The Ultimate Customer Experience: Eight (Surprisingly Simple) Ways to Wow Your Customers — and Keep Them Coming Back

September 5, 2007

Today's world is filled with savvy consumers. They know how to find the best deals. They're up on all the latest trends. If there's a hot new product on the market, they don't want to miss it. Their remarkable blend of exuberance and skepticism leaves many business owners wondering, “ How can I keep my customers' attention no matter what product or service my competitor is putting on the market?”

"What does the ultimate customer experience look like?" asks marketing expert Scott Deming, author of The Brand Who Cried Wolf: Deliver on Your Company's Promise and Create Customers for Life (Wiley, April 2007). “Maybe it's an individual making a personal connection with a customer on behalf of the business. Perhaps it's an employee going out of his way to make sure a customer has everything she needs and is more than satisfied with the transaction. Essentially, it's keeping your promise—whether that promise is implied or stated outright.”

In The Brand Who Cried Wolf, Deming explains how to create the ultimate customer experience by involving the entire organization—including sales, customer service, shipping, product design, marketing, and so forth. Here are just a few of his insights:

Be Careful What You Promise

Do you promise your customers no waiting in line longer than five minutes and then keep them tapping their feet for ten? Or do you promise 24-hour help service only to make them hear a recorded message instead of a real person on the other end of the line? If you can't or don't deliver on your brand promises, you will fail to create loyalty among customers. If you mess up with a customer once, he might give you another chance, but it's likely that the next time he needs something, he'll go to one of your competitors. In the reverse scenario, when a company delivers on its promises and even exceeds expectations, it makes the customer feel valued and appreciated. He feels as if he is a part of your company's family and culture.

Separate Yourself from the Pack

As mentioned above, when businesses get mired in sales quotas, short-term goals, statistics, and so forth, the people inside those businesses become robotic. Their eyes are focused not on how the brand is doing, but on what the numbers tell them. Both you and your employees should actually be focused on exceeding your customers' expectations. You can start by getting rid of impersonal customer service techniques, such as email or automated telephone services. When it comes to your customers, always be proactive.

Realize that Perspective Is Everything

To really know how things are going at your company, you'll have to step out of your own shoes and take a walk in those of your customers and employees. You need to look at your customers and say to yourself, “ If I were one of my customers right now, what would I love to have from me?” Then, do it! Step Two in your "perspective walk" will be taken in your employees' shoes. You'll need to gauge their loyalty to the company because loyal employees provide the ultimate experience for customers. When you see what work needs to be done, get started immediately.

You (and Your Brand!) Are Probably Not as Great as You Think They Are

You may or may not be aware of the “Lake Wobegon Effect,” but it is a phenomenon from which many of us and our businesses suffer. It's the human tendency to think we are better than we actually are. And in business, the effects can be devastating. The problem is when you think your business is the best, you don't work as hard to keep making it better.

Understand Your Company's "Reach of Influence"

Everyone in business is familiar with the adage that a happy customer tells one friend about a good experience while an unhappy customer tells ten of his friends about a bad experience. It's the customer experience ripple effect, and you want to ensure that your business creates only positive ripples. To do this, you need to focus on actions that show you acknowledge and understand your customers' needs. Doing this will help you create a brand whose promise creates evangelists who are ready to sing your praises near and far.

Don't Pretend to Be Something You're Not

You are your brand, and your brand is you! Everyone has a brand identity, but they don't all understand their own brand correctly, or even know what it is. Branding is not a matter of putting on a persona that others will like. It's not playing a role, putting on a mask, or pretending—all that is superficial, a veneer that covers up the "real" you. You cannot develop an authentic, sincere brand–and the brand evangelists that come with it–without understanding what you are all about. You don't want your customers to feel like they are being "sold" based on a false business persona.

Know that the Easy Way Isn't Always the Best Way

Technology has made communication so much easier. But if you're not careful, too much of a reliance on technology can take your out of direct contact with your customers and as a result erode your brand. Texting, e-mailing, and instant messaging do not allow you an opportunity to create emotional connections with your customers. Effective use of technology should help you streamline your operations, create new opportunities, reach a broader customer base, and reinforce your carefully developed brand.

Don't Drive Your Customers to a Flawed Service

A common mistake for many business owners is that they drive customers to a business that does not already have a brand identity in place that welcomes and encourages those customers. You can't figure out what your service is after the fact. You can't put a message out that is not reinforced and transcended by the brand experience. Appearance without substance—advertising and driving people to your business, without a powerful brand identity—leads to unsatisfied customers and eventually failure.

"All of these lessons work together to bring us to one critical conclusion: If you want to be successful, you must build a powerful emotional brand," says Deming. "You must stop looking at customers with dollar signs in your eyes and start creating relationships with them. This may seem like an expensive proposition, but believe me, it's less expensive in the long run than neglecting customer relationships. When your customers see that you truly value them and care about the service you can provide them, you'll be able to provide them with their ultimate customer experience and they'll be customers for life. That's the real secret to long-term success."

Scott Deming is an international speaker, trainer, and business consultant who delivers high-energy sales and customer service presentations and seminars to associations and corporations across the globe, over 100 times a year. He formerly ran his own national marketing and advertising firm, RCI, which he grew into a multimillion-dollar business. Contact Deming at 315-423-5551 or info@scottdemingesp.com.

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