What is a customer experience and how to improve it
The term is bandied around a lot. It sounds a bit jargon-y and fancy pants. Don’t you feel like it’s probably something that only the big dogs have enough funds to invest in? Nope, you are in fact wrong.
But what you probably don’t realise is that you already have a customer experience. You might just not be aware of how it's affecting your business.
What exactly is the client experience?
The client experience is every moment that your brand interacts with a future, current or past client.
From the first ad they see to the Instagram posts they scroll past
The message you communicate on your website
The collaboration you do with another one of their favourite brands
The vibe you give off in a podcast interview [Sorry to use the word ‘vibe’. I hate it too. It just came out my mouth]
The feelings your brand colours emanate
The response they get from an email they sent
The process of signing a contract with you
The forms of communication whilst working together
The voice notes
The follow-up after working together
The feedback forms they get from you... Woaaah, I’ll stop there.
But each and every touch point adds up to create an impression they have of you.
If this is calculated — if, at each opportunity to get noticed by a future/current/past client, you think, ‘What does this say about me? How is this going to make someone feel?’ — you can influence the customer experience.
A considered customer experience can motivate prospective customers to reach out to you. It can convert on-the-fence consumers to get excited about working with you.
It can influence what your past clients tell their friends about working with you (if they bother to mention you at all). It can turn your customer service from just informative to enlightening, friendly, approachable, whatever you want it to be.
Think of a good customer experience like a boutique B&B.
When it comes to personalisation, making people feel at home, the little tiny flourishes and details that make a good holiday great, B&Bs and the customer experience for ANY business have a ton in common.
I used to work in this gorgeous B&B in North Cornwall, overlooking the beach. There were only 7 rooms so you got to know the guests really well. From the moment they arrived, taking the weight off by carrying their bags to their rooms, to the homemade lemon drizzle and loose leaf tea waiting for them in the lounge after checking in.
The recommendations for food and attractions without them asking, being chatty and approachable to making them feel special and at ease.
The little chocolate on their pillow, the extra flourishes that they didn’t expect and didn’t necessarily pay for that don’t cost much money, but elevate the experience by bringing in these thoughtful touches of magic.
Sneaking into their room while they were at dinner and closing the curtains, turning down the duvet covers and turning on the bedside lamps to preempt them coming in after a long day and wanting to put their feet up.
We had the time to ask them at breakfast what they had planned for their trip. Portions were generous, everything was organic. It was an intimate experience.
Every element, every moment we interacted with them, even the time they spent by themselves when we weren’t actually there in the room with them. Everything added up to a very considered and intentional customer experience.
So how do you make your own business feel like a boutique B&B, with an attentive, caring, customised service? How do you improve your own customer experience?
Ask yourself these questions:
Why are they here?
What do they want to know?
What questions can I answer for them before they even know they have any questions?
What little touches will just make them feel that extra bit more appreciated?
What flourishes can you add that will make you memorable (so even in months time, when they’re chatting to their friends about holidays or work, they say: ‘oh [insert your brand name here] are just fabulous — I bought from them/stayed with them/worked with them a few months back and they made everything so easy. And even when I got home/the work finished/two weeks later, they checked in on me to see how things were going. [Insert your brand name here] are seriously the creme de la creme of [insert your industry or job title here].’)?
Ooh but the client experience starts before they’ve stepped foot in the B&B, just having driven down from up-country. The client experience starts before they’ve paid their deposit. It starts before they send that first email to check availability for their preferred dates.
Here’s a breakdown of the key stages of the customer experience. Keep your eyes peeled for ideas as to how you can improve your own customer experience (some of which you may not have considered before):
1. The first impression.
It starts when they first learn the name of your business. Whether that’s on social media reading your bio, on Google, a post that one of their friends has shared online, from a leaflet they picked up by chance, from an ad they saw or from the business card you gave them.
Your very first interaction is where the experience starts.
When they see you online, what do they think?
When they come across your website, what do they do?
When they read an article you wrote or a social media post, how do they feel?
The ‘do’, ‘think’ and ‘feel’ all contribute to your client experience, waaaay before they’ve handed over credit card details or signed up for something you’re offering for free.
So this experience could last days, even years.
But are you finding opportunities to actively manipulate this experience? Or are you passively letting your experience be defined by the discordant elements of your business that don’t feed off (or into) each other?
2. When they make contact
When a future customer is no longer passive but starts to engage with you, what might motivate them to make this transition? You want it to be effortless for people to engage with you.
Do you have a clearly described process to start working together?
Are you clearly stating the value you can offer in comparison to alternatives and/or competitors?
Where can you add in those little ‘flourishes’ throughout your different modes of communication to make your customers feel seen, heard and understood, to motivate them to reach out?
Your website is a huge part of this customer experience and all these three points in this stage of engagement can be communicated on your website.
And my Website Builder’s Blueprint will help you communicate this — it’s a run down of all the key info you need on each of your key website pages to motivate passive (future) customers to engage and eventually become paying customers instead of just lurking and listening.
3. The delivery phase
This is where you are giving, sending, doing the thing that someone has paid for. Think about the processes you have to consistently deliver a good — even great — experience for them.
Even when it comes to ‘boring’ admin emails, how do you communicate when you need to send an invoice, your contract or request information (or ask for any of these things if they are late)?
Is there any opportunity for you/your products/your services to exceed their expectations?
Their experience can still be influenced months after they’ve bought from/booked with you. So what does the follow-up of after sales say about you?
If you want to see what a good customer experience looks like, hop over to this follow-up blog post, where I’m breaking down some of my favourite ‘flourishes’ that have elevated the experience I’ve had with a variety of product-based and service-based businesses, from wine delivery services and eating out to digital subscriptions, even a dog shelter.
Whether you sell tangible items, work solely online, whether you help businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C) there will be opportunities to elevate your own customer experience for future customers, current clients and people you worked with months, even years ago.
And feel free to use my own experiences to nick a couple of ideas for yourself.
