How to keep your customers happy
Want to know the secret to keeping your customers happy? Well, you’re in luck! On season seven of the Voices of CX Podcast, we had the pleasure of talking with Customer Experience expert Scott McKain. During this episode, Scott and VoCX host/Worthix CMO Mary Drumond chatted about using top-notch CX to distinguish your brand from others.
This episode was packed full of great takeaways to help you bring your customer experience strategy to the next level, so give the full episode a listen if you want to get all of the insight. But we’ve picked out a few key takeaways that pack the most punch from the episode, so let’s dive in.
How to keep your customers happy?
All Business is Local
No matter how large your organization is, you must keep in mind that the customer is experiencing your brand on an individual level. Scott said it best: “What we see as the values of any organization are NOT represented by a press conference the CEO is having. It’s how somebody on the floor of that local store deals with somebody that won’t follow the rules.” In other words, no matter how great the corporate side of your brand is, what will stick with the customer is the direct interaction they have with your frontline, this interaction will make a huge difference in keeping your customer happy.
Consumers will judge your brand and their overall experience on how employees treat them. The average customer doesn’t value branding and press conferences. What they seek out is an experience that measures up to their expectations and their desires.
With that in mind, make sure to focus on the employee experience. You can’t teach your employees how to deal with all situations, but you can and should instill knowledge of brand values in them so they’ll be empowered to take the reigns in even the most unexpected scenario. This empowerment gives them the confidence to make the best decision in line with what the customer in front of them needs. After all, the goal is to make sure that customers keep coming back to your business. Don’t let one incident ruin the chances of keeping a loyal and happy customer.
All Business is Show Business!
No, that doesn’t mean you have to use jazz hands every time you ring up a customer. But it does mean to put your best foot forward.
Before Scott entered the world of customer experience, he used to be a movie critic (amazing!) and he got the chance to interview the director of Titanic, James Cameron. Cameron wanted to make a film that made audiences want to rewatch over and over — a challenging feat for a historical story that everyone knows the ending to. So how did it become one of the most successful movies of all time? It was the experience: how people felt during the film. When watchers came back, they brought their friends. That’s what made Titanic a blockbuster hit.
So how does the “James Cameron Mindset” tie into other businesses? Every business, no matter the industry, has one goal: to keep old customers happy while bringing in new ones. In order to beat out the competition, companies need to make the customer experience unique and compelling. You need to provide an experience that motivates customers to not just make an initial purchase, but to gladly return again and again. Repeat customers are more valuable than newly acquired customers, so it’s in your best interest to keep them around.
Scott provided a great framework for getting customers to keep coming back for more: the four cornerstones of distinction. These are clarity, creativity, communication, and a customer experience focus. If you integrate this mindset into the experience you provide for your customers, you will stand out from the competition.
Companies Created Karen
We’ve all heard of a “Karen”: a nightmare customer who feels empowered to get whatever they want from a company after the slightest infraction, while blaming everything on the business and its staff.
Scott and Mary pointed out that companies are the ones who ironically created this Karen persona. How? While customer-centricity is important, empowering the customer has gotten out of hand. These consumers know that if they complain enough, they will ultimately get what they want. Companies need to stop this cycle of rewarding negative behavior in order to discourage this sort of customer.
The best and safest way to do that is to explore and look into the core issues of their business, then figure out what needs to be fixed to avoid these problems in the future. Simply ignoring or rewarding Karens won’t fix the root problem; it may even make it worse.
Consumers have the right to complain, but they don’t all know that there’s a right way to do it. So it’s the company’s responsibility to teach them how to complain and give them confidence that you will take action. A customer complaint going viral on Twitter is the last thing that you want, so don’t let the customer get that far. Make sure your other channels of communication are doing everything they can to fix the situation. Your customer wants to be heard, and they only complain because they know you won’t listen to them any other way. Boost those channels of communication, and make sure that they are always performing. Companies created the Karen persona, and they should be the ones to end it.
Need more advice on distinguishing your brand through Customer Experience and keeping customers happy?
This is just the tip of the iceberg! Scott and Mary discussed much more on the Voices of CX podcast, so make sure to listen to the full episode “Creating Iconic Distinction in CX“, and find out how you can keep your customers happy!
