Convenience | Human-Centered Change and Innovation

10 Ways to Rock the Customer Experience In 2023

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

As of today, 2022 is behind us. It was quite a year. Some businesses are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic, and then came employment issues, supply-chain problems and a shaky economy. All that makes for a company’s leaders having to use every skill they ever learned in their careers.

Our CX research indicated that 2022 was worse for customer service than the prior year. So we don’t continue that trend in 2023, I’ve created a list of tactics to help you. And while these may seem basic, they are essential to your organization’s success. With that in mind, here are ten ways that you can rock the customer experience in 2023:

1. Manage First and Last Impressions

There may not be anything more basic than this. Start with a strong first impression—and not just the first time a customer interacts with you. It could be the 500th time. First impressions set the tone for whatever is to follow, be it the first interaction or the 500th. As for last impressions, be sure to end strong. Last impressions create lasting impressions.

2. Give Back

Customers gravitate toward companies and brands that give back. Forty-five percent of the customers we surveyed in our annual customer experience research said that a company that gives back to the community or stands for a social cause is important to them. That’s almost half of your customers.

3. Be Customer-Focused

My definition of customer-focused is more than just delivering a good customer service experience. In addition to paying attention to customer service and CX, every decision you make keeps the customer in mind. Even if you are considering a change that will negatively impact the customer, you think it through, understand the ramifications and strategize how to overcome or handle the decision’s impact.

4. Empower Your Employees

If you want to keep your best employees and want them to take care of your customers, you need to hire good people, train them to do their job and then let them do it. Customers become frustrated when they encounter employees who aren’t able to make smart decisions. By the way, employees become frustrated as well, and that’s not good for the culture.

5. Practice Proactive Customer Service

This how you create customer confidence. Reach out to them proactively if you know of a problem. For example, the cable company that reaches out to its customers to let them know about an outage before they turn on their TV or computer. Or the retailer that emails, texts or calls a customer to let them know their purchase is delayed. While nobody likes bad news, knowing in advance gives the customer a sense of control and knowledge that the company is working on the problem.

6. Make It Personal

Find ways to personalize the experience. Customers like to be recognized and remembered. Make your customers feel as if you know them.

7. Have an Abundance Mindset, Especially When It Comes to Time

Zig Ziglar used to say, “You will get all you want in life if you help other people get what they want.” In this case, help customers get the most out of their experience with you and your products. That may mean spending a little more time selling, supporting and relationship-building with your customers. One of the big “loyalty killers” in business is when employees rush a customer to get to the next customer. Customers know it, feel it and don’t like it. An extra minute or two can be the difference between a customer coming back—or not.

8. Be Convenient

Eliminate anything (or at least as much as you can) that causes friction. Don’t make customers wait, don’t make them go through extra steps or do anything that is in the least bit inconvenient. Seventy percent of the customers we surveyed said they would pay more for convenience, and 68% said a convenient experience alone will make them come back.

9. Practice the “Employee Golden Rule”

My Employee Golden Rule goes like this: Do unto employees as you want done unto your customers. In other words, treat the people you work with as well (if not better) than your customers. That sets the tone from the inside and is felt by the customer on the outside.

10. Be Helpful

Ace Hardware is known as “The Helpful Hardware Place.” That’s their secret sauce. It separates them from their direct competitors (Home Depot, Menards, Walmart, etc.). I was interviewing an Ace executive for one of my customer service books, and he said, “Our competition has friendly customer service. So do we, but we also provide helpful service.” Think about how to help your customers be more successful when they buy whatever it is you sell.

BONUS: Show Appreciation

Don’t ever forget to say, “Thank you.” It doesn’t matter if it’s in person, on the phone, a text or an old-fashioned, hand-written note. Customers must always know you appreciate them for their business.

Some of these ideas may seem basic—even common sense. Maybe they are, but they are also essential to delivering the experience that gets customers to say, “I’ll be back!”

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

Image Credit: Unsplash

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Kroger ClickList

Now, first of all, Kroger is a Cincinnati-based company not a Seattle-based company, so it is only natural that I should hear more about the things Amazon is experimenting with than those of Kroger, owners of a portfolio of grocery brands, including: Ralphs, Fred Meyer, QFC, Kroger, fry’s, Food4Less, King Soopers, Harris Teeter, and more.

Amazon has been making a lot of noise with some of their experiments lately, including a convenience store concept where eventually you will be able to pick up what you want to buy and then automatically be charged for your acquisitions on the way out the door. It is called Amazon go and is currently being tested in an employees-only store. Here is what it looks like:

And then of course Amazon has been experimenting with the last mile experience in grocery retailing for a while now with Amazon Fresh grocery delivery business in a few U.S. states along with London, Berlin, and Tokyo. Now they are also experimenting with a grocery pickup service. You can pickup your groceries in as little as 15 minutes after ordering. It’s available exclusively for Prime members in a testing phase beginning in Seattle.

Now, the past couple of weeks I’ve been noticing at one of my local Fred Meyer’s and one of the neighborhood QFC’s some workers doing some construction projects and I wasn’t sure exactly what they were up to, but today it became clear that they’ve been busy prepping for to enable Kroger ClickList at those locations, which is basically the same thing as AmazonFresh Pickup, EXCEPT that Kroger started doing this TWO YEARS AGO and scaled it to 500 locations in less than 17 months. If you’re curious, here is what Kroger CLickList looks like:

And yes, Walmart, not to be outdone, also has a grocery pickup service as well (which they started a little over a year ago).

For what it’s worth, if these companies were to combine this service with improved ready-to-eat meal offerings like we used to regularly utilize from Waitrose and Tesco so that people can pickup their groceries and a dinner they can eat right when they get home and this will really catch on. Now for those of you who haven’t experienced ready meals in the UK, then check out the following links to get a tastier idea:

— Waitrose Ready Meals
— Tesco Ready Meals

Waitrose Lasagne

So, Amazon is getting a lot of buzz around their Amazon Go and AmazonFresh Pickup experiments, but they are just that at this point. Meanwhile, Kroger and Walmart have already scaled some of these experiments, so who is the innovator here?

Just another reminder that anyone can innovate, that it is customer insight not technology that drives innovation, and that every company is a technology company whether they like it or not.

Keep innovating!