Have you noticed how customer experience design has grown in importance of brand marketing and client satisfaction? More and more trying to astonish the customer. Certainly, a real discriminator, isn’t it? Today we will examine 10 different ways brands have chosen to use their customer experience to stand out above the noise and become a significant contributor to brand marketing.
The end state quality of the product or service the customer receives is what counts. However, this Includes the experience the customer remembered while he purchased the item. Often that is what is remembered the most.
Before we continue, let me ask you a question.
What works best for customer experience design 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? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
The quality of your company’s customer experience is ultimately determined by the way customers feel after their last interaction. If the customer is unhappy, your company’s customer experience is bad. If the customer doesn’t have a feeling one way or the other, your company’s customer experience is mediocre.
If the customer feels good, your company’s customer experience is satisfactory. But if the customer feels delighted, your company’s customer experience is a substantial competitive advantage. That is the only one that really matters to success. And the one everyone is attempting to find the magic for.
Related: 10 Laws of Customer Experience Design
Let’s examine 10 smashing examples to discuss:
Client satisfaction.
Client satisfaction … deliver happiness
Feelings and emotions certainly have a significant role in the way customers influenced in the marketing process. Zappos and its business culture of ‘delivering happiness’ certainly has established this as one of its distinct customer experience designs.
Have you ever been in a Whole Foods grocery store? If you have you will remember the emphasis on the visual presentation of their products. Draws your eyes to many, even if you are not looking for them. Helping customers visualize and sometimes taste the products.
Get the customer involved in trying their skill with your different products. More and more businesses are building product trial engagements into their customer experience designs as discriminators. Two of the best at this design approach are Bass Pro Shops and Legos, which often have become major attractions.
(See The 5 Must-Have Qualities of Legos’ Customer Engagement and Design)
Engage all the senses
Starbucks is the master of the customer experience design of engaging all the senses. From the luring visual appeal of their stores to the coffee aroma to the new sound headset stages, and the unique tastes of their products, they engage all of your senses. You may not be Starbucks, but you should consider how you can better engage customers’ senses in their experience.
Here what the brand represents surrounds the customer and positively influences everywhere they turn. The two best examples of brand immersion? You’ll surely recognize the Disney World and Legos brands in this regard.
When a business does something good for someone, that somebody feels good about them. Are you familiar with the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream brand? They are leaders in this type of discrimination.
How do consumers influence producers … differentiated value
This example, while being traditional, will surprise you in the best brand in this discrimination category. Ever flown Jet Blue? Our favorite airline because of its great, unique discriminators. Consider its high-touch service, its Direct TV and XM radio, and quality snacks. They are number 1 in our minds.
Fostering ideas, intentions, and interests is the key to this experience. Dell and Starbucks are the standouts in this category with their long-standing use of customer crowdsourcing. Legos is also growing its crowdsourcing usage.
Giving customers the ability to create uniqueness in the product they want to purchase is a great way to discriminate between the product and the brand. This technique is probably the most difficult for most businesses to employ. The standout here is Nike and its NikeID product line.
Solving customer problems
Being very good at solving customer problems is a great way to create a good experience. Very needed in the technical product lines of computers and electronics, for example. The standout in this category is Best Buy with its Twelp Force and Geek Squad home services.
The bottom line
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Many businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to rapidly grow their business.
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. But believe in the effectiveness of customer experience as a key way to discriminate. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative, social marketing, and customer experience efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, 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.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your customer experience?
Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience 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.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
10 Laws of Customer Experience Design
Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success
Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
Customers don’t care what you do. They only care what they are left with after you’ve done it. Do you notice the customer experience you receive at a business you frequently visit? With most customers, the answer is yes if the experience is bad. The extreme endpoint of the service 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 using customer satisfaction as creative marketing, yes?
For example, we often get questions and comments on delivering great customer service and experiences. From clients 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.
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. My wife and I will visit our local Home Depot store and discuss our experiences. This blog is all about a discussion we had after a recent visit.
See our article on the Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
For instance, what are the ways this Home Depot was just average in its customer experience design? Consider Home Depot’s explicit operations and design:
Using customer satisfaction … 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 two big-time wasters at the Home Depot.
The first is trying to find what you are looking for. This is almost always an issue for us. Usually when we ask directions we get a prompt answer to an aisle, which certainly shortens the search, but not enough in our mind.
The second is trying to find someone to help you. That also includes someone who can handle 90% of the answers. That rarely happens on the first try.
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 were obvious for the store as a whole, at least that was obvious to us.
Using customer satisfaction … store to web site integration
I visit both Home Depots and Lowes quite often and use their website even more frequently. In all those visits, I have been shown a terminal where a clerk actually used it to answer my question.
My bet is that there only 2-3 computers 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
Home Depot does a decent job in educating their Do-It-Yourself customers. This is most often achieved by adding a learning center in both the store and online.
The online service is still 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.
Customer experience variation
Have you ever walked a large retail store and noticed how one area is outstanding while another is barely holding its own? This is always what we notice at this Home Depot.
And if one area or department can have a great customer experience, why can’t they all? The simple answer is they can and should.
Using customer satisfaction … employee knowledge
Not all employees will be the superstar, will they? But you really notice when they are not motivated to try and be great. Give me an employee that really cares and I can build the superstar in short order.
And so should Home Depot. The trick is hiring employees that are motivated by working with customers.
Importance of customer satisfaction … stand tall on customer issues
Being a customer advocate is often tough for many businesses. Many companies will overcome this by defining a customer bill of rights and displaying in the store and online.
No way to not follow these as they are predominantly displayed. This would be very useful for Home Depot.
When you save your customer time, deliver quality service, stand tall on customer issues, and always show your value, you definitely build trust.
And trust is the basis of great customer relationships and follow-on business. A definite win-win. Lots of additional ways Home Depot could improve their performance in this critical area.
Looking for customer feedback
Have you ever seen a suggestion box at a Home Depot? We haven’t, and there have been occasions when we have looked. How about an employee wearing a badge asking for your inputs or suggestions?
Does Home Depot just not care? They care, but not that much, do they?
Immerse customers in brand
At many brands, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the branding all around. In the store or online. It works to surround you with the customer experience at every moment.
And we are not talking about hammering you with sales slogans.
Related post: Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success
This type of customer experience design certainly shows the business appreciate the importance of customer experience, doesn’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.
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Many small businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to rapidly grow their business.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative, social marketing and customer experience efforts. Lessons are all around you.
In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
The bottom line
It’s always good practice to meet customers’ expectations and ensure they are satisfied and happy with your business — but if your strategy ends there, you’re missing out on all the value you can drive back into your business.
Make an effort to leverage that superior customer experience into new and repeat business, and pretty soon, you’ll reap all the rewards of satisfied, long-term customers.
Remember one simple thing here: all employees need to view themselves as customer advocates, period.
Customer experience actions that are remarkable get talked about.And getting talked about in this light is a great thing, right?
No question.
Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
Call today for aFREEconsultation or aFREEquote. 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?
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.
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:
