Engineering the Customer Experience
“We had accidentally stumbled on the core elements of a culture dedicated to delivering great customer service! It turned out that people who work in a friendly environment that is tolerant of mistakes, and who are empowered to make decisions about how they do their jobs, arrive at the best possible solutions for serving customers.”
-Richard Branson
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Your clients have a need to feel heard; a desire to feel listened to. Take notes of what they are sharing with you (if it’s via phone, you can even let them know you’re doing this).
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Whenever possible, have your newly-hired employees shadow employees from other departments. Invite them to observe, ask questions — and later describe — how each role has its impact on the overall customer experience.
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Meeting regularly with your staff to discuss customer service is a key practice, yet many people hate meetings. Regular internal meetings are not usually the problem. Poorly facilitated meetings are.
Together, set ground rules that are designed to keep the conversation interactive, respectful, relevant, and moving forward.
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You’ve heard the saying, “Measure twice, cut once?” Well, when it comes to replying to customer e-mails, read twice and answer once.
Too often we tend to respond willy-nilly, without spending enough time fully understanding our customer’s concerns, or without simply answering all of their included questions.
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“Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than what they expect to get.”
-Nelson Boswell
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Here’s a line that — when expressed sincerely — will demonstrate care for that upset customer:
“I apologize. That must have been very frustrating for you.”
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You know what an interview is and you’ve probably even heard of an exit interview. But consider conducting “stay interviews.” — This means interviewing your most loyal and engaged team members and asking them what compels them to stay with your company; to what, specifically, they attribute their loyalty? After all, the customer experience is in direct correlation to the employee experience.
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If you must attach a marketing/promotional/invitational document to an e-mail, a PDF is much more professional (and usually more convenient for your customer to view) than an MS Word doc. And if it’s information you’d like for them to pass along and share with others, a web link is most effective.
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The customer experience is in direct correlation to the employee experience.
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