What do you think is the most important factor in how your business puts attention to customer focus and engages its customers? Like many things in your business, we believe the answer to this question is the quality of your customer facing employees.
How customer facing employees engage customers can make or break any business. It all depends on how employees relate to customers. We say it many times to our clients, this problem is solved by getting the right employees into the business (75% of the required solution) and then training and empowering these employees (25% of the required solution). Today we will focus on how to select the best customer facing employees.
Here is an excellent short video on recruiting tips.
So what skills and qualities are required facilitate positive initial engagements with customers? Here are the recommendations we give our clients:
When dealing with customers, things can go bad often at the wrong time. Employees have to be adaptable enough to roll with the punches and think outside the box when meeting customer needs.
Customer focus … multitasking abilities
Often employees must to deal with multiple customers and their questions and needs, and at the same time, attend to their other store duties. You need your staff to keep cool and do well with multitasking at all times.
Customer focus examples … patience
Dealing with unruly customers means that you will have to take the good with the bad. Your customer facing employees must have the composure to deal with all types of stressful customer situations without ‘losing it’. That composure is vital.
Confidence
The confidence to make eye contact and strike up a conversation with strangers is absolutely essential … there is no substitute. It takes all-out determination at all times.
Friendliness
Customers don’t want to deal with personnel who don’t seem to care to be friendly. Unfriendly is the quickest way to close customers.
Easily understandable.
Understandable
Your staff must have the ability to be conversational and, at the same time, have the ability to formulate answers and provide easily understood information when asked.
Customer focus competency … initiative
It’s never a good idea to wait until a customer is stressed or agitated before offering assistance. Being one step ahead to gauge when someone needs help is the best way to minimize a brewing situation. It is also a great way to show a customer you care.
Respectful
Customers might not always be right, but they always have the right to choose. Customers must be treated with respect, even if they are rude and unruly, in the most challenging situations.
Positivity
The ability to smile in the face of a long and possibly chaotic day can make a world of difference to customers. Losing it at the end of an otherwise great day is not acceptable.
Rapport
Being able to look at a situation through the eyes of a customer is an extremely valuable skill that can enable you to provide customer rapport and the highest degree of service. It takes a great deal of patience as well as practice.
Related post: Employee Traits … 7 You Need to Be a Social Business
At the end of the day, it’s all about how an employee interacts with a customer.
How that interaction goes will ultimately determine if that customer will buy and recommend the store to her friends and family, or turn around and walk out, never to return again.
So you can NOT accept unacceptable or average employees. If you do that is where your business will end up.
Remember, to lead is to measurably help others succeed.
Need some help in finding ways to hire the best employees? Such as creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential competitors? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?
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.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Do you have a lesson about making your continuous learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on improving hiring from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
The two most powerful things in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture. A powerful quote from Ken Langone, isn’t it? The value of a positive attitude toward customer engagement and relationship building? Priceless.
Related post: Complaint Management … Tips for Small Business Success
You perhaps have heard this timeworn story illustrating the difference between positive thinking and negative thinking:
Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.
The first salesperson said back, “There is no potential here – nobody wears shoes.”
The second salesperson said back, “There is massive potential here – nobody wears shoes.”
This simple short story provides one of the best examples of how a single situation may be viewed in two entirely different ways – negatively or positively.
We could explain this also regarding seeing a situation’s problems and disadvantages, instead of its opportunities and benefits.
When telling this story, its impact is increased by using the same form of words (e.g., “nobody wears shoes”) in each salesperson’s report. This emphasizes that two entirely different interpretations are made of a single situation.
Related: Influence Consumer Behavior Through Personalization Strategies
If you are in a business where you deal with people on a regular basis, like we are, your motivation and attitude need to be in ‘top gear’ (as it will usually impact most issues of the day).
By spending 5-10 minute at the beginning of each work day reading and thinking of the items in the following simple checklist, we help our employees be the best they can be for the day’s activities:
Individuals who think as an optimist see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in the tougher times.
Respect differences
Appreciate and respect differences in others.
Increase flow experiences
We define flow as a state in which it feels as if time is standing still. It occurs when you are so focused on what you are doing that you become one with the task. In this state, nothing competes for your attention.
Listen before speaking and listen more than you talk.
Nurture relationships
The most active people we know are the ones who make friends quickly and work to build deep, meaningful relationships.
Conserve energy
Don’t waste your energy on negative people or situations. You can’t fix everything or everybody.
The future
You can’t predict the future so why think that you can?
Practice acts of kindness
Selflessly helping someone is a super powerful way to create a positive attitude.
Being Liked
Not everyone you meet is going to like you. Not something to worry about, is it?
Express gratitude
When you appreciate what you love, what you love appreciates in value. If you aren’t thankful for what you already have, you will have a hard time ever being positive.
Only you
Only YOU can control your destiny. Take initiative on your behalf.
Strangers
View strangers as friends in waiting. Seize these opportunities.
Savor life’s joys
Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to soak up the positives all around you.
Be forgiving for a positive attitude
The harboring feeling of hate and meanness is horrible for your mood and well-being.
Commit to your goals
Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to do whatever it takes to achieve our objectives.
Avoid social comparisons
Comparing yourself to someone else can be a poison to your positive thinking.
Develop coping strategies
It always helps to have healthy ways to deal in your arsenal.
Do you consider your company a social commerce business? While there has been considerable hype about social business in the last few years, we don’t consider it new … it has been around as long as commerce. These days there are just more channels to engage customers and be social. Positive thinking is everything in this regard.
Key takeaways
Remember, this is the time to create remarkable experiences to build lasting relationships with customers. Lead with initiative … own the moment. Remember attitude is everything.
The pessimist sees a difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. By focusing on a daily positive attitude we are much more inclined to be the optimist and find the opportunity, aren’t we?
Being social with a great positive thinking and attitude isn’t a new way of marketing; it’s a way of doing business.
What do you do to get yourself and those around you in the right frame of reference for top performance?
Do you have an experience on employees’ positive attitude to share with this community?
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating ateam or leadership workshop?
Call today for aFREEconsultation or aFREEquote. 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 struggle 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?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
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. 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.
More reading on customer engagement from our library:
The key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not to just meet them, but to exceed them— preferably in unexpected and helpful ways.—Richard Branson. How many of you learn from examples of customer experience for elements of your marketing?
Consider this … if done well; don’t you think both could create things for customers to talk about? And therefore be enablers for your word of mouth marketing strategy. Let me share a story with you as an example
Recently I took my sister to our local credit union branch office to take care of three different transactions: getting a credit card reactivated, depositing coins, and ordering checks.
The coins required a visit, but the other two transactions could have been done by phone or maybe online. I hoped one visit to a local branch would be easier, but deep down I feared it wouldn’t.
Credit union branch office lesson.
Frankly, I expected we’d be shuttled around the branch to different people to take care of each transaction. Or, worse, told to use the phone to call the credit card support number directly.
Instead, it turned into a quick and extraordinary experience. Because when we entered the branch, a banker warmly greeted us and asked how he could help. After learning what my sister needed to do, he invited us to sit down at his desk.
He then took care of everything: Called the credit card division of Wells Fargo to activate a credit card, took the coins to the teller to make the deposit and returned with a receipt, and ordered new checks. I call attention to the fact that the banker didn’t know us or how much money we had with the credit union
My perspective:
So you see how these events represent a great way to market to customers, don’t you? Think I would talk about my experience with my friends and neighbors? Most definitely.
Let me share 3 more personal experiences, 2 very good and 1 not so good:
Examples of customer experience … PF CHANG’S RESTAURANT
My wife and I stopped by our local P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch last month. It was a beautiful Florida spring day and since it was mid-week the restaurant wasn’t too busy, so we decided to sit on the patio.
However, when we asked the hostess to be seated outside we were told that it would be 15-20 minutes before we could be seated. However, we could be seated immediately if we wanted to sit inside.
When I asked why we couldn’t be seated immediately … since about half the tables were open, we were told that there wasn’t enough staff scheduled on the patio to serve more tables.
Clearly, this service staff did not have the decision making authority for creating good customer experiences!
My perspective:
If there were enough staff in the restaurant to serve the total number of customers, then why couldn’t they simply reallocate some of the inside staff to serve outside on the patio?
If the hostess was delegated the decision making authority to take initiative to make every customer experience a good to great one, then perhaps this might have resulted differently?
I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready.
There were many problems, believe me, and it started as a significant customer failure.
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service … using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.
He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service … but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem. So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.
My perspective:
Why should any company not want to seize such an opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.
Examples of customer experience … JetBlue
This is a story of JetBlue’s customer experience strategy built on its employee empowerment culture. I experienced it first hand and was duly impressed.
The story started a while back while I was sitting on the runway in Orlando as my homeward-bound Jet Blue flight was about to taxi toward takeoff. Like just about every other flight that hadn’t already been canceled that day on the Eastern seaboard, ours was a couple of hours late departing.
The lead flight attendant gets on the P.A. system and says something very close to:
Ladies and Gentlemen, we know we’re late taking off, and even though it’s the weather and not something we caused, we’re going to comp everybody movies for this flight. We know you’ve all had a long day and we want it to end with something nice and relaxing.
And for those of you who were supposed to be on the Continental flight and ended up here, we don’t ever want you to go back.
The mood on the flight which could have been a rather dreary late evening affair took an immediate upswing. People joked and smiled and made eye contact.
They were noticeably brighter and calmer as the flight progressed. And I’m writing about the experience today and business travelers are reading about it.
What enabled this relatively small act of kindness and allowed it to become a major brand statement? Midflight, I went to the back of the plane and asked. I wanted to know the policy that allowed a flight attendant to make such a call.
We’re allowed to make almost any decision, the flight attendant explained, as long as we can justify it on the basis of one of the airline’s five core values: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun or Passion.
If we can tie doing something back to one of these principles, the decision is going to be supported by the company.
My perspective:
What JetBlue is saying to its employees … if you act in support of the values that really matter to our business, we want you to take risks in order to care for our customers.
The bottom line
This is a very simple concept, eh? But how many of us put such a thing into practice with our own people? Sit down today with your employees and do what Jet Blue did. Start building your employee empowerment culture today.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job and pay for results.
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 to make your customer experiences better.
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 to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
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.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
Client Satisfaction …10 Secrets to Improve Customer Experience
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Have you been to a Disney resort park? How about a visit to Disney World in Florida? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots of businesses apply Disney’s WOW customer experiences and operations. We use many of them with our clients. They can be a real difference maker because feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.
Disney’s ability to “wow” its fans and captivate customers for decades is explored in depth in Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service, a veritable handbook for Disney magic. In this book author Ted Kinni reveals the secrets to delivering magic to your customers the Walt Disney way. Lots businesses can learn from hi insights.
Related: Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
Disney’s success stems from company-wide best practices including leadership excellence, people management, quality service, brand loyalty and creativity and innovation, all of which are highlighted in Be Our Guest. It boasts fresh updates and stories that highlight the past decade of Disney customer service. The Disney Magic, as you’ll read in Be Our Guest, is part art and part science — and Kinni details how the company approaches continuously raising the bar at every customer touchpoint.
Of all the facts featured within, perhaps the most surprising is the 70% return rate of first time Disney visitors.
It’s tough to overstate just how impressive that is, especially for a theme park. It’s loyalty on a whole other level.
Below, I’ll highlight some interesting and unique takeaways that are shared in Be Our Guest.
It is all about the process
Perhaps the most unexpected finding when evaluating Disney’s penchant for “magic” is the focus on process—the drive and ability to continuously optimize something that is working very well.
Walt Disney was obsessed with continuous improvement and process. He knew that the deliverance of a magical experience each and every time is dependent on developing processes that are easy for employees to use.
Walt viewed his theme parks almost as “factories” that produced delight and entertainment. His belief was that the backbone of Quality Service was built on designing perfect processes and then repeating them at scale.
Disney has held true to these beliefs with their close attention to detail in constantly improving their processes. They always sweat the small stuff. And that concept is a key to be the best for most businesses. But I would add to include the ability for your staff to improvise on their own … add delegation for some flexibility.
Some awesome examples include:
Disneys WOW customer experiences … fulfilling special needs
Disney cast members found that disabled guests were often frustrated with parks because they had to constantly remind staff they were disabled, and they wanted to let staff know discretely. Disney created Special Assistance passes and provided their cast with a wide variety of training so that they were able to identify and fulfill the needs of disabled guests without invasive questions.
Despite the efforts made to inform customers of height limits, often a young child will wait with a parent to go on a ride, only to find out he or she isn’t tall enough. Disney noticed that this was a major complaint from parents and, more importantly, ruined the experience. They have given staff permission to hand out a special pass when this happens that allows the child to skip to the front of the line on his or her next ride. Something to take the place of the disappointment.
Ending on a WOW
What better way to end a magic experience than with a smooth exit? Unfortunately, Disney found many guests had problems finding their cars when leaving on trams. Tram drivers now keep a simple list of what rows they work each morning, which is distributed to team members at the end of the day. This allows guests to simply denote the time they arrived, and the tram drivers will know what location the guest parked in. A huge win for ending the day without hassle.
Walt seemed to perfect these techniques by observing each and every detail. He didn’t just want Disney Parks to be better—he wanted them to be awesome.
Away from the desk
In Disneyland’s early years, when a suggestion came about to build an administration building for the management at Disneyland, Walt opposed the idea vehemently.
“I don’t want you guys sitting behind desks. I want you out in the park, watching what people are doing and finding out how you can make the place more enjoyable for them.” An early example of ‘walk around management’, yes?
Here is a good example: when customer researchers at Disney found that guests greatly desired more access with characters—and also highlighted the difficulty of navigating the crowds that formed around characters like Minnie Mouse—cast and management were immediately informed of their grievances.
The two teams worked together to make fixes right away: characters were brought into specific areas so that they could be better managed, fixed greeting locations were selected and broadcasted throughout the park with signs and pamphlets, and the CHIP (Character Hotline and Information Program) was created, resulting in a phone number that any cast member can call to find out where certain characters are.
Walt was a stickler for the experiences at his park. His obsession with the park stemmed from the fact that he saw it as a forever incomplete product which could always be improved.
The lengths he would go to improve it is something of legend:
Walt would wear old clothes and a straw farmer’s hat and tour the park incognito. Dick Nunis, who was at the time a supervisor in Frontierland, remembers being tracked down by Walt during one of these visits.
Walt had ridden the Jungle Boat attraction and had timed the cruise. The boat’s operator had rushed the ride, which had ended in four and a half minutes instead of the full seven it should have taken.
Dick and Walt took the ride together and discussed the proper timing. The boat pilots used stopwatches to learn the perfect speed. Weeks went by until one day Walt returned. He rode the Jungle Boats four times with different pilots.
In the end, he said nothing, just gave Dick a “Good show!” thumbs-up and continued on his way.
Are you show ready?
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.
The bottom line
Exceeding customer expectations is the key to brand differentiation and customer loyalty in every kind of business. Every customer arrives with a set of expectations. If that set of expectations isn’t satisfied, that customer isn’t going to come back.
But that doesn’t mean the opposite is true: Customers who are satisfied might or might not come back. The goal of service should be exceeding guest expectations instead of simply satisfying them.
Employ customer experiences.
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 a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.
Remember, customer create the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
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 to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Have you ever wondered what industry sector has the most loyal customers and brand loyalty lessons to teach? On the way home from my recent semi-annual teeth cleaning I was. Have been with my current dentist for over a decade now, ever since our move to Florida.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
Customer loyalty is the result of consistently positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience. This should also include the product or services.
Consider who you yourself are loyal to. Surely you’ll answer family and friends. Why? Because of the emotional bond, you have with them. Your family and friends can do things you may not like, but you stay loyal because of that bond.
Here is a short video that will refresh a brand for you:
The same applies to customer loyalty to favorite businesses. To prompt customer loyalty you must build an emotional bond with your customers.
To build customer loyalty, a business must blend the physical, emotional and value elements of a customer’s experience into one cohesive experience. So what are the loyalty lessons that help with this goal? Here are some of the best contributors in my mind:
It starts with a quality product and service. Without that, these other things to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty would not be effective, would they?
Make relationships your priority
Customers immediately sense if you’re using them (and the relationship) to work your own agenda. Put the relationship first and treat it as more important than making the sale. Your customers will sense you’ve got their best interests at heart.
Kathy Heasley is one of my favorite branding experts. She often writes on the relationship of loyalty to brands. This is a recent comment she made that caught my eye:
Loyalty begins with giving people something they can grasp and be loyal to. Something concise and understandable. Something they can feel and express. Something they can quickly and easily share with their friends. Because in the end, people are not loyal to businesses, they are loyal to brands.
Friendly staff
Everyone on the staff needs to work as a team to welcome customers and make them feel at home. At my dentist, everyone makes you glad to be there and has a similar friendly personality. Few walls are not displaying pictures of the entire team at a staff function. A great tip-off.
Dentist loyalty lessons … great efficiency
In today’s hustle and bustle world, no customer wants to feel he is wasting time needlessly. Always plan and schedule your customers to eliminate most, if not all, waiting time.
Get curious about people
People are drawn to those who show a true interest in them. Honest (but non-intrusive) curiosity helps you understand how you can better help your customers. This will help while giving you the opportunity to learn new things and make new connections.
Built community
Customers want to do business with individuals who are serious about what they do. These businesses are willing to take the time to achieve a deep understanding of their craft, their industry, and the how the customer’s business works. They want and need to be part of a trusted community.
Say the word “dentist” and people are more apt to get sweaty palms than to applaud. But with some loyalty initiatives, they may be able to fill in those worrisome gaps.
Recently I read how the company eTrove is launching a loyalty program for dental offices that rewards patients for ‘liking’ or posting on the office’s social media profile. The eTrove program, which operates on a mobile platform, details the practice’s social media performance. This includes stats, feedback and participation levels, on a dashboard. Patients can also manage their membership via smartphone, and points are delivered automatically.
The goal is to empower dental practices to expand their online presence and better engage with patients. This is a great step, but if you drill down deeper into the patient relationship, I think there also are behind-the-social-scene ways that medical practices can improve loyalty. Among them: Why not join a supplier’s loyalty program?
Have real conversations
A customer meeting should be a conversation and never a “sales call.” Always spend more time listening to the customer rather thantalking to the customer. (And never, ever talk at a customer. No sales pitches!)
Brand loyalty … adaptation and change
Never stop trying new ways to get things done with many experiments to improve operations. I never arrive at my dentist without seeing something new he is trying. I like that, don’t you?
Brand loyalty examples … be consistent and reliable
People only offer loyalty to those whom they trust. Customers decide whether to trust you based upon your day-to-day behavior. If it’s unpredictable, they’ll shy away. If it’s consistent over time, they’ll know you can be counted on.
One of the things I like best about my dentist is that he is always upgrading his tools and technology. These improve his performance and make his action more efficient (and less painful).
A great way to enhance customer loyalty in this profession, isn’t it?
Brand loyalty advantages … small gifts
My dentist is always making new suggestions for how to care for my teeth and gums. To reinforce some of these recommendations he gives free samples to customers to a guy. He does not benefit from these product samples.
Be willing to recommend competitors
When you’re open to the idea that the customer might be better served elsewhere, your customer will begin thinking of you as a trusted adviser. Or perhaps a consultant rather than a salesperson trying to make your numbers.
Go the extra mile
Occasionally surprise your customers … by going the extra mile.
Want to know one of the most effective examples to build your brand and create reciprocity with your 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.
Remember, don’t talk about how great you are … tell your customers a story about how what you do well will make them look awesome.
What are some of your experiences with customer loyalty and retention? Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your branding design strategies? Such as creative branding ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
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 to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Do you have a lesson about making your brand marketing better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
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. 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.
More reading on brands and branding from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Remarkable Branding Design: Spanish Bank Example
Secrets to the Remarkable Innovative Lady Gaga Brand
Here’s How to Make Your Brand Awesome
Branding Lessons Learned from the Beatles Brand
Like this short blog?Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.
The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships. Awesome quote from the master Leo Burnett. I have to admit. I found the State Farm ‘Jake’ commercial funny for a while. But after a while, watching 3-5 times per day on TV, not so much. Even as a 30-second spot, it can get annoying. But as a commercial, what does it influence target customers to do? Does it contribute to the art of persuasion? What do you think?
Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. This advertisement certainly grabs your attention and has some entertaining value, don’t you think? But does it influence any action? Does it even create good company awareness? Let’s evaluate this commercial for its marketing strategy effectiveness and the art of persuasion:
Be relevant to your target market
Keep in mind that one message does not fit all. It starts with knowing your target market. Here the target markets are Gen Y’s and upper-end millennials. The ad is written for the young family adult. But how can the message be relevant when there is no message?
Art of persuasion … define your positioning
Your frame of reference. Make comparisons to your competitors if you can. State Farm certainly knows who its major competitors are. But it ignores all potential comparisons in this commercial. A good move we believe, as there was nothing to be gained. The commercial has a very weak message … little to compare.
The Jake commercial.
Grab and hold viewers’ attention
Entertaining, well presented, always holds attention, yes? Keep in mind that people don’t watch ads … they watch what interests them. These ads subtly grab and hold attention based on humor and a husband and wife relationship. Letting the dialog and surprise carry the attention.
Strong value propositions
If you have a product that truly discriminates you from your competition, build your messages on these. Give your customers reasons to select you. None obvious here. In fact, besides company awareness, there is no message at all, is there?
Make your messages simple
No message obvious. Makes the audience wonder. Makes you laugh … but to what end? Creating customer interest does get any simpler than this, does it? A very simple, entertaining spot, but with little to no purpose? We find that amazing.
Make your ad a component
There are other State Farm ads in this campaign. But this one is dominating TV time. Why? Because State Farm perceives it to be popular? To what end? Also amazing to us.
There is no better means of influence or persuasion than emotion. Hands down the best, in our opinion. This commercial however only creates humor to no end. No influence, since no message. No persuasion other that company awareness.
In summary, this ad is a very weak design in our view. Yes, it creates awareness of the State Farm brand but no persuasion for action. And very little else. Way overused in our opinion. What do you think? Does this commercial persuade you?
Remember, it is not what advertising does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing the advertisement.
What are some of your experiences with advertising as a component of an integrated marketing campaign?
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
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 to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
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.
More reading on advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
related post: The Story of How JetBlue Turns Customers into Advocates
If you ask a cross-section of business people what they think about Zappos’ ‘customer first’ policy of referring customers to competitors (when they can’t find what they want on the Zappos website), you’ll get a lot of varied answers. Certainly won’t get a majority of agreement with this strategy.
There may be times when a customer enters your business and you don’t have the exact product or service they need. What should you do when this happens? Should you offer your competitor a customer referral? Or, just tell your customer there’s nothing you can do to help? The answers may surprise you.
The most famous example we could offer? In the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street, the man hired to play Santa at a Macy’s Store in New York City readily told Macy’s customers where to go to find that certain toy Macy’s was out of or where to buy a toy at a lower price. Those at the top were angered at first, but in the long run, the idea was an awesome promotional tool with newspapers boasting headlines, “Macy’s Sending People to Other Stores!”
Although this was a holiday movie, the idea behind referring your customers to competitors may be something to think about—for some good reasons.
Helps you engage
…with your customers in the best way, we could imagine. Talk about a way to be remembered and talked about.
Great opportunity
… to connect with other businesses in a joint effort that will benefit both you and your competitor.
True centric – customer-centric DNA
Companies have DNA — all of them. But not all are the kind that great businesses are built around. Beyond having a central vision (DNA), its influence on your day-to-day operations is equally critical.
Having a great vision written on the wall is meaningless unless it resonates across everything your team does every day. When you see a company that oozes that central focus, it reflects very strongly about the potential of the business to build on that foundation to create growth.
Zappos ‘refer to competitor’ tactic (when they don’t have an item in stock) — reflects an incredibly strong customer-centric DNA.
The primary focus is not only to maximize revenues but to get the customer exactly what they’re looking for. It’s also ‘un-corporation like’ to center on the customer to such a degree that, rather than trying to sell them something similar that is in stock, instead they are referred to a competitor to get the exact product they want.
People love to share the ‘exceptional’ story. Every time Zappos sends a customer to a competitor, they give that customer something worthy of sharing. Something that’s worth writing about and gets people wondering about what makes a business unique.
Getting prospects focused on your uniqueness is one of the biggest and most important marketing challenges. When small business gestures can create that chatter, then they have far exceeded the value of the actual transaction.
Sure Zappos is sending them to a competitor, but who’s going to have the better brand connection at the end of it?
Loyalty is as dependent upon trust as it is about more typical product-centric factors like pricing and benefits.
Customers recognize that they are likely to need the same products or services again and what their really looking for is to find a vendor that they can ‘trust’ over the long term to keep delivering exactly what they need.
Trust building opportunities are rarer than selling opportunities — so when they do come along it’s worthwhile to make the most of them.
Highlights your confidence
Finally, the process also shows off the confidence you have in the products you sell or services you offer.
Say you have an auto repair shop that does almost all types of repairs but you don’t have an alignment machine or your machine is not operational. What’s your best course of action?
If you refer your loyal customers to a repair shop you trust that does perform alignments, not only will customers be pleasantly surprised, they will come back to you for all their other auto repair needs.
Why? It’s based on the Miracle on 34th Street idea—“Macy’s told us where to buy the toy we wanted and at a cheaper price. How nice of Macy’s! I’ll be shopping there again real soon!”
And, customers will spread the word that your business has the customer’s needs at heart, meaning you are going above and beyond and don’t mind customer referrals to your competitors.
Today’s consumers are very savvy and they want quality customer service above all other things—often even price. Telling a customer where they can buy the product or obtain the service they need when you don’t have it ensures loyal and long-term customers.
And here is a great follow-up technique. Remind them of your top-notch referral system by sending out a postcard and ask, “How did your experience with ABC Company go?” and “We look forward to seeing you soon!”
Send customers to competitors with the right message
In a book by Doug Gold, Fun Is a Serious Business; the author discusses why you should mention your competition:
“It signals that, firstly, you are not at all frightened of your competitors and, secondly, it positionsyou as being a leader in the market, so confident of your position that you can afford to actually praise competitors.”
Think about this for a minute! Confidence and belief in your products or services is an absolute must in today’s competitive world and if you convey your beliefs via referrals, consumers will be swayed and begin to believe you really do offer what you say you do (even if that means referring a customer to a competitor now and then).
Try partnering with other businesses and be confident about your offerings if you too want to gain a steady and healthy customer base.
Takeaways
Have you implemented customer referrals to your competitors? If so, how’s it working for you? Drop us a comment, we’d love to hear your story!
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.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
David Freemantle is quoted: Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced. Random acts of kindness ideas? You can make great strides in customer service and customer experience by seemingly small but very thoughtful actions.
Let’s take another example, this one coming from Fred Reichheld, a Fellow at the management consultancy firm Bain & Company:
One of my favorite examples of this happened at Rackspace, the managed hosting and cloud computing company. An employee on the phone with a customer during a marathon troubleshooting session heard the customer tell someone in the background that they were getting hungry.
“So I put them on hold, and I ordered them a pizza. About 30 minutes later, we were still on the phone, and there was a knock on their door. I told them to go answer it because it was pizza! They were so excited.”
While the cost of the gifts/actions is quite small, the human mind simply cannot refuse the construct of simple reciprocity. Reciprocity can be summed up as our natural inclination to feel grateful for favors and our desire to “pay them back,” no matter how small they are.
The other thing that we consider about reciprocity is that research has shown us that the intentions of the ‘giver’ can affect the perceived value of the gift. This is why random acts of kindness ideas work so well.
Customers perceive the service as a genuine act of kindness rather than as you trying to buy their affection with costly gifts.
So remember, it doesn’t take huge expenses to win customers over!
You can’t over prepare on continually improving your customers’ experiences.
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, stories per week.
Please share a story about a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job and pay for results.
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 to make your customer experiences better.
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 to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
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.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Personalization simply means presenting information to a consumer that acknowledges who he is. And acknowledges what his intentions are. Intentions to make his interaction more meaningful.
Too often we obsess about using digital techniques to DRAG customers to our website or social media accounts. But it’s so much easier to show up where they already have an established community — in real life or on the web — and just be a helpful, friendly human being in that environment.
Many online stores have a history of what you have purchased and even your visits. They may know where you live if you prefer expensive or low-priced items, and so forth.
They use that information to deliver targeted content and promotions. They are personalizing your experience and making it a more positive one.
Here is an example of a retailer that effectively uses personalization to create a better customer experience. Amazon.com knows enough about you from previous contacts, purchase history, and other sources to structure special offers. They make recommendations well suited to your tastes.
Amazon uses collaborative filtering to determine what music or books to recommend.
The rental-car industry is no stranger to frustrated customers. They differentiate themselves from the pack and provide more personalized service.
Hertz centrally stores all customer and payment data for the members of its #1 Gold Club program so that the clients don’t have to fill out repetitive forms every time they rent cars. In this way, Hertz encourages frequent travelers to base their rental car decisions not only on price but also on the ability to save valuable time.
Companies like Amazon, Hertz, and others that understand the value of loyalty, strive to identify customer needs. They also strive to present a customer experience that leaves them delighted, not just satisfied.
With varied tastes and preferences, the one-size-fits-all strategy is fading fast. This seems to be especially prevalent in the brick-and-mortar space. Retailers have quickly realized they must create personalized shopping experiences in order to effectively compete.
It is very clear to retailers that today’s consumers love personalization. A recent survey from MyBuys indicated that a record 40 percent of respondents said that they buy more from retailers who comprehensively personalize the shopping experience. This included all channels.
Additionally, shoppers love one-on-one personalization at the point of sale, as indicated by a Syngera survey. This survey revealed 3 in 4 respondents would rather receive personalized coupons than generic ones. It also revealed 62 percent would find the checkout process more enjoyable if they received personalized coupons based on their purchases.
Personalize on the go.
Personalization on-the-go
Research has shown us that mobile has the potential to offer shoppers the most relevant and unique personalized shopping experience.
A recent study by Google indicates that 84 percent of smartphone shoppers use their devices to help them while they’re in a store.
In addition, 63 percent of smartphone shoppers use search engines to look for promotional offers. Finally, 44 percent of smartphone users indicated that using a mobile device saves them money. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
Leading supermarket chain Safeway knows that no two shoppers are the same. Because of this, it now offers digital coupons and customized deals based on a customer’s buying history.
The retailer has also started personalizing pricing on products as a reward for brand loyalty. This is based on the data collected from the customer’s club card. This signals that price tags in the stores can be replaced with individualized pricing..
It also signals that information, offered through a website, Can be rung up at the checkout stand when the club card is swiped.
Areas to personalize.
Areas to personalize
Personalize where ever you can. Even if you can’t invest in an e-commerce platform or development project to deliver personalized shopping, you can personalize other areas.
Landing pages
Create landing pages for promotions, repeat customers when they log in, or any other time you can create a personalized experience.
Wish lists
Provide a method for customers to quickly return to the things they are interested in.
Transaction emails
Offer complementary products along with a promotional coupon in your confirmation emails.
On phone and chat
If you talk or chat with a customer, offer her upsells and related items. Be sure to pull up the customer’s history while you are talking to her. This is essential to personalizing the experience in some way.
Loyalty programs
Offer rewards to personalize the customer experience and reward them to share more with you.
Include printed promotions for related products when you ship an order.
Readers of a certain age will remember the popular sitcom Cheers, about a neighborhood bar where Ted Danson starred as the proprietor. The refrain of the popular theme song was ”You want to go where everybody knows your name.”
The bottom line
Social media gives us a great opportunity to listen in on what people are saying. We’ve long known that word of mouth is incredibly powerful, now we can actually track it. Social listening tools are still somewhat primitive, but they are improving quickly and are already being deployed to help monitor conventional marketing efforts in real time.
That’s the power of personalization. It’s what keeps us happy and loyal customers.
Have you noticed how important customer service and customer experience have become to your marketing? Particularly with your ability to influence customers to talk about your business? Customer service intangibles are at the heart of these important influencers.
And the next generation customer service rules will only heighten this transition.
How often, as a customer, do you experience WOW customer service. The type of experiences that you normally can’t imagine? Average or less customer service seems like the norm in many industries.
Here is an interesting story I’d like to share:
Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good, and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an ax and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought in 18 trees, and of course, his boss congratulated him. Motivated by his boss’s words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring in 15 trees. On the third day, he tried even harder, but he could only bring in 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing in fewer and fewer trees.
The woodcutter thought he was losing his strength, and he went to the boss and apologized, saying that he couldn’t understand what was going on. His boss then asked, “When was the last time you sharpened your ax?” Appalled by the question, the woodcutter harshly replied, “Sharpen my ax? I have no time to do that. I’ve been busy cutting trees.”
So I pose this question to you: Are you too busy chopping trees on the front line and not allocating the time needed to sharpen your marketingskills? What is that costing you and your business? Furthermore, how much time would it really take to keep your marketing ax sharp?
In some, it’s so common that when we provide great service, we yield customers who feel like they’ve won the lottery.
Even if it is only for a moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Customer service intangibles are not rocket science.
The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy. Focus only on the things that work.
Many organizations have big challenges that can be obstacles to providing great customer service. But so do many other companies that find ways to provide the wow attention-getter.
They choose to overcome their challenges and they take care of their customers very well. They pay particular attention to customer service intangibles.
And they make a point to do it consistently.
We often get a questions and comments on customer service intangibles from clients and people commenting on our blog. Many relate to customer service actions that are reminders of what we already know (but we occasionally forget).
These are the bid enablers of customer service. They usually won’t create WOW service on their own, but their absence is noted by customers. Without them makes excellent customer service just good or less.
As we work with companies to help them in improving customer service, some things stand out. These are things a lot of small businesses don’t do consistently.
Yet if they did they’d find the quality of their customer service would improve significantly. Their customer loyalty would also increase.
Here are ten intangibles to pay attention to for improving the customer service you are providing. I know many companies already do some or all of these things. And for those that do, it shows.
They are the organizations people rave about. They are the service superstars.
We all know not every customer request is easy or possible to fulfill. But rather than tell them “no”, try to find other ways to help them get what they want.
Always focus on finding a solution. And, when you do this, customers will come back more often. Why is that? It is because they know you you’ll do everything you can to help them.
Attentiveness
When a customer is telling you his issue, give them your complete attention. Customers consistently tell us they hate dealing with employees who don’t listen or pay attention.
When you begin talking with a customer, stop whatever else you are doing and focus on them. Don’t multi-task. Don’t half-listen. Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them.
Make appropriate eye contact, listen, nod, and show them you are paying attention. Then confirm that you understand.
Using tact?
Tact
You may not be the owner, but you should care like you’re the 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. Watch their tact. Then copy them. Act and care like you are the owner.
When talking with a new customer, give them your full name and get theirs right away. This makes your conversation more personal. It will enable you to better connect with your customer.
It also tells your customer you’re willing to be accountable for helping them. This is because if you don’t, they know who you are.
Don’t forget to say, “Thank you!” It would be remiss of me not to remind you to show appreciation.
Understanding
Remember this; little details can often create big experiences. Pay attention to and fully understand all the details.
Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you.
Sensitivity
Use language that demonstrates you think in terms of customer centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.
Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind. Here is an example often overlooked. Always update phone messages to be customer centric.
Think creatively when solving customer issues. See your customer as someone who needs your help.
But to deliver WOW service, remember your customers are there because they want and need YOUR help.
And remember how good it feels to help someone in need! Always go the extra mile.
Flow
No one knows what your customers want better than your customers. If you ask them with genuine interest, they will tell you.
So ask them and heed their advice. Go with their flow.
Customer service intangibles … satisfaction
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. Always follow up and follow through to increase customer satisfaction.
One of the biggest complaints people have is they never hear back from sales or service employees. Someone promises to do something and it never happens. A huge NO-NO.
An easy way to thrill your customers is to simply do what you say you will. Whatever you promise, do it promptly, thoroughly and accurately.
Then do a little more. It thrills them every time!
Knowledge
Use language that demonstrates you think in terms of customer-centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.
From the beginning, there have always been gamed accounts in the influencer world. But the dramatic new emphasis on celebrity over authority signals a permanent shift in how we must view and measure content creators.
With big money forging celebrities instead of authorities, we will probably see fewer experts and more entertainers in this generation.
Undoubtedly, the big influencer money will pressure more young people into making poor decisions to fake numbers that will hurt them in the long term.
Brands simply must look beyond the audience and engagement numbers. Vetting talent will be much harder. There has to be a focus on advocacy and meaningful engagement.
Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.
Attitude
Be sure and set aside time to look at the big picture which controls your attitude. Things are never constant or ever as they seem. Your big picture analysis is essential in helping you adapt to change.
To illustrate how simple things in customer service can happen without much notice, we like to use the following example.
We occasionally visited Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order of soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries.
We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain but was told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager.
One call is worth the effort for us, but not two. This is especially if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We found it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.
KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis.
So make it easy for them to complain. Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong.
The bottom line
What your customer perceives about your company is what determines whether they will stay with you. And their perception is built one contact at a time.
Even one bad experience can taint their perception of you. So make sure every contact they have is a great one.
Create customer evangelists by caring about your customers and showing them everything you do.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? 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 to make your customer experiences better.
When things are not what you want them to be, 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?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer service and customer experience from our Library:
Influence Consumer Behavior Through Personalization Strategies
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
