I’m happy with the title of this article, but perhaps a more appropriate angle might be ‘customer service is like being married’.
The buying cycle for a customer typically includes a little research, talking to a salesperson, making the purchase, and whatever happens after the sale.
That could include a follow-up from the salesperson, dealing with customer service for a problem, or any other interaction you have with the business or brand after the sale is made.
Many businesses spend a lot of money and expend tremendous effort to get you in the door or to their website.
They entice you with marketing messages, advertising, and anything else that could tip the scale to move a customer from thinking about buying to making the purchase.
Marketing messages and advertising campaigns create credibility. A salesperson’s promises make you feel good about doing business with them and their business.
And if all goes well, eventually, a sale is finalised.
Some refer to this moment as ‘closing the deal’. I always joke about that phrase.
Closing the deal signifies an ending, however; in reality it’s the beginning of the financial relationship.
To put it in dating terms, everything else was courting the customer. Once the customer decides to buy, it’s like you’ve proposed to them, and they said yes.
When the sale is made, it’s like getting married and as we know that is far from the end – in fact, it’s more like the beginning.
Once you can officially call someone a customer, instead of a prospect, it’s time to keep them around! In other words, you want to make the relationship last.
According to the American Psychological Association, in 2022 approximately 40-50 per cent of first marriages end in divorce.
The main reason for divorce is simple: a lack of commitment. My question to your business is what percentage of your customers leave after the first sale?
In other words, what’s the divorce rate of your customers?
Once the sale is made there is the honeymoon phase, in which the customer is excited about the purchase and you let the customer know how excited you are about doing business with them.
How long does that last? Ideally, the honeymoon phase should never end! While the excitement may ebb and flow, the customer should always feel appreciated.
What can you do to court your customers and more importantly keep your customers in the honeymoon phase?
Spend time with your staff and discuss what is done after the sale. Consider why your customers may end up ‘divorcing you’ and why they may have started a new relationship with a competitor.
Make them feel special
An important goal of a good customer experience is to make the customer feel special.
That special feeling can come in many different forms. I was reading an article about customer retention, and it prompted me to start a list of ways to make customers feel special.
What is it that makes a jewellery store customer want to come back and even share their experience with friends, family, and colleagues?
I’ll bet there’s an entire book that can be devoted to this topic, but for today we’ll keep it to the first few that come to mind.
• Stop selling and start nurturing relationships: Selling is the easy part, building a relationship that fosters confidence, trust and connection is the less obvious technique.
If every time you contact the customer, be it in person, over the phone, by email, texting, or any other form of communication, all you do is sell, sell, sell, the customer will tune you out.
If you are showing interest in customers outside of their wallet, you’re nurturing relationships. The customer experience shouldn’t just be a non-stop sales pitch.
• Provide education: Are your customers wiser as a result of their interaction with your business?
This is about more than just tips on how to be more successful with your products - how can you help them be more successful in their business or life?
Provide education that’s tied to what you’re known for and don’t do it with a sales pitch. This is purely a value-add – one that adds to the customer experience.
• Offer sneak peeks of your newest products: Insider access is always a powerful way of making a customer
feel special.
If you’re not a customer, you don’t get the ‘inside information’. And this information should be compelling enough to make them want to remain your customer.
• Make it personal: It’s easy to send text messages and emails that include a customer’s name and other information that make them feel as if the message is personalised and just for them.
That’s just the packaging - the true personal approach is to make sure the message is 100 per cent on target for the customer. In other words, if you sell jewellery and you know your customer buys branded jewellery, don’t send them messages about engagement rings. The wrong content destroys the personalisation effort.
• Always thank the customer: There are many opportunities to thank the customer.
It could be when the customer places an order, on the invoice, in a follow-up email or thank you note, and more. You can never say thank you enough.
Your customers trusted you enough to part with their money. Don’t ever let them walk away unappreciated.
Mile high education
On a recent flight, the captain of the plane announced over the PA system what time we would arrive at our destination.
That would have been enough to make most people happy. However, he continued his announcement with a further three-minute speech.
We learned that we would take off to the west, make a U-turn a few minutes later to head east, how high we would go, and the many cities we would be flying over.
He also didn’t forget to let us know that we would take a right turn as we approached the runway to land! I looked around and noticed many people were annoyed or had stopped paying attention to the long-winded announcement.
The point is most customers don’t care as much about the details of the journey as they care about the destination.
Here’s another example, which has nothing to do with a journey but does have to do with an overload of details that can hurt a sale or erode the customer experience.
Some people love a fancy, expensive sports car, while others just want reliable transportation. Even though these customers essentially want the same thing – a vehicle to get them from one place to another – these are different customers.
A few years ago, my wife and I were looking for a new car. We narrowed it down to the make and model – even the colour – we thought we wanted.
We walked into the dealership and were approached by a salesperson who was very friendly and engaging. Then, we told him what we were looking for.
The salesman took us over to the exact car we wanted. He was very excited!
He started to share details about the size of the engine, how many cylinders it had, how quickly the car could accelerate, and many other details that mattered nothing to us.
Had he asked why we were interested in this model of car, he would have realised we had no real interest in such details. Our version of the destination was that we wanted a nice-looking car that was comfortable, safe, and easy to drive.
Maybe we wanted to know a few other details; however, nothing to the extent he was sharing. Had he paid attention, he would have noticed he had us when he said, “I have the exact car you’re looking for.”
My point is that most customers don’t care about the details behind the experience or jewellery they are buying.
It’s up to us to recognise this and respond accordingly. All they want to know is what awaits them at their destination.
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