GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

The buying cycle for a customer typically includes a little research, talking to a salesperson, making the purchase, and whatever happens after the sale. That could include a follow-up from the salesperson, dealing with customer service for a problem, or any other interaction you have with the company or brand after the sale is made.

Many companies spend a lot of money and expend tremendous effort to get you in the door or to their website. They entice you with marketing messages, advertising, and anything else that could tip the scale to move a customer from thinking about buying to actually making the purchase.

Marketing messages and advertising campaigns create credibility. A salesperson’s promises make you feel good about doing business with them and their company. And if all goes well, eventually, a sale is made.

Some refer to this moment as “closing the deal.” I always joke about that phrase. “Closing the deal” signifies an ending, but in reality, it’s the beginning of the financial relationship. To put it in dating terms, everything else was courting the customer. Once the customer decides to buy, it’s like you proposed to them, and they said, “Yes.” And when the sale is finally made, it’s like getting married. And that is far from the end. It’s actually the beginning.

Once you can officially call someone a customer (versus a prospect), it’s time to keep them. In other words, you want to make the relationship last.

According to the American Psychological Association, in 2022, approximately 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce. And the No. 1 reason for divorce is simple: a lack of commitment. So, my question to a business is, “What percentage of your customers churn out after the first sale?” In other words, what’s the divorce rate of your customers?

Once the sale is made, there is the honeymoon phase, in which the customer is excited about the purchase, and you let the customer know how excited you are about doing business with them. How long does that last? Ideally, the honeymoon phase should never end. While the excitement compared to the first time doing business may ebb and flow, the customer should always feel appreciated and, in marital terms, loved.

So what do you do to court your customers and, more importantly, keep your customers in the honeymoon phase? You don’t need to answer me. Spend time with your team and discuss what you do after the sale is made to keep your clients from divorcing you and starting a new relationship with a competitor.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Sign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

As I talk to people about their experiences with the companies and brands they do business with, they often use the terms customer service and customer experience interchangeably. Are they confused? Do they not know the difference? Maybe, maybe not. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. They don’t care, and neither should you.

All you should worry about is giving them the experience they want, expect and deserve – regardless of what your customers call it.

Here are some of the different definitions the public gives to customer service:

• Customer service is a group of people who help me when I have a problem or a complaint.
• Customer service is the way people treat me.
• Customer service is a friendly experience.
• Customer service is easy and convenient.

And every once in a while, someone will use the words customer experience to describe the same. I’ve heard many other definitions of customer service and customer experience. The idea here is that customers have their definitions, and yours doesn’t matter. However, and this is important, regardless of how they define customer service or customer experience, the outcome needs to be the same: the customer always wants to be happy.

Now the word happy is my word. Customers will say they want to be happy, delighted, satisfied, pleased, and more. What drives all of that is an experience that might include friendly, knowledgeable employees, excellent customer support when there’s a problem, a simple, convenient experience, not having to wait, fast response times, employees who have empathy when it’s needed, and more. The list can get quite long, and it’s different for different types of businesses. Depending on your business, you may include something that other businesses might not.

In the end, does it really matter what customers call their experience? And does it really matter what we call it? The answer, as I’ve already mentioned, is no. What is important is that the company has every employee in alignment with what they want the customer to experience. It’s about the outcome. Whatever words we use internally, be it customer service, customer experience, or any other term that describes the outcome and process we want to create for the customer, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we create the experience that meets our customers’ expectations, makes them happy, and gets them to say, “I’ll be back.”

Image Credit: Unsplash

Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Happy New Year! I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, which are often broken. Instead, I like setting and resetting my goals for the year, and in my world, those goals focus on delivering an amazing customer service experience. So, I’ve created a list of simple ways to deliver the experience that everyone wants. Here are twenty-three ways to help you and your teams provide an amazing customer experience in 2023.

1. Manage the first impression. It sets the tone for what’s to follow.
2. Manage last impressions. They create lasting impressions.
3. Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. Customers want to work with people who “know their stuff.”
4. Make the customer feel like a person. Customers are not a sale, an account number, a prospect, etc. They are people.
5. Respond quickly to calls and emails. Fast response time creates confidence.
6. Don’t make customers wait on hold. Making customers wait for unreasonable amounts of time is a sign of disrespect.
7. Be nice and show empathy. Create a warm human-to-human experience.
8. Be available. How easy are you to reach? And if you’re not available, go back and read No. 5 again.
9. Treat employees the way you want customers to be treated. How employees are treated will be felt on the outside by customers.
10. Eliminate friction. If there is anything in the process of doing business with you that’s hard on the customer, find a way to eliminate or mitigate it.
11. Act like a leader. My friend Mark Sanborn says, “You don’t need a title to be a leader.” Be the person everyone admires and wants to emulate.
12. Always be polite. Say please and thank you. It shows you respect and appreciate your customers.
13. Be proactive. If you know there’s a problem, let the customer know before they call you. Any form of proactive communication is always appreciated.
14. Have an abundance mindset. Be generous – and don’t keep score. Zig Ziglar used to say, “You will get all you want in life if you help other people get what they want.”
15. Give customers the gift of your time. An extra few minutes with a customer goes a long way in building a relationship.
16. Give back to your community or contribute to a cause. Besides being a nice thing to do, customers gravitate to companies that “give back.”
17. Have a “helpful” mindset. What can you do to help your customers be more successful?
18. Don’t make excuses when problems arise. Instead, think in terms of explanations. Excuses show weakness. Explanations are reasons that can be followed up with how you plan to fix the problem.
19. Be flexible. Excellent customer service lies in flexibility. Rules should be guidelines.
20. Avoid phrases customers hate, such as, “It’s not my department,” or, “That’s our company policy.” I refer to these as loyalty killers.
21. Train and empower your employees. If you have good people and train them well, let them do their job. Customers love working with empowered employees.
22. Be customer focused. That means that every decision you make keeps the customer in mind. That doesn’t mean every decision will make the customer happy, such as a price increase, but at least you’ve considered the impact or result of your decisions.
23. Express appreciation. Say, “Thank you!” Depending on how your customers like to communicate, it could be in person, on the phone, in an email, a text or an old-fashioned hand-written note.

As you look at this list, you’ll see nothing complicated. The ideas may seem rather basic. But don’t be fooled by the simplicity. These are precisely the strategies and tactics that will make your customers say, “I’ll be back!”

Again, Happy New Year, and may 2023 be your best year yet – and each year better than the last!

Image Credit: Unsplash

Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.