13 Ways to Improve Your Customer’s Experience

This is a collaborate post by Ellie Jo about customers.

There are plenty of things that’ll contribute to business success, including the strength of your ideas and the execution of those ideas. However, while those things will get the initial interest of the public, they may not guarantee long-term success. Only creating a positive customer experience will do that.

If you have repeat customers, then the future of your business will look a lot brighter! But how should you go about this? Below, we’ll look at some of the most effective ways to ensure your customers have nothing but good things to say about your business.

How Do You Want To Help Them?

All companies should exist to help their customers in one way or another. This can be through alleviating a problem they face or allowing them to become the best version of themselves.

While the customer benefits of your core duties may be obvious, creating a mission statement that underpins your relationship with your customers is worthwhile. You can use it as a guiding light that influences all aspects of your customer dealings. You’ll need to ask how you want to help your customers.

Who Are They?

You’ll be able to help your customers much more effectively if you know who they are. An older person’s needs would be different from those of a millennial. Even things like your website design may differ depending on your audience.

You’ll find that you’re able to craft a much better customer experience just by having a deep understanding of the needs, aspirations, financial income, and more about your customer base.

Ask For Feedback

You don’t have to guess everything about your customers second. They will tell you about their experience dealing with your company and may make suggestions. Of course, you can’t take every proposal or piece of feedback on board, but if you ask enough people, then it’s likely that, at some point, you’ll begin to see a trend emerging.

You’ll have tested various aspects of your business to ensure it’s beneficial to your customers, but you’ll still be looking at it through the lens of the owner/employee. Your customers will give you the truth and nothing but. 

Redesign Your Website

Hiring an outside company to look at your site for you is often worthwhile since they’ll know what might be hindering the customer experience. Did you know that the most prominent companies have a team of employees that change aspects of their website every couple of days?

They’re minor changes, sure, but they’re still being made. They make them because they improve the customer experience. Of course, it’s improbable that you can hire a team- or even one person- to focus on tweaking your website every week solely, but that doesn’t mean your site should stay static for too long.

If you’ve never altered your website, it’ll surely be time for a change.

Easy Access 

It doesn’t matter how well you try to optimize the customer experience: if your company is hard to reach, the customer will suffer. Even the most extensive FAQ section won’t cover everything. At some point or another, a customer will need to reach out to speak to you.

The question is: will they be able to do it? Some companies make it infuriatingly difficult to get in touch with a team member. Please don’t make your company one of them! List as many methods for getting in touch with your company on your website as possible.

This should include things like email, telephone number, and your social media channels. It’s a simple thing to offer because, in reality, it’s unlikely that you’ll be inundated with calls. Making it less frustrating for your customers, having plenty of contact details on your site will also give your company’s trustworthiness a nudge in the right direction.

People are rightly skeptical when they can’t find contact information on a company’s site.

Go the Extra Mile 

Try as you might, you will not have a flawless record for your customers. Even if 99% of things go correctly, there’s always that 1% waiting to slip through the net. Making a mistake and having an unhappy customer is not a crime; they happen to all companies and organizations.

The test of the company is how they respond to complaints and problems. It’s a good idea to create a company policy for dealing with complaints, refunds, and other issues. The details of this policy will depend on the type of business you run and what you’re realistically able to provide, but in general, it should be extensive.

It would be best if you said you’re willing to go the extra mile to ensure your customer is happy.

Host In-Depth Tutorials

You’ll know everything about the products and services that your company offers. But your customers? They won’t learn anywhere near as much. They’ll have a base understanding of how your products and services can help them, but it’s unlikely they’ll know all the tips and tricks to make the most of them.

You’re the expert; they are not. So why not look at helping your customers understand your offerings on a much deeper level by hosting in-depth tutorials? It’ll be easy enough to do if you have software that provides chat rooms for a website.

With that on your site, you’ll be able to offer tutorials for your software, host question and answer sessions about a new product, or even talk more broadly about the applications of a new product.

Customer Loyalty Programs

Did you know it’s much more effective to get an existing customer to make a repeat purchase rather than win over a new customer? It’s much cheaper, that’s for sure. For some reason, many companies only offer deals and discounts to new customers.

Aside from everything else, this shows signs that you’re taking your existing customer base for granted. So while you should continue to offer new customers deals, don’t forget about the people who have supported you in the past.

You already know that they’re interested in what you have to offer, so they’ll be even more likely to purchase if they’re presented with a good opportunity. 

Invest In Your Staff

Your staff will have a significant impact on the experience of your customers in direct and indirect ways. Directly, they’ll be talking with them one on one. Indirectly, they’ll be making decisions that impact the overall customer experience.

So while you’ll want first to ensure that you’re hiring the right team for your company, it’ll also be vital to provide ongoing training to your employees, either in-house or by sending them on courses. 

Get Personal

Where possible, look at creating an individual experience for your customers. People like it much better when it feels like they’re getting a tailor-made experience, such as by being addressed by their name, seeing recommendations based on their previous purchases, things like that.

Even things like remembering their key details will be helpful. 

Be Consistent

People like consistency. They want to know where they stand and that their expectations will be met. Don’t have your customers second-guessing your company: be consistent. Consistency is something that can flow through all aspects of your business. 

Your branding should be consistent, the quality of your products should be consistent, and the tone of the language you use with your customer should be consistent. This won’t just help to create a more pleasant customer experience, either: it’ll also make things much easier for you when running your business. 

Carry On Improving

However, while you should broadly stay consistent regarding your business, it’s not as if everything should remain static. You’ll lose some of the faith of your customers if it feels like you’re no longer looking to the future and making progress.

Trust is a much more significant part of the company/customer dynamic than many people realize. If a customer no longer has faith that your company is the best around or that you’ve given up, their experience will suffer — and it won’t be long before they look elsewhere. 

A Friendly Attitude 

Finally, let’s not forget about an essential thing contributing to a positive customer experience: having a friendly attitude! You could do everything else on this list, but if you weren’t familiar with your customers, you’re unlikely to get all that far.

Of course, no one’s saying that you must always be over-the-top enthusiastic. There’ll be days when you’re low energy and things like that. However, even on those days, you should be kind, pleasant, and friendly. It costs nothing!