05/05/21
We know that it is six to seven times more costly to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. In addition, 40 percent of consumers stated that they would spend more money with a company that made improvements to the overall customer service experience. The key to retaining customers and your business is to create a culture of exceptional customer service. Think about customer service in two dimensions: procedural and personal. The procedural dimension relates to a company’s established processes used to deliver their products and/or services. The personal dimension relates to how employees interact with customers,...
06/18/20
No matter what platform customers use to engage with your business, they increasingly prefer to receive a personalized experience when they do engage with you. In fact, 80% of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand that provides personalized experiences. I’m a fanatic about customer experience—a personalized customer experience. I also happen to like trendy, comfortable sneakers. I recently discovered a new sneaker brand called CARIUMA and ordered a pair of their fun sneakers. I was disappointed when they didn’t fit me comfortably, and I had to send them back. Even though the sneakers...
06/08/20
COVID-19 presented a new kind of crisis that few businesses could anticipate in their crisis communication plan. As businesses suddenly shut down, they scrambled to figure out what to communicate and how. Soon, customers were flooded with emails from all kinds of businesses about how they were handling the pandemic. These heartfelt emails were well-intended but quickly became annoying. As businesses begin to reopen, they are challenged with providing consistent, relevant communications. They need to address customers’ current concerns as well as plan for longer-term impacts that aren’t yet known. Many of the communications sent over the last few months...
02/26/20
In 2010, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) published a now-famous article titled “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.” In that article, HBR conducted a study on customer satisfaction and introduced us to the concept of customer effort. Customer Effort Score (CES) measures customer perceptions on how difficult (or easy) it is to do business with a company. How can companies use CES? Companies can measure CES in a few different ways. The most common way is a simple survey question asking customers to rate the ease of solving their issue on a scale of very difficult to very easy, like...
02/10/20
Would you drive to your next vacation destination looking behind you in your rearview or side-view mirror? Ridiculous question, right? As a business owner, you make decisions that impact your customers’ experience. What information are you using to make those decisions? If you are getting feedback from your customers through surveys or other market research, you are running your business looking in the rearview mirror. Improving the individual and aggregate customer experience has a huge impact on the top and bottom lines. In order to deliver a great customer experience, you need to get timely feedback that enables you to...
01/19/20
The need for businesses to provide personalized customer experiences is growing, with customer experience professionals citing it as the number one changing customer expectation. Emarsys defines personalization as the implementation of a strategy by which companies deliver individualized content to recipients through data collection, analysis, and the use of automation technology. In simpler terms, it is a marketing strategy that focuses on making content suited for an individual customer based on what they know about the customer through data collection. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used more and more to personalize customer experiences. AI is able to perform human-like tasks...
11/01/19
Musician Dave Carroll watched as his expensive Taylor guitar was carelessly tossed by baggage handlers at O’Hare airport. His complaints to United Airlines flight attendants and ground crew were ignored so he was not surprised when he arrived at his destination to discover the guitar was damaged beyond repair. Over the next few months he sent countless emails and letters and spent hours on hold and in conversations with United employees spouting company policy. A songwriter, he channeled his frustration into a song and a light-hearted music video. He never imagined what would happen as the song entitled “United Breaks...
10/15/18
I really like avocado. Whenever I am trying to decide between two sandwiches at a restaurant, the one with avocado will almost always win. The other day, I was at the Stacked Pickle. I ordered their Turkey, bacon sandwich because I thought it came with avocado. When the sandwich was delivered, I asked the server about the missing avocado. He politely explained I had read the description incorrectly. The sandwich actually came with avocado-mayo. I didn’t have time to be disappointed, because he immediately asked if I would like a slice of avocado for my sandwich. I was impressed with...
08/09/18
Nowadays, when you call someone, you’re more likely to get their voicemail than a cheery voice saying “Hello.” Phone calls used to be the primary way of communicating with everyone from your best friend to your doctor. In recent years, they’ve become less and less common. Not only are people not talking on the phone, they’re not answering calls at all. Here are some of the reasons why. Disruptive and Time Consuming A phone call interrupts what you are doing, and whether you’re at work or at home, it’s distracting. A call can also be time consuming. You don’t know...
07/31/18
Online reviews have gained considerable popularity in the past decade. Sites like Yelp have built their entire business around consumer reviews. Reviews are also shown on Facebook business pages, Google reviews and Amazon product reviews among countless others. And the research shows that reviews are incredibly important for a business’s success. For businesses that sell products to consumers, a product with five reviews has a 270% greater purchase likelihood than a product with no reviews. For service-based businesses, increasing their Yelp rating by one star can lead to a 5-9% increase in revenue. But reviews aren’t just important for businesses,...
