Without doubt, customer experience is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. Here’s a look at why, plus some examples to help your business create an outstandingly valuable experience for your customers.
Let’s go!
Isn’t it just another name for customer service?
Customer experience is a term often used incorrectly. Some use it interchangeably with customer service, but they’re very different things.
- Customer service is about the quality of service you provide to your customers.
- Customer experience is about the feelings your customers experience when they do business with you.
When deployed correctly, your customer experience becomes a powerful marketing asset. It’s an experience your customers will value enormously. An experience they’ll talk about and share with their friends and contacts. And an experience that will make them fiercely loyal customers.
That’s why I strongly recommend you embrace it and optimize it. To get your creative juices flowing, here are a couple of very different types of business, who provide an equally wonderful experience for their customers.
Customer experience in diverse businesses
1. A vinyl record store: When you visit a store that sells vinyl records, you notice something. Customers don’t simply walk in, ask for what they want and leave. No. It’s an experience. Customers connect with the staff and other customers, who are also fellow vinyl lovers. They talk about new releases, decks and cabling, etc. They listen to music.
It’s where they buy music and related hardware. But it’s so much more than that. It’s an enjoyable experience.
NB: Very similar examples can be found in the most talked about cycling stores, book stores and indie coffee shops, etc.
2. My dentist: Yes, it applies to every type of business, including dentists. I enjoy visiting them for my check-up. I look forward to it because it’s an excellent experience. The staff are friendly, welcoming and clearly love working there. The premises are creatively designed to be relaxing, but also to make it easy for patients to chat. The ambience is outstanding. Utterly unlike any other dental practice I’ve ever used.
I’ve lived in my area for well over 20-years and I’ve never seen that dentist advertise. Their patients do that for them, willingly, for free.
If visiting a dentist can be that great a customer experience, yours certainly can.
Your customer experience
I’ve seen amazing examples in every industry and profession. I’m certain it will work in your line of business, too.
What next?
Here’s a useful way to get started. List all the providers that you enjoy the experience of doing business with. Then look for what makes it so good. Write it down. Unpack it.
Now work on how to apply the very best from those experiences, in order to create an amazing customer experience of your own.
Photo by Count Chris