Customers feel valued article and permission to publish here provided by Dhruv Mehta.
Do you love your customers?
Indeed, you do. But how do you tell your customers that you value them?
As you must have read at hundreds of other places, customer experience has overtaken price and quality as the key differentiator for brand loyalty. So, if your answer to the above question was ‘great quality’ or ‘awesome service,’ sadly, it isn’t enough.
Think about this question again from a customer’s point of view. She paid you exactly what you demanded for a product or service. Naturally, she expects good quality and reliable service, and that’s why she chose to transact with you in the first place. In other words, by providing exceptional quality or service to a customer, you are only meeting her basic expectations and not doing anything extra.
To truly make them feel special and valued, you need to give your customers something extra – something that’s thoughtful and out of the box – the extra mile that you’d go for a loved one.
Actionable Ideas for Customer Delight
A branded keychain, a tacky pen, or an impersonal greeting card is how it worked in the past. But not anymore. Today, you don’t need to spend money on customized merchandise and distribution when you can thank your customers with free upgrades, digital shopping coupons, and personalized emails that show you care!
Below, we have identified five innovative ideas to make your customers feel appreciated without breaking the bank.
1. Customized Onboarding Programs
Nothing can prevent churn if users don’t know how to use your product. To overcome this challenge, you can implement an onboarding plan to introduce new users to your product.
According to stats, customers with a positive onboarding experience are less likely to churn within the first 21 days of signing up for a product. However, the key here is ‘positive onboarding experience,’ highlighting the need to develop an onboarding flow that is enjoyable and useful for customers.
- First things first, you need to revamp the first login experience. For example, a pop-up at the first login to welcome users with a summary of benefits and use cases and a link leading to an interactive video or guide can remarkably improve the onboarding experience.
- Another practical idea is to create interactive guides that prompt users to click on the main areas in your interface. Videos and product tours are also great for understanding complex products that need further explanation for proper use.
Next, we have listed some easy tips to improve your onboarding experience:
- Create an automated welcome email that is triggered when any new user signs up
- Use an automatic follow-up email that is triggered after a couple of days of inactivity since sign-up, inviting users to log in again
- Include feature call-outs in the first login screen to help users find their way around your app
- Build a knowledge base with FAQs and make sure it is regularly updated
- Integrate your digital interfaces with an intelligent chatbot for self-service and monitoring user behavior
2. Offer Proactive Support with Real-Time Communication
Rewarding customers to thank them for their continued patronage is a vital part of your CX. However, customer appreciation is not just limited to giving gifts. According to Forrester, the majority of adults appreciate a company that values their time.
This means faster and reliable support remains a vital component of an outstanding CX, and you can do even more by solving customer issues even before they arise. For example, you may use live chat software to resolve user queries in real-time and appreciate their time investment by cutting down the steps and time involved in query resolution.
In case you are wondering how useful live chat could be, Zopim found that, on average, live chat reduces the response time to less than 23 seconds and improves the resolution time to less than 42 seconds.
Chatbots may also be deployed for personalized support based on browsing behavior and can guide users to FAQs to resolve their queries immediately.
3. Use Personalized Emails to Make Customers Feel Special
Emails have always been a powerful tool in any marketer’s arsenal, and personalization improves the efficacy of this tool manifold. Aberdeen reports that personalized emails improve click-through and conversion rates by 14% and 10%, respectively. Thus, email personalization is essential not only for acquisition but also promotes engagement and retention. Also, an email marketing tool coupled with personalization can create wonders for your business.
We suggest using triggered emails to touch base with customers at every step of their journey, from onboarding to first purchase to other milestones during the span of their relationship with your company. You may also set triggered emails for abandoned carts, user inactivity, etc., which have a 152% higher open rate than traditional emails.
Below are some actionable tips for writing more personal emails:
- Use relaxed jargon without corporate speak or fancy jargon
- Use a friendly, informal tone, as you’d use for writing to a friend
- Use a lot of white space by dividing your email into short, scannable messages
- Use dynamic content to personalize emails based on factors like gender, location, etc.
4. Send Handwritten Notes
Technology has made everything quite simple and impersonal. In these times, imagine receiving a warm, handwritten note from your favorite brand. Won’t you feel special? Of course, this isn’t something you can implement at a large scale, but for small businesses and start-ups, this is a great idea to make customers feel valued and show appreciation through a sweet yet cost-effective gesture.
Our suggestion is to keep the note short and simple. You may include the following details for maximum impact:
- Address users by their first names
- Write a concise yet authentic message citing the specific interaction or product you are writing about
- Use quality stationery for a better impression
- Sign off with a warm greeting like thanks, cheers, warmly, sincerely, etc., followed by signatures from key team members
5. Send Gifts on Major Life Events to Amaze Users
Many companies send users a gift with their first purchase or a discount or upgrade during the holiday season. However, these are predictable strategies, and you must do something extra to delight your users truly.
How about sending your customers a free upgrade, discount coupons, or even a book on less celebrated holidays or their special days, like birthdays or anniversaries. You may even consider more creative gift options like food coupons or personalized hampers for your most loyal customers.
Customers Feel Valued in Conclusion
Today, most companies are focused on customer experience and constantly looking for ways to make their customers feel special. However, CX leaders go above and beyond the regular to genuinely help their users, such as during the ongoing pandemic through much-needed discounts, free trials, and thoughtful freebies without focusing on profit-making.
The result is pure user delight and higher brand engagement, loyalty, and sales, as a result of genuine customer-focused initiatives.
