Social Media is a proven, valuable tactic to increase brand awareness, product interest, and website traffic. Having managed campaigns for top brands as well as leveraging social platforms for my blog, I can unequivocally say that social media marketing works. While the benefits may be common knowledge, many leaders don’t realize and capitalize on social media as a useful source of “voice of customer” (VOC) data. Continue Reading →
The smallest gestures by frontline employees can have a significant impact on customer loyalty and the decision to buy again and again.
I was reminded of this when purchasing clothing at a department store recently. Upon bringing my items to the register, the kind woman asked questions about my day and overall shopping experience. I was surprised by our first interaction as warm greetings don’t happen frequently enough.
Besides a pleasant dialogue when first meeting, my experience got even better. The lady scanned each item and noticed that none of the clothes were on sale. She asked me if I had any promotional offers but unfortunately, I did not. She proceeded to explain that customers who have their store credit card receive discounts, and offered me the option to sign up for immediate savings. I declined and was prepared to pay full price for the items.
At that moment, the woman reached into her drawer and took out a coupon to apply to my purchase. She saved me $25. Although it was not a significant amount of money, it was a highly satisfying moment. I did not expect her to provide me any discount especially since I declined the credit card offer.
I thanked the woman twice and told her how much I appreciated my purchase experience ALL BECAUSE OF HER. I continue to be a loyal customer and tell others to buy from the store because of one person who INTENTIONALLY went up and beyond for me.
I’m interested in hearing examples of when a company employee went above and beyond to make your buying experience a memorable one. How did you feel?
Did you purchase again because of that experience, even when you could buy somewhere else for a better price?
Customer satisfaction and NPS are useful measurements of business success, just as much as revenue and profitability. The reasons are obvious as unhappy customers are unlikely to buy again and even worse, they’ll tell others too. So, how does a company increase the chances that customers will rate their interactions highly and remain brand loyal? The answer is creating customer experiences leveraging proven CX techniques. If you are not familiar with journey mapping basics, I encourage you to read my other article: WHAT Is A Journey Map and WHY Create One?
As a refresher, the purpose of creating a customer journey map is to help design better products and services and overall great experiences. It is a valuable method to identify problems and areas of success as customers become aware, learn, buy, get, use, etc. While Journey Maps typically look visually different from one organization to another, they consistently enable you to empathize with how customers feel when interacting with a brand.
Who is your target audience(s)? What are their interests, needs, and wants? What obstacles keep them from achieving their goals? What are their demographics, such as age, income range, education? Where do they go to find information? Answering these questions and related ones often require research through informal and formal interviews and surveys. Leveraging internal data on current customers and insights from “voice of employees” (VOE) is valuable as well. (Learn more about persona development.)
A journey map helps to define key touchpoints and channels, such as: where will customers learn about your products and services? i.e. retail store, webinar, industry events. How do they receive communications? i.e. email. social media, sales rep visits, etc. This information provides insights as to why customers may or may not be satisfied and where pain points reside.
You want to put yourself in the “customer shoes” and identify the emotions they feel along the journey. To do this effectively, I recommend leveraging tools to guide you through the process. While there are many templates available on the internet, I like one that Carol Buehrens shares in her university classes. You can download a free copy of her journey map template below
I can help you to design your journey map and related CX methodologies to differentiate your brand. No need to guess. Let me show you the way.
Access a useful document to jumpstart your CX practice. Use this with your teams to design best-in-class experiences.
Stacy’s Article Published in Forbes Nov 2019.
We’re human beings, which means mistakes are inevitable. What employees (the face of your company) do when errors occur affects customer trust and loyalty. For example, Continue Reading →
Customer friction is a key factor in why people abandon a website, leave a store without buying, disconnect from a monthly service plan, and the list goes on. In previous articles, I’ve written about the need to make the customer journey SIMPLE, EASY, and PROBLEM-FREE. This includes the post-purchase return experience.
I’m pleased to share a guest post by Customer Service Expert & Author, Shep Hyken, who knows a lot about Customer Convenience. Continue Reading →
