Want lasting loyalty for your product or business? Make sure your customers are happy, not just satisfied.
Unless you’re selling products and services to drones or robots, maintaining a healthy and kindhearted customer service relationship with your clients should be your topmost priority. In this basic guide, we’ll go through some real-life examples of ways to guarantee that your customers’ expectations are met—if not exceeded—and how you can provide delightful experiences that keep them loyal for as long as you’re in business.
Under-promise, Over-deliver!
There’s nothing better than promising someone something within a specific and acceptable time frame, then delivering the goods earlier than expected. Zappos.com excelled with their free surprise upgrades of customer orders: they automatically switched loyal customers to overnight shipping instead of the standard 7-day shipping speed. The beauty in this was that customers had not been notified about the upgrades—they were just surprised by the delivery man at their doorstep.
If you’re providing services instead of products, make sure you give yourself a buffer and deliver what’s promised ahead of time, instead of delivering at or after the promised time. You can also experiment with providing free surprise gifts and freebies without telling customers that there are prizes waiting for them.
Customer Service > Marketing
Consider spending a substantial amount of your marketing budget on customer service. All the money you’ll potentially lose in returns, customer care, and follow-up will generate much more than what your average marketing agency could ever deliver. Think about how your happy customers will turn into talking billboards for your business within their social circles, both offline and online.
Always dedicate most of your time to making your customers happy, not just satisfied. Things like simple, no-questions-asked return policies have proven how companies like American retail giant Nordstrom became billion-dollar businesses. Nordstrom used an employee manual that contained just 75 words and one basic rule: “Use good judgment in all situations!” The Internet is full of stories of people returning weird things to the store after months, in every possible condition.
Avoid fine print and rules that can surprise your customers. Be very honest about what you’ll be providing them with, and explain the benefits and shortcomings of your products and services. You might even consider directing them to a competitor, if you feel they will be better served there. You will lose a single sale, but gain a loyal customer.
Remember that Bahrain is a very small country, and word of mouth is the most powerful and effective marketing tool you can have.
Your Customer > You
When Yahoo selected Google as their main search engine back in 2000, Google’s infrastructure could not handle the sheer number of users at their client’s popular site. In order to keep the site running, Google decided to shut down its own website for a period of time in order to minimize the effect on Yahoo users.
Make sure you can provide your clients with a consistent experience, even if it comes at your own expense. This may mean dedicating extra time and resources to fulfill or exceed their expectations. Do not underestimate the power of negative feedback and how it can affect you at a later stage, and never put yourself in a situation where you’re trying to explain why something didn’t work out the way it should have.
