process of creating and promoting their product, the Kaiser Chiefs had effectively turned their customers into partners of their brand. Fans had a vested interest in making the album a success.

The results

speak for themselves: over 100,000 unique visits in the first 24 hours and an increase of 50,000 followers on Twitter.

Why couldn’t your business do something similar? The fact is any brand can offer their customers a spot at the table to share their thoughts and a reward for participating and collaborating—even if it’s simply public recognition for their part in the process.

These two simple acts create lifetime fans and keep fresh ideas rolling in.

Create a customer-centered process

Remember the suggestion box? In days gone by, that 12” x 12” box was the only “space” businesses made for employee and customer inputs. People are dying to tell you what they think about your brand—good and bad. It is simple enough to give them a space to do it in.

Unfortunately, while tweets and posts are a great way to get quick feedback, they don’t offer the capability of having rich and deeply meaningful conversations with customers.

Another example:

about six years ago, Starbucks was facing a problem. Customers felt that the coffee retail giant wasn’t responding to their feedback. Apparently, two things were happening: feedback wasn’t reaching decision makers and there was no real way to show they were acting on the inputs.

So Starbucks created a space for deeper feedback and collaboration. Now in its sixth + year, MyStarbucksIdea.com is a place for customers to share and discuss ideas, vote for their favorites and interact with Starbucks employees.

The modern customer influencer

Today, we live in a world where influencers often reach audiences through multiple channels. And I’m sure to have noticed that brand experiences come from more than brand touchpoints. Such experiences include celebrity fans, brand authorities, to include friends and content sources. A recent Nielsen reports documents that 92% of consumers trust word of mouth from people, whereas only 47 % of them trust ads from the brands themselves.

Walt Mossberg is a great example of a traditional brand authority. He is a journalist (in his case, at “The Wall Street Journal”), who is amazingly active on blogs (e.g., All Things D, re/code) and is a solid Twitter personality with close to 1M followers.

However, the most important influencers often aren’t journalists, but rather people who are simply taking advantage of multiple channels to reach a wider audience.

For example, Mark Cuban has more than 2.5M Twitter followers and is more influential in both sports and business than most journalists covering these two topics. If he says something interesting about a product or brand, his opinion wields influence.

In today’s interconnected communications landscape, we have to craft a well-reasoned influencer strategy.

And while brand-crafted content is useful and can help build trust with customers, the most influential content comes from like-minded people that your customers know and trust.

Smart companies know that in this new social paradigm, bloggers and others with loyal followers on social media are the new influencers.

The bottom line:

What this means to your business is that there is an existing, powerful arsenal of influence that you can tap into directly. This concept of partnering with bloggers and other active social media users is called “influencer marketing”.

It is based on the premise of finding influencers in your niche to create and distribute relevant content and share it in an authentic and transparent way.

Power of interactive content is key and growing

Which begs the question, what exactly is interactive content?

Most content that we’re familiar with — blog posts, ebooks, reports, webinars, infographics, podcasts, etc. — is designed to be passively consumed by our audiences.

They read, watch, or listen to it. They may comment on it or share it, which is great, but the underlying content doesn’t ask them for input and mostly doesn’t react to them in real time.

In contrast to passive content, interactive content engages an audience as active participants. Interactive content includes quizzes, calculators, configurators, assessment tools, games, contests, workbooks, and more.

You can think of interactive content as lightweight “apps” for the web. Like apps on your smartphone, they offer a useful functionality in a small, easy-to-use digital package.

But unlike smartphone apps, you don’t need to explicitly install them. They’re just embedded into your website, and they work in any modern web browser.

Now:

Why should you use interactive content?

But with interactive content, we can learn a tremendous amount from their interactions — the rankings people give themselves or their companies when taking an assessment, the questions they missed (or nailed) on a topical quiz, the variations they assembled in a product configurator, or the range of parameters they tried with a calculator.

You may be wondering:

What are the interactive techniques to consider:

Interactive Video Marketing

Interactive video marketing differs from “normal static video advertisements” by providing your audience with the choice of interacting with the video instead of simply just watching it. Viewers can interact through physical actions such as touching or clicking.

By inviting your viewer to act, you can effectively boost engagement of your videos. Interactive videos can easily convert leads through a well-timed call to actions.

Reveal-Based Marketing

To generate attention today from consumers, marketers must stimulate the receivers’ brain with creative methods.

In essence, humans want to be intrigued, excited, and ultimately blown away.

Here are examples …

of reveal based marketing that you can use are:

Games: Promotions and discounts that require you to scratch away, spin, or play a flash game before viewing a deal.

Problem Solving: Promotions and discounts that require you to draw a picture, build a puzzle, or solve a riddle.

Motion Interactions: Promotions and discounts that require you to move, shake, tilt, blink, or jump to reveal.

With the advance in technology, digital reveal-based marketing has been producing great results. Need proof? According to Adweek, a recent Macy’s “reveal based” banner ad saw “the average person spends more than three minutes interacting with the unit, and the interaction rate was 921 percent”.

Polling

Polling is one of the most effective and simple tools for immediate engagement. A few reasons to use polling are:

Effective audience feedback

By using polls, you can ask your audience for their thoughts in a way that is easy, fast, and fun for them.

Engagement

Polls show your customers that the communication goes both ways, and it invites them to join in on the fun. It is a great technique for listening and shows them you care about their input.

Double the Content

When you add a poll, you’re really adding two pieces of content: The actual poll itself, as well as a piece sharing the results. This way, your audience is interacting with your brand twice – once with the poll through voting, and again with the results through commenting.

Visualization is becoming the new dominant language

Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data. Simply put, this means information that has been abstracted in some schematic form.

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful. To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand, providing insights into a rather sparse and complex data set by communicating its key-aspects in a more intuitive way. Yet designers often fail to achieve a balance between form and function, creating gorgeous data visualizations which fail to serve their main purpose — to communicate information.

An interesting quote …

from Google chief economist, Hal Varian:

The ability to take data – to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it, is going to be a hugely important skill in the next decade.

I could not agree more.

The significance of visual content

Let’s examine the rising trend of visual content marketing and how it ties into the idea that traditional content is falling into the same trap of traditional advertising.

As a content marketer, you’ve naturally realized the importance of visual content. Having an image associated with your blog results in a much higher click rate, and images and videos have a much higher chance of going viral through social media. As a result, most content marketers have integrated visual content–such as infographics and short video demonstrations or testimonials–into their campaigns.

Audiences react to this visual content more significantly because it engages them more. Rather than needing to read several hundred words, they can immerse themselves in the visual medium. It’s more of an experience, and therefore, it gets more attention and more favoritism.

How content marketing will become interactive

In order to identify the next marketing breakthrough, we need to find a strategy that gives users an engaging experience.

Interactive content marketing does this. Because it’s new, it won’t be overwhelming. Because it will be personally customized, it will be trusted. Because it’s personally informative, it’s more valuable than traditional content marketing. And because it’s personally immersive, it’s a more engaging experience.

The bottom line

These are simple ideas that will likely become radically complex once technology evolves to support such a platform. Companies that are able to find a way to integrate big data insights into real-world content applications, with an emphasis on catering to the individual user, will win out in the next phase of marketing evolution.

Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff ’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a teamwork or continuous learning workshop?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitte r, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

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Building Relationships by Paying Attention to Customer Engagement

What do you feel is the most important factor in building relationships? How you make customers feel is the most important factor …hands down in our opinion. Like making new friends. It is becoming the most important element of social commerce.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

–Maya Angelou

Business is a people activity; people like to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Ones with whom they have relationships are at the top of the desirable business option list. The stronger the relationships with your customers, the greater will be their trust and loyalty in your business. So it is very logical for businesses in establishing customer relationships.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

Studies show time and again, your best, most loyal customers are the aptest to tell their friends about your business, creating strong word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing is the most important element of any marketing campaign.

Have you ever used checklists to improve your attitude toward establishing customer relationships? How did they work for you? We often use checklists to achieve our goal to create the best in building new customer relationships. (See our article on what matters most in preparing for each new day.)

After college, I spent almost 2 years training as a naval aviator. An important element of that training was the use of checklists in the learning and refresher process. Checklist utilization remains an important part of my business life. It is always a good idea to have a helpful checklist for reminders of improvements for your business or your personal life.

I keep a stack of 10 or so checklists that I rotate and update occasionally. I pull out one checklist to read and contemplate for five minutes as a way to start each day. I find it puts my thinking in the right frame of mind.

Creating positive experiences for building customer relationships often will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?

Let’s examine the customer relationship checklist of 20 items that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:

Building relationships … remember their name

Always a good thing … but don’t guess. It is worse if you get it wrong.

Listen before talking and listen more than you talk

Store and use what you learn. Good customer insights are worth their weight in gold.

Find win-win

Of course, your business goals are important. But keeping customers happy is a critical goal.

Remember special occasions and send congratulatory notes

Simple things always make fantastic impressions and impacts.

Building relationships at work … give without being asked

You will learn what their issues are. Solving some of these issues without being asked will maximize the impact on future relationships.

*Build relationships … do the unexpected***

Surprising them with things can make a huge impact. Want to know one of the most effective ways that any company can use to build its brand and create reciprocity with its customers?

By surprising them!

People like getting things for free and like them, even more, when they are viewed as ‘favors’. But even more, they love receiving these favors as surprises.

Make them feel special

Let me describe a recent episode where I was a customer at a Marriott Hotel. My wife and I were staying in celebration of our 20^th anniversary. On our arrival at check-in, the front desk welcomed us with a warm anniversary congratulations and welcome. They said they were able to find us a very nice ocean-view room. We certainly were not disappointed.

Later, after getting back from an afternoon of sightseeing and dinner on the bay, we returned to the room to receive a very nice bottle of champagne and fresh strawberries from the front desk and hotel chef. What a great surprise and ‘wow’ customer experience. Great job making us feel very special.

Exceed expectations

Always do your best to go above and beyond … even on the little things.

Lend an ear

Customers are just people and many times they need to vent or tell a story about something in their lives. Listen like it was someone in your family.

Offer without being asked

Learn to anticipate. When you can, solve their problem without being asked. Note you will reuse insights many times, so this will become easier than you think.

Make them look good

Whatever you can do in this regard will be remembered and talked about. The foundation of the best marketing … word of mouth marketing.

Follow through on every commitment

No choice on this one. If you are not going to deliver, then don’t promise you will. Broken promises will be much worse.

*Build relationships … s**how that you care*

Gathering customer insights over time will lead you to a good understanding. They work best in showing you care. An example? A florist we worked with always took flower vases to the car for customers so that could strap them down so they wouldn’t be overturned.

Reach out if they’re in need

Spot customers that are in need of help or need. Reach out with help and support.

Never sacrifice a long-term relationship for a short-term gain

Always a big no-no without question.

Remain calm, cool, and collected during difficult times

Your lack of stress will be easily noticed and transferable.

Do what’s right

No matter what or even when no one is watching.

Admit quickly when you’re wrong

Everyone makes mistakes … so fess up, apologize, and move on.

Learn how to disagree without being disagreeable

No one likes to be around a negative, disagreeable person. Avoid this attitude at all costs.

Share the credit

Give collaboration a try when dealing with customers. It may be as simple as asking their opinions. When done, share the credit and make them look good.

Let me share a great experience and story about establishing customer relationships from a recent trip:

A landscape gardener ran a business that had been in the family for two or three generations. The staff was happy, and customers loved to visit the store, or to have the staff work on their gardens or make deliveries – anything from bedding plants to ride-on mowers.

For as long as anyone could remember, the current owner and previous generations of owners were extremely positive happy people.

Most folks assumed it was because they ran a successful business.

In fact, it was the other way around…

A tradition in the business was that the owner always wore a big lapel badge, saying Business Is Great!

The business was indeed generally great, although it went through tough times like any other. What never changed, however, was the owner’s attitude, and the badge saying Business Is Great!

Everyone who saw the button for the first time invariably asked, “What’s so great about business?” Sometimes people would also comment that their own business was miserable, or even that they were unhappy or stressed.

Anyhow, the Business Is Great! Badge always tended to start a conversation, which typically involved the owner talking about lots of positive aspects of business and work, for example:

the pleasure of meeting and talking with different people every day

the reward that comes from helping staff take on new challenges and experiences

the fun and laughter in a relaxed and healthy work environment

the fascination in the work itself, and in the other people’s work and businesses

the great feeling when you finish a job and do it to the best of your capabilities

the new things you learn every day – even without looking to do so

and the thought that everyone in business is blessed – because there are many millions of people who would swap their own situation to have the same opportunities of doing a productive meaningful job, in a civilized well-fed country, where we have no real worries.

And so the list went on. And no matter how miserable a person was, they’d usually end up feeling a lot happier after just a couple of minutes of listening to all this infectious enthusiasm and positivity.

It is impossible to quantify or measure attitude like this, but to one extent or another it’s probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, on which point if asked about the badge in a quiet moment, the business owner would confide:

The badge came first. The customer relationships and great business followed.

REMEMBER, trust and credibility, the foundation of establishing customer relationships, take years to develop but can be lost in seconds

These are not things that we do not already know, of course.

Yet the little things on this checklist simply remind us of what we already know but may have forgotten. Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitte r, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Are You Aware of these Types of Problem Clients

Can’t think of anything to say to the marketing problem clients sitting next to you at dinner? Just ask him about his worst client ever. They’ll be no shutting anybody up after that. Because face palm-worthy client moments happen all the time in the agency world. But we usually have to hold our tongues or risk losing the client. After all, their money keeps the lights on, so they earn the right to be a little goofy sometimes.

Problem clients fall into a number of buckets, and it helps to manage each group in a different way. Ignoring the traits that make a particular client difficult is not likely to solve any of your headaches. But identifying a client’s particular area (or areas) of stickiness early can help you better adapt so that those pain points don’t eventually lead you to softly muttering angry swears during meetings with said client.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common types of marketing problem clients and some tips for managing them.

The silent client

Client feedback is vital to a successful partnership. But some clients are less than forthcoming with their thoughts on certain ideas and campaign outcomes. They leave their agency partners in a state of constant uncertainty as they stumble to execute on ideas that received somewhat vague green lights. Are the clients happy? Do we need to change course? What — do — they — want?

When uncertainty regarding a client’s desires and level of satisfaction begins to nag at you — or, worse, slow down a campaign — you need to be direct. There’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone or sending an email to your client-side contact that asks for candid, honest feedback. Better yet, build these sorts of simple satisfaction surveys into your client feedback loops so that you aren’t left to interpret the silence.

The late client

It’s annoying when your friend makes you late for the movie. But it’s even more annoying when your client makes you late to hitting a vital campaign milestone. These delays happen for many reasons, some of which are forgivable. But when the same client is repeatedly slowing you down because assets aren’t being delivered or approvals are taking too long, you need to quickly assess the situation and address the source of the problem.

How you address the issue varies. Is one person constantly mucking up the works? Find a way to nudge them out of the process. Are the client’s processes too complicated? Tell them so and point out areas to be streamlined. But no matter what, don’t just sit back and twiddle your thumbs. Ultimately, time and money are being wasted, and that’s going to be blamed on you when your client starts asking questions about ROI.

The abusive client

Look, some clients are just jerks. Usually a person or a handful of people within the organization, but arguably even some organizations can be mean in their entirety (corporate policies, etc.). If you’re constantly on the receiving end of angry phone calls and emails that simply want to tear down your work and cast blame on your agency, without constructively seeking a solution to the alleged issue, then you need to stand up for yourself. That might even entail ending the client relationship. But not always. Because sometimes clients just need to realize they’re acting like jerks in order to cut it out. Just use care and approach the topic carefully.

If you screw up, admit it and take the heat — but only a reasonable amount of heat. Don’t let the relationship evolve into one where the client feels it’s acceptable to hurt your feelings on a regular basis. I know the word “partnership” is overused, but that’s what these relationships should be. You are not the whipping boy just because they write the checks. Respect yo’ self.

The broke client

Working with limited budgets is one thing. But some clients have a knack for inexplicably running out of money every time you suggest a much-needed enhancement for their programs. Or they might seem allergic to paying bills altogether. In any case, as soon as the first bill goes unpaid, you have to cut the cord as soon as you can. If your client is unable to honor its end of the contract (i.e. paying you), then you are not obligated to honor your end (services). It’s simple.

But other clients actually have the money. They just have a tendency of suddenly clamping down on all spending because they had a particularly intimidating phone call with their CFO. As such, the programs you’ve developed for them end up being underfunded, and you end up looking like you didn’t do the job that was initially laid out for you. If the nickel-and-diming becomes a pattern and your contract doesn’t guarantee the level of funding you know you need, consider ending the relationship.

The structurally unsound client

If you don’t know who reports to whom at your client’s organization, ask. You need to know who ultimately makes the final calls that affect your campaigns. Unfortunately, the answer to the hierarchy question is oftentimes unclear. You’ve stumbled into an organization of questionable titles and dotted-line responsibilities — an HR mess.

Don’t spend too much time trying to sort out the client’s structure on your own. Get everyone in the same room (even if that room is an email thread) and ensure that everyone in that room agrees on who your ultimate point of signoff will be for given elements of a campaign. Unless it’s your job to specifically make recommendations about your client’s business structure, stay out of it. It’s not worth it, man.

The shady client

You know that guy down the street who your otherwise-lovable dog growls menacingly at every time he sees him? Deep down, you don’t trust that guy, right? Well, the shady client is like that. Something is — off. It might be illegal. It might be unethical. You can’t quite be sure. But the information that client will disclose to you is either suspiciously incomplete or illogical in certain areas.

I know it’s hard to turn away clients on a vague suspicion of wrongdoing. But don’t ignore your gut. Investigate further. If you unearth unsavory behavior, don’t ignore that either. If the client is screwing its customers or the government or anyone else, it probably won’t hesitate to try taking advantage of you too.

The revolving door client

No one seems to stay at this company for more than a few months. Every time you check in, you’re handed to a new point of contact — a new clueless person with whom you have to spend many precious hours just to get back to the point where you left off. Nothing seems to move forward because of it.

If this pattern presents itself, assess it as well as you can. Is the problem with the company as a whole, or is it a fixable problem? You might actually have an opportunity to play a bigger role within the client organization by filling in as an almost completely outsourced marketing department. Get to the highest executive in the company who you can find (don’t go over your direct contact’s head unless necessary), explain why projects keep stalling, and point out that you can eliminate those stalls by assuming more control and responsibility (and budget).

If that doesn’t seem feasible, then at least document your processes and progress exceptionally thoroughly for this client — so you can simply hand those documents over to the next eventual successor.

The needy client

The smallest-budget clients will sometimes eat up the majority of your time. The smaller the budget, the more panicked they are about parting with it. So they will be up in your business constantly. And while it’s OK for clients to want to be heavily involved with your work, unless they’ve committed to hourly billing and can, in fact, compensate you for all the time lost on hand-holding, you’ll quickly find these clients to be a money-losing proposition.

You don’t necessarily need to get rid of these clients. But you do need to be direct with them when the ROI for you just isn’t there and point out the places in which you need to reclaim some of your time resources. Document your time and point out what they should be paying for it. If they can’t respect the value of your time, then you need to show them the door. It’s not ultimately money lost — it’s money earned when you replace it with a client who does respect your time.

5 Traits of the Perfect Customer Service Employee

Perfection doesn’t exist—but some people just happen to possess the characteristics that make them more suited for the role of a customer support agent, while others don’t have the traits of a good employee.

So what customer service qualities make these individuals different? Besides possessing the right customer service employee, what are the traits that make them ideal candidates when dealing with other people’s problems? This article will take a look at some of these common character traits that set fantastic customer service employees apart.

They are persuasive

A great customer service employee will also have some amazing marketing and sales skills. It’s not always about being a manipulator, but being able to steer the customer in a direction that is beneficial for both the company and the client.

If you want to know if your candidates have this trait, ask a simple question in the interview such as, “Why should we hire you?”. This way they have to sell themselves in a persuasive manner while listing qualities, traits, and reasons—a perfect, practical test of their customer service skills.

When interviewing candidates to become your next customer service hero, look for these qualities, traits, and skills. Look for someone who is communicative, persuasive, polite, patient, conscientious, and loyal.

They are loyal

Author Alexander Kjerulf says, “Happy employees make the customers happy”. It might sound rather straightforward, but happiness and satisfaction within a company will inevitably lead to loyalty.

When interviewing a candidate, pay attention to what they say about the previous companies they’ve worked for. There might be some underlying unhappiness, but a potential employee that speaks highly of their previous company despite having left is one that is both respectful and loyal.

A loyal customer care representative will put the company’s interest first when dealing with difficult customers. They are likely to try their best to protect the company’s image even in the presence of the most difficult customers.

They are natural problem-solvers

Companies that excel at customer service don’t wait for a problem to arise before addressing it. One of the great customer service skills is the ability to take a preemptive approach in managing possible risks and being prepared when a problem does arise.

Similarly, customer service employees must be able to provide a solution even before the customer poses the question (within reason, of course). In combination with a problem-solving nature, the candidate should also be a great listener in order to gather “clues” and read between the lines during communication.

With reference to the above-mentioned temperament types, it is ideal for customer service reps to be either the Artisan or Guardian type since they are known for being stable and conscientious, as well as pleasant to talk to and great at problem-solving.

In customer service, nothing is perfect and things will go wrong. This is not a failure. The best businesses show how they fix their mistakes.

They are highly conscientious

Look for candidates who are highly conscientious. The candidate that arrives late for the interview, looking completely flustered and confused is probably not the ideal choice.

Conscientious individuals are reliable, disciplined, methodical, organized, and goal driven. The Journal of Applied Social Psychology noted that “[individuals] who are identified through tests as highly conscientious are more likely to be aware of how good interpersonal interactions positively affect customer service – and are more likely to behave this way”.

To a degree, conscientious individuals are “pleasers” in the sense that they are aware of what works for certain people and what doesn’t. They have a strong intuition about what is morally right and wrong as well as how to treat others.

When customers call a company they’re actively seeking help in resolving a problem. A conscientious customer service agent will be better equipped to pick up the clues interlaced in the customer’s words, which will allow them to resolve pain points. Zendesk Chat also shares some creative ways in which you can deal with difficult clients and complaints while remaining helpful and calm.

Good employee traits

Although most companies have a limited customer service budget, finding the ideal employee has taken precedence over lowering costs in recent years. The perfect customer service employees have a positive attitude, are patient with customers, and are polite to all. These are the basics of satisfying the needs of both the client and the company. If you neglect these details while hiring, you might find yourself attempting to convert a hot-headed, negative individual into a suitable member of your customer support team.

Your HR team, or the person conducting the interview, should also know how to decipher a resumé in order to find the right match. When reading through your prospective employee’s resumé, look for keywords in their testimonials such as “works well with others” and “maintains a positive attitude”.

Positivity is important because dealing with customer issues day after day can strain an employee’s mental health. Being able to maintain a positive outlook despite the daily churn can help negate the negative effects of customer servicing. Patience and politeness allow the customer service rep to project their voice, tone, and brand without sounding rude or agitated. They will also be able to solve complex customer problems without losing their cool.

He was very aware of how much feelings impact the ways customers are influenced.

Here is how the story goes:

A customer walks into a store

This may surprise you, but receiving actual extraordinary customer service is rare enough in my life that I find it difficult to find examples to learn from. So I thought I’d deconstruct Kyle’s and Best Buy’s customer service for what I could learn.

Lessons I’ve Learned

Be patient

Be classy

Pay attention and be friendly

Avoid paranoia

That particular company exacerbated the problem by associating themselves closely with the manufacturer of their most over-hyped phone, one that claims to deliver wonderful experiences by forcing you to have exactly the experience they want.

I don’t want my clients to think about me like that.

Don’t make clients feel bad

“If I can’t get this resolved, I’m going to have to return it,” I proclaimed.

“OK,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Completely took the wind out of my sails. And when I took the phone into the shop, Kyle competently verified the problem, not remotely implying that I was stupid or insane to even have a problem. Amazingly, she even knew what to do to fix it, though we were both surprised that it worked.

How many times do we as designers feel the need to “prove” that a problem that the customer is having is because they’re doing something wrong? Even if they are, a better way to handle all around is just to tell them what the right procedure is, going to screen sharing if necessary.

If it really is your problem, you haven’t said something nasty to someone you then need to apologize for.

What Have You Learned?

How about you? Do you have stories of people or companies that have completely “wowed” you with their customer service? Please share.

Do you have a lesson about making your customer service better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.

More reading on customer experience from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Is Walmart Customer Experience Failing Improvement Efforts?

Credit Union Lowered the Bar on Bad Customer Experience

Be useful, and entertaining, or you will be ignored.

Want to see some great tips on how to build customer relationships?

So how do we propose to build a world-class social commerce business with consumer engagement?1 Here are 12 essential requirements we believe you must pay strict attention to:

Start with observations

Consider starting questions with this phrase: “I noticed that you …” What happens when you are forced to think about this is that you start to consider what you know about someone before you meet them based on where you are, what they look like or what you know about them already.

One of the best conversations I had at an event recently was because I noticed that someone was using two different phones at the same time. Asking why led to an amazing conversation about time optimization and technology.

Message relevance

People have many priorities and rarely enough time. So pay attention and don’t use it with irrelevant messages and conversations. Engage them with only the messages and topics that are relevant to them. Strictly avoid broadcast messaging.

Interrupt with questions

Many people think good listening means always letting someone finish every thought and nodding along. Instead, active listening requires that you ask questions WHILE you are listening.1 Sometimes this means interrupting – but this isn’t something to be afraid of.

Often the interruptions will lead to tangents that create more intersections for both of the people in a conversation.

Be credible

The most important element that people rely on the most? It is trust, hands down in my opinion. Relationships breed trust so they are a good place to start, People prefer to do business with people they know and have established relationships with. Those are the ones they trust the most.

Seek stories instead of answers

There are questions that lead to answers, and then there are questions that lead to stories. Here’s one way you might start a story-seeking question, “What inspired you to …” When people share stories, they go beyond feeling like they are being interrogated.

They open up and they connect. The more stories you can hear, the more connection you’ll feel to everyone you speak to.

Be human

People are human. It is as simple as that. They are real and want to be treated as such. They dislike being treated as a number. And they prefer relationships that work best for them.

Friendly and social

Communication

People like to talk with and be around friendly people. In such situations, they share quite a bit about themselves. And it obviously makes sense they expect the same in kind.

Customer care

Assume you are the company owner. Not all owners or executives make great leaders, but the ones that are should be emulated. Watch how they take pride in how they deal with customers and employees, and then follow their lead.

All the time

Amazing companies don’t always deliver ‘Wow!’ type experiences, they are just better than average all of the time. Consistently all of the time is the secret sauce.

Experience

People are always looking for memorable experiences in their lives. They tend to remember both the very best and the very worse experiences. They prefer those they treasure and will share with friends.

Attention to details

Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest impact. Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you. Be vigilant … always listening and learning. Try and remember things customers tell you and then show them you listened.

Trying new ideas. Put your social commerce business in motion by being adaptable.

Here is a story that helps me with better customer engagement:

When my son was about two and a half, he developed a funny habit of walking around the house from time to time, chiming out, “I’m here.”

Although this little boy was strongly connected to his family and his small class of school friends, he still had that need to express it.

I’m here. I exist. I want to be seen, and heard. I want to be recognized.

And as human beings, we never quite lose that. We might get a little more sophisticated about how we say it, but ultimately we all want to let the world know:

I’m here.

If you intend to market something — to ask for someone’s hard-earned money and irreplaceable time — you must begin by seeing (and honoring) who they are. And clearly acknowledging their presence.

You need to know them as well as you know yourself, as well as you know your family and closest friends.

Key takeaway

Now it’s up to you. Choose one customer service strategy to start with. Have a meeting around it. Discuss how to implement it. Then, do it and repeat the process, creating something good for your customers to talk about! Soon you will have a much stronger social commerce business.

Please share a social commerce business experience with us. Any comments or questions to add below?

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer engagement and relationship-building performance and creativity.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

More reading on customer engagement from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Be a Customer Focused Business through Consumer Engagement

Whole Food’s Customer Engagement Using Social Media

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney World customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.

Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.

What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on–stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience? Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles: