Industry Leader Secrets: Six Ways To Stand Out With Customer Experience

Responsible business leaders know that a customer experience (CX) initiative is no longer optional in today’s competitive business landscape. Numerous studies have concluded that by 2020 a customer’s decision to do business with a company will be based on CX more than any other factor. Businesses succeed or fail because of the way they treat their customers. Customers will move on if their expectations are not met, and unfortunately, some organizations make the mistake of taking their customers for granted. Smart companies recognize that customers do business with the companies that give them the experience they expect, if not even a little more.

CX can be your differentiator. A company can disrupt its competition by delivering a better experience, and here are six ways to do exactly that:

1. Define your Customer Service Vision: I refer to this as a customer service mantra. It’s a short (one sentence or less), straightforward, convincing vision statement that guides the organization’s employees. Leadership can bolster this vision by amplifying the virtues of excellence and demonstrating a personal and organizational commitment to the vision. For example, one of my favorite companies that has a perfect customer service vision is Ace Hardware. It’s just three words: “Helpful Hardware Place.” Those three words define who they are, not only to their employees but also to their customers. This is who they are. They live and breathe the concept of helpful.
2. Proactively Communicate: Effective communication can provide proof to your customers that they made the right decision by doing business with you. It is one of the fundamental keys to delivering on the organization’s customer service vision. Engage with your customers, in person and online. As popular as it is to communicate digitally, look for ways to balance it out with the human touch. Primo Management Group (PMG) is a good example. It operates in the timeshare industry. While many customers are happy with their timeshare agreements, some want out. PMG helps its customers get out of unwanted timeshare contracts they can no longer afford or wish to keep. They create confidence in the way they communicate with their customers, starting by having a human answer the phone, versus an IVR (Interactive Voice Response system). They return messages quickly and proactively communicate throughout the process, which creates customer confidence. Communication is what helps PMG exceed its customers’ expectations.
3. Constantly Innovate: Companies that are constantly improving show their customers they want to keep their business. LightspeedVT is an online platform for interactive video-based virtual training. I believe that it is one of the premier Learning Management Systems in the industry. The customer’s experience is dramatically different today compared to five years ago. “New and improved” is a phrase that seems like a cliché, but the best companies provide exactly that. Look at the companies you’ve enjoyed doing business with for several years or more. I’ll bet that most of them are different than they were the first time you interacted with them. Software companies are constantly coming out with updates. The retail industry is constantly bringing out new products. Hotels and resorts are constantly renovating. Great organizations constantly innovate.
4. Be Consistent: Customers want constancy and predictability. Whether it is communication in person or online, they want a consistent CX. Apple just topped Interbrand’s Best Global Brand for the sixth year in a row for three reasons, one of which is consistency. Regardless of how you interact with Apple – in a store, on an iPhone, an iPad, etc. – the experience is consistent. Customers want to know that you will always be quick to respond, always be friendly, always be helpful and always be knowledgeable. And, if there is a problem, they want to know you will always take care of them. That word, always, followed by something positive, is what customers want. Give them consistency and you’ll create confidence, which leads to trust and loyalty.
5. Be Convenient: Having just released my latest book, The Convenience Revolution, I can’t forget to mention the importance of reducing friction as a way to improve the customer’s experience. Amazon.com is perhaps the most convenient company in the world to do business with. Take some notes on how it uses technology to create a great customer experience. How it reduces friction and saves the customer time with its trademarked 1-Click purchasing option. I can go on and on about multiple ways Amazon delivers customer convenience. My car dealership also won me over with convenience. I never have to bring my car in for service, because any time the car needs service (for routine maintenance or a repair), they bring me a car.
6. Always Resolve Customer Problems: No matter how good you are at the five ideas listed above, if there is ever a problem and it’s not resolved properly, all is for naught. No company is perfect, but the amazing companies have systems in place and have properly trained their people to not just fix a problem, but also to restore confidence. The Ritz-Carlton, for example, is a case study in how to handle problems. It empowers its employees to take care of the guests, allowing them to spend up to $2,000 to handle a customer complaint, to make it right. That doesn’t mean they will spend any or all of the $2,000, but they know they can. When you handle a problem the right way, the customer’s confidence is often restored to a level higher than if the problem had never happened at all.

If you’re not focusing on CX already, you’re lagging behind. It’s a deciding factor for the customer and will become even more so going forward. Start today. Use the ideas above to initiate or strengthen your special brand of CX to secure your future success.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. Learn about Shep's latest book The Convenience Revolution at www.beconvenient.com. For information on The Customer Focus? customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. 

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.