3 Ways to turn Good Service into Memorable Experiences.

In one of my recent posts, I shared this quote:

"Service is black and white. Experience is color."

Achieving good service is fairly simple. You only need to follow a checklist or stick to a guide. The same happens with bad service. Miss one of the basics and it’s done.

But experience is different.

Experience is full of colors and shades. It’s unique to each person. There’s no standard for a good experience.

Why?

Because every customer is different.

So how can you ensure that your customers are engaged with your brand on a personal level and want to come back?

Here are three ways you can connect emotionally with your customers and turn every interaction into a memorable one.

Three ways to go from good service to a good experience, so the customers’ emotional relationship with your brand will be so strong that they won’t be looking at shopping elsewhere.

1. Every client is different as well as every interaction.

It is important to understand that the quality of your customers’ experience is influenced by multiple factors. Interestingly, these factors often change not only throughout the course of their lives but also across weeks or even a single day.

A customer coming for a business lunch on a Tuesday may have different needs and expectations than the same customer coming for lunch with the family on a Saturday. Same client, different needs and expectations.

How can you connect with a customer on an emotional level if their needs and expectations change in every interaction?

Well, the only way to do so is by putting yourself in your customer's shoes. Building long-lasting relationships with your customers is nothing more than the ability to read their needs and expectations in every interaction and understand what are the factors that will make that interaction memorable.

To do so, Emotional Intelligence and Empathy are key. So, it is crucial to create a company culture that equips all team members with the skills to identify these needs and expectations in every interaction.

How can you do that?

• Recruitment: use behavioral interview questions to gauge candidates' Emotional Intelligence and Empathy.
• Onboarding: pair new hires with mentors who exemplify these qualities.
• Leadership: make the leaders of your organization exemplify Emotional Intelligence and empathetic behaviors.
• Regularly share stories and examples where Emotional Intelligence and Empathy led to positive outcomes.
• Training: offer regular workshops and seminars and role-playing to practice these skills.
• Develop tailored programs for different departments, focusing on how Emotional Intelligence and Empathy can improve their interactions with customers.
• Employee feedback: encourage regular feedback sessions and active listening practices.
• Recognition: create award programs or incentives that highlight these behaviors.

2. Have a look at your Employee Experience

If you want to know how engaged your customers are with your brand, start by checking how engaged your employees are with your organization.

Regardless of the industry, and if it is online or face-to-face, your employees are the face of your business and the magic component that can turn a regular interaction into a memorable one. You can have internal processes that make client interaction smoother and defect-free, but ultimately it is how they feel when interacting with your business that will make them come back.

So, if you want to succeed in delivering good experiences to your customers, you’ll need to make your teams part of this transformation. Here are a few ideas on how to do that:

• Allow employees to experience the customer's journey firsthand. By letting them try the products or services they offer daily, they’ll be more knowledgeable of the product features and more invested and loyal to the company.
• The magic of co-creation. When you involve your teams in creating the perfect experience for your customers, it may cost you more time and money, but as a result, you will get much more engaged and loyal employees as this will create an emotional attachment to the brand. They will be willing to go the extra mile to make your customers happy.
• Provide cross-training opportunities so employees can keep learning from other departments while giving feedback on how some processes could be improved.
• Give frontline and back-of-the-house teams the skills, tools, and trust to feel empowered to make decisions that benefit the customer without needing managerial approval.
• Schedule Innovation Days where teams can present new ideas or solutions to Management aimed at enhancing the Customer Experience.

3. Are you taking Customer-centric decisions?

Genuinely putting clients at the forefront of every business decision is an approach that will transform customers into brand ambassadors.

Back in my days working as a receptionist in a hotel, I often stayed an extra hour arranging paperwork for the Accounting team so every charge adjusted would be justified. For some of my colleagues, this was a burden, so they’d rather confront the client when disputing charges than stay extra time to make those adjustments. This is just an example of how an internal process was affecting negatively the Customer Experience.

So, start by reviewing your internal processes and questioning whether each process is designed to make your team or company’s job easier or if it’s truly the best way to make your Customer Experience seamless and joyful.

I can guarantee you that this exercise will make you reflect a lot on where you stand when it comes to your Customer Experience levels.

Well, I am afraid this is it for today. Hope you find these initiatives as actionable ways to start working on your business’ Customer Experience.

I always ask my clients, why would you be eternally chasing new customers when you can take care of the ones you have and make them be your best sales reps and brand ambassadors?

The key to creating memorable experiences resides in finding ways to touch the clients' heart by making them feel special, heard, valued, and unique.

Experience is about creating a love language with your customers that will make them want more.

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Thank you so much for being part of this community and see you on the next episode.