Customers don’t care what you do. They only care what they are left with after you’ve done it. Small business customer experience.
Here is a question for you. Do you notice the small business customer experience you receive at local places you frequently visit?
With most of us, the answer is yes if the experience is bad. The extreme endpoint of the service experience.
Related post: Client Satisfaction …10 Secrets to Improve Customer Experience
Occasionally, however, customers make note of a customer experience design that is just average. And average experiences won’t help your business, will they?
So businesses should be continually looking to improve customer experience, yes?
I often take note of the local company’s customer experience design and think about the changes I would make if I was in charge.
This blog is a discussion of how my wife and I would improve several small businesses’ customer experience in our local area.
We often get questions and comments on delivering great customer service and experiences. They are from both clients directly and customers commenting on our blog.
Many relate to customer service actions that are reminders of what we already know (but we occasionally forget).
These are big enablers of customer service. They usually won’t create Wow service on their own, but their absence is noted by customers and lowers excellent customer service to just good enough or less.
See our article on the 10 Ways to Employ Customer Experience for Influence
What are the ways these small local businesses were just average in their customer experience design? Consider their explicit operations and design factors:
Small business customer experience … saving time
One of the most important needs of most customers is time … no one ever has enough and if you are a customer like me, you hate waiting for service in anything.
There were two big-time wasters at these small businesses:
The first finding what you were looking for. This was almost always an issue for us.
Usually, when we asked directions we got a prompt answer to an aisle, which certainly shortens the search, but not enough in our mind.
The second was trying to find someone to help you. That also included someone who can handle 90% of the answers. That rarely happened on the first try.
Show value
In their store, as well as on their website, you can never find product value statements or recommendations.
If you want recommendations on the best value you must ask. And when you do, you rarely get a convincing answer. No real unique selling points for the stores as a whole, at least that was obvious to us.
Store to website integration
I visit many of these businesses quite often and use their website even more frequently. In all those visits, I have been shown a terminal where the customer used it to answer my question only once.
My bet is that there was only one computer in the entire store where a customer clerk could look online to get information and answers on products.
And service for products is even a bigger issue. An area where small changes could provide big improvements.
Small business customer experience … customer education
Some businesses were decent in educating their Do-It-Yourself customers by adding a learning center in both the store and online.
Their online service is typically better than average, but again, they could do a lot more by integrating online and in-store customer education. Many of the employees are just clerks and know very little about products and do it yourself activities.
Lots of help and directions
All employees should be encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly’. They should seek out those who look like they need help before they come looking for help. But this rarely if ever happens.
Many local businesses have stores that are large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is not to 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. Wouldn’t it be easy to create store maps to give to customers in need? Apparently not so easy.
Take nothing for granted
Don’t take a customer’s loyalty for granted, especially when dealing with first-time shoppers. The key to customer loyalty is not just by providing a quality service or product, but how you service and support it.
Meeting customer expectations in a first sale may not be enough. First-time buyers want to know you care. For loyalty to endure, it must be noticed and acknowledged.
That means some top-notch individual actions on behalf of customers. Have you ever received any of these? We have not. Again, many small businesses signal that they are happy with an average customer experience.
Product choices
Have you ever been into a store that has more product options? I am not talking about product sizes here. I am speaking about different brands that do the same thing.
And that is not a customer benefit, because too many choices make decisions much more challenging, especially when store employees can’t tell you which product is best.
Stand tall on customer issues
Being a client advocate is often tough for many businesses. Many overcome this by defining a client bill of rights and displaying in the store and online.
No way to not follow these as they are predominantly shown. Ever seen one at the local small businesses you frequent? Nope, not us. But certainly at some of the big brands.
Build trust
When you save your customer time, deliver quality service, stand tall on customer issues, and always show your value, you build trust.
And trust is the basis of great customer relationships and follow-on business.
A definite win-win.
Looking for customer feedback
As customers, both my wife and I like to have a business seek out our opinions. Shows they care.
On the flip side, if a business never asks, or has no way to solicit suggestions, it shows they don’t care very much.
Where do you think most small businesses fall on this spectrum?
Immerse customers in brand
At many companies, you can look in any direction and see the branding all around. And we are not talking abound single brand identity here.
We are talking about things that remind customers about things the brand believes in, or stands for, in the store or online. It works to surround you with the customer experience at every moment.
Most small businesses can and should do more to stand out in this area, much more.
Customer experience design certainly should show how much a business appreciates the importance of clients, shouldn’t it?
It’s a culture they seem proud to stand behind.
Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.
Customer experience actions that are remarkable get talked about. And getting mentioned in this light is a great thing, right? No question. So ignoring well-known customer experience annoyances is a big no-no.
Here’s the thing …
Customer experience design isn’t just a new way of marketing; it’s a new way of running a business.
Many companies certainly have figured this out and are using customer experience to rapidly grow their business. Small businesses need to understand this concept better.
Related post: Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
The bottom line
Remember one simple thing here: all employees need to view themselves as customer advocates, period. Customer service actions that are remarkable get talked about.
And getting mentioned in this light is a great thing, right? No question.
