No matter how great your product is, if the customer service you provide lacks reliability and helpfulness or simply fails to offer exceptional experiences, chances are your customers will hear – and talk – about this for quite some time. And what happens next?
Satisfied customers become a fantasy 😔
That’s the number one reason to start investing in amazing customer service right now; I mean this instant!
But if you’re having questions about what exactly it means to provide excellent customer service and trying to understand how to make sure that each and every one of your customers is experiencing a great customer journey, healthily interacting with your services, and getting the best support when they reach for help, this article is just what you need.
Today, I will discuss the top qualities that make a Customer Experience exceptional and show some great customer service examples to prove my points.
Let’s roll!🔎
What makes a Customer Experience Good?
1- Consistency and the use of Technology
When a brand earns loyal customers, their bond becomes almost unbreakable.
And, to build loyalty -which is quite difficult- and achieve customer retention, businesses need to deliver the same service each time they interact with clients. You must ensure you offer consistent support across all channels, including online and offline – like websites, apps, and more. This way, your customers will be provided with the most effective multichannel messaging experience that there is.
By creating room for consistency across numerous channels, you will enable your customers to pay minimal effort to get what they require, resulting in them trusting you for good.
One of the most efficient ways to create consistency in your Customer Experience is by implementing communication technologies that enable your clients to reach out for support whenever they’re experiencing issues. After all, lack of communication can kill even the strongest relationships.
Here’s a real-life example.
IKEA is a great example of a brand that creatively uses technology combined with innovations and advancements to create a positive customer experience that guarantees conversions and overall success.
Most brands like IKEA provide memorable customer experiences that begin at the customer’s fingertips – I mean a mobile experience. But what’s so special about IKEA’s exceptional customer service is that it includes virtual reality at the swipe of a finger; how amazing is that?
This game-changing experience has it all: from uploading pictures or taking selfies to find the best pair of sunglasses when shopping online to trying your favorite colors in your home virtually to see if they fit – just wow.
Customers, being able to make purchase decisions easier, and for sure quicker, sure love not having to go to an IKEA store themselves.
2- Real-time Engagement
One of the key factors that really build an outstanding customer experience is real-time engagement. The concept of real-time customer engagement is basically all about offering relevant interactions and messages on a contextual level, guaranteeing a profound connection between happy customers and happier brands.
Creating room for intimacy, understanding the buyer journey better, and understanding device preferences, location, and time of day – all these can help your brand interpret customer requirements more relevantly and react to them while they’re happening.
Don’t believe me yet? Here’s an example from Microsoft.
Microsoft has a strong presence on social media, especially on Twitter. With successful Twitter accounts fully dedicated to various themes, including customer service, special events, Microsoft Office, Microsoft News, and Windows, Microsoft provides its customers with the ability to interact and engage greatly with every tiny aspect of the brand.
3- Gamification
Gamification in CX has recently become the leading philosophy behind many creations since it helps make journeys and customer experiences more responsive than ever to the audience’s needs and wants.
What Gamification does for CX is basically transforming the customer interaction with a service into a worth-remembering experience full of exciting challenges, rewards, and pop quizzes along the way.
The idea itself sounds engaging and naturally appeals to the customers because interacting with a ”fun” experience and feel involved in the process with greater ease is every customer’s dream.
One of the best benefits of Gamification in CX is its ability to increase engagement, attract potential customers, and keep existing ones by making them stick around!
If you’re still not on board with the idea, let me tell you that by gamifying your CX, you can encourage your target audience to practice specific actions and complete their entire customer journey.
Here’s an example.
Canadian coffee brand Tim Hortons is a great example of popular names using the same old – yet effective – tricks like loyalty rewarding systems and ”point collecting”.
It’s a fact that rewards motivate new customers and push customer loyalty for existing ones, and for this, Tim Hortons decided to come up with their own version.
Just check it out for yourself and see how much of a game-changer it became for them!
4- Personalization
It’s the 21st century, and let me tell you, personalization has never mattered more. Recently, I came across a statement by Hootsuite saying that we’re now entering the ‘‘age of the individual” – and I assume anybody would agree with it.
With the help of Artificial Intelligence, personalized service has become easier than ever. Thanks to it, we’re provided with the opportunity to come up with customer-tailored promotions and excellently relevant support and messaging delivered to the customer’s preferred device at the preferred time.
Here’s an example of a perfectly personalized experience we all love.
When it comes to personalization, Nike is leading the way.
Nike By You is a chance given to customers to design their dream shoe; it’s a service that enables us to customize our favorite products by our favorite brand – all helping us to experience a unique customer journey.
Nike wanted to achieve a more personal relationship built between the brand and its customers. So they decided to take action in 2015 and generated 100,000 personalized animations tailored to a certain location, weather condition, and movement data.
And, voila: They introduced Nike+, a membership plan that provided the users with a smart application that offered personalized suggestions, customized workouts, and tailor-made training sessions based on their weight/height, interests, and goals.
5- Self-service options
Customers and their requirements have dramatically changed over the years. For quite some time now, they have come to the point where they want to find the answers as quickly as possible. And, as you can imagine, their first move is no longer to pick up the phone and reach out to your customer support team.
Instead of trying to tell what’s wrong to a customer service rep, they prefer to find answers online with the help of an FAQ article, an informative video, online discussion forms, or a knowledge base.
Here’s one of the big names for you that mastered the art of self-service within the customer experience.
Apple Support is all about the self-service game. For beginners, the brand’s support page welcomes visitors with an integrated search bar and personalized flow options for users to click on based on their questions and devices.
Underneath these options, the page provides even more links and resources that lead to a support community, an instructive Youtube Channel with plenty of educational videos, and the brand’s Twitter page that also provides a bunch of helpful hints:
Wrapping Up
Companies that offer a great customer experience to gain a lot in return: higher retention, referral rates, positive customer feedback, and overall customer happiness and success.
A solid customer experience helps you build brand recognition and enable you to save time, effort, and money – all of which are necessary to compete in today’s highly competitive market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main components of a good customer experience?
1- Consistency
2- Use of technology
3- Personalization
4- Gamification
5- Self-service options
What are 3 examples of great customer success?
Apple Support, IKEA Virtual Reality Experience, and NIKE By You are great examples of customer success.
