insights! episode #41: 10 must-have factors for an outstanding customer experience

Joubin Rahimi: 

Great that you're joining another episode of insights! again. My name is Joubin Rahimi, and today it's about how to set up your customer experience perfectly, using ten valuable tips.  

Customer experience is the topic above all others. But how can you properly introduce this customer experience across your channels and within an organisation, without completely reinventing the wheel in the first step? You can't. But we have ten tips, one or two of which you can certainly implement mega fast, and others need a bit more time.  
 
Tip number one: the user-friendly website. That's actually the no-brainer. You need a website that's user-friendly, that's easy to use, that works well on mobile as well as on iPad or desktop, and lets you simply handle the processes you go through there with the customer and prospect. That sounds fairly simple, of course. But it isn't. Because it's in the details. Remember, you always have to keep analysing the whole thing. Don't think from your own perspective, think from your customers', and analyse these figures, the movement, using web analytics on your site. From that you draw insights, and you put them into practice again and check whether you've actually understood it correctly and whether it's now better. Sounds simple, but tip number one is the foundation for pretty much everything that comes next.  

Top point number two: if you think of the website, it's one channel. If you're a retailer and you have physical stores, weave the whole thing together. If you're a manufacturer or a B2B company, how are your field sales staff also connected with the website, with your shop? Is there a link from the customer's perspective? Can I request a quote that then also reaches my account manager? Or can I take a basket I've filled online with me into the shop? These processes can sometimes be implemented fairly quickly with small changes to the market. But these processes are essential so that going forward you get a completely different feeling. How nice is it when, as a customer, I say I need something really fast and I want these shoes now and I can pick them up directly at the branch. And I don't first have to go into two or three branches, do they have my size, and I don't have to go to the darkest corner somewhere in the back to pick up an order, like at one or other Bauhaus, but instead I'm warmly welcomed with 'online order here, we'll get it, grab a coffee'. Completely different story, same process. These are the small details that make an enormous difference. The small details from the perspective of a process engineer. But these are the truly essential differences for the customer.  
 
Top three, since we're already talking about branch and digital. It's fast, efficient customer service. I just talked about collection. But what about the return? Is that return also easy to handle or is it a hassle? What about when I order a 2-metre-long strip that then arrives at my place, cost €4.99 shipping, maybe €30 or €40 in total. But a return costs me €20 because it's not my standard size. Do I buy there again? No, I keep it, but I probably won't buy there again. I'll think again about how I do it next time. It won't be this company. And these corresponding services you offer, the services that are a must, legally required, the market does that anyway, but also services you newly develop are essential to differentiate yourself accordingly. 

That brings us to top four: empathetic customer service. I already teased with, I have a return, or I can also collect it in store. But how nice is it if I package these services in a completely different way too. It's not always about what the process actually is, but how I do it, how I sell it, how I engage with the customer. And take the example, if I have a return, sending it back without a lot of questions being asked and then it simply gets replaced accordingly. Sure. But we Germans in particular then say, well that leaves the door wide open for fraudsters. True, that makes it easier there. Or that's not efficient. We're giving away money there. Yes, in one case or another that may be true, but the other customers, they keep coming back. And that almost always outweighs the whole thing. And if you see there's the odd fraudster among them, then you make sure you exclude those individual people. That's doable, not always doable. Focus on the good, and the few bad ones will always be there. Forget it, straighten your crown, carry on.  

Fifth: if I offer something in the shop and I say it's available, then it should be available. If that's not actually the case, then actively communicate that status to the customer. When you have the order, I look forward to it if I say it'll be here tomorrow – make sure it's actually there tomorrow, or that it takes one to two days, and then it's more often one day than two. Over-deliver on what you promise. And look, if you're in dropshipping, you're dependent on others too. If I then have a customer who places many orders, or many items within one order that then get sent from different warehouses, I don't get one parcel but 3-4-5. Also regarding acceptance, having to go to a kiosk, parcel locker, wherever, to collect these products again. Make sure this process also simply runs smoothly, because nothing is worse than being pleased, saying: yes, I ordered it, the price is good, the product, I'm looking forward to it, and it doesn't arrive, or it's actually sold out after all. The funny thing is, the situation before this decision and after the information is exactly the same. The factual state. But the mood swings from normal to absolutely terrible. It's a bit like telling your child here's €10 and a minute later taking it away again. You'll really have a mood in the house then. With, de facto, the same state.  

Top six: customer needs change very, very quickly. We sometimes don't notice it, because things don't change that dramatically within our own bubble either. But other bubbles are catching up. Let me give you a sneak peek ahead. ChatGPT suddenly changed everything very quickly. This technology, and parts of these technologies, were actually already available before. There were already AI tools that wrote texts, AI tools that turned those texts into SEO-optimised copy — our customers had already been using those too. But the broad mass of people were only reached with these functions once ChatGPT came along, because it's even simpler. So the technology was de facto already there, the interface to the customer changed, and the customer group changed significantly. We're all feeling that now. Now let's look at the Metaverse, where most people my age, and those watching right now, say: Metaverse, what's that? Ask your kids — they play Roblox, Minecraft, you name it. That's already a Metaverse. They're in their own world there. Now we have VR headsets that keep getting smaller and work more autonomously. Apple will release something. Imagine that's the match for a young target audience I have. Where will young adults meet then, accordingly? At the petrol station round the corner, or in the Metaverse after all? My bet is that quite a bit will move into the digital space. And the digital isn't then virtual and not real. No, it is real. Real friendships form along the digital path, which may then also be lived out physically again. But why am I telling you this? Customer needs are changing. That can happen fast. Decision-makers live in their bubble, where needs might not change so quickly. And we always have to keep an eye on that, because it can change rapidly and bring new opportunities with it. How can we make use of these? And do you have a team there that keeps working on these topics for your target audience? Someone with an ear to the ground, to then develop, bring to market, measure and optimise new measures, new technologies, new approaches, new services.  

Top seven. Use innovative technologies. No, that's not really it. But it is a topic with these technologies. And we've just heard about Metaverse and co. in the top six. Can you perhaps do things differently. So keep up to date with what's technically possible in the market. Because out there you're not just a retail company, not just a brand or a manufacturing company. No, all companies also need to understand tech better. What can I do with it? Because that of course also influences the possibilities of how we can look after our customers much better, how we can improve the experience. Be it a chatbot on the site. Not always. Or be it other ways of offering personalised service. Or be it developing a completely new product. Keep looking at innovative technologies again and again, be in dialogue with peers from your market, from an industry, but also with your service providers, to have an understanding of what's happening there, because only by bringing together different domains, knowledge, tech and your industry and customers, bringing this triad together, do we all have a chance to keep moving forward and also take the established players in the market, the GAFAs, down a peg or two.  

Top eight: transparent communication. None of us wants to be sold something today. Everyone wants plain speaking. The LinkedIn messages we all get. Yes, I'm XYZ. I saw you're in the industry. Shall we talk about the industry? No, we shan't. And be quite honest, you don't want to talk about the industry, you want to sell something, and that's fine. It's perfectly fine if you want to pitch something. But what nobody wants to hear any more these days is the waffling around the real situation. Around what you actually want. Time is far too precious. We can phrase things directly, politely, nicely, wonderfully, empathetically too, but you don't need to use gimmicks. So transparent, open communication, in good situations it's always easy and especially in bad situations. Company got hacked. Data leak, product has a problem. You name it. Transparent, open, fast communication, however much it hurts, is far, far better than anything else.  

Top nine: personalisation. We keep saying personalisation, huge field. We have the ability to address customers much more directly, to optimise things. Let's do it. To align messages with each other that we send to the customer via the channels they prefer. Let's make sure we get these services right so that they're much more suited to the respective consumer. It could be products that I customise, where a name gets added, a label changes. So essentially custom-made in an industrial style. It could also just be that I adapt the website and, in the first step, think about which channels people are coming in through. What's their topic? And then address that person in a more personalised way from the website too. It starts with small possibilities. But it's actually a really big mindset topic, because you need to move away from trying to standardise something and defining the largest possible group that brings you a high contribution margin. Towards developing lots of small component target groups, ideas, approaches, which I then roll out in a highly automated way, and for that highly automated rollout, technology is naturally important, AI is important, and ultimately that's the added value we can then give our consumers too, because it's then a notch better than if I try to tackle everything with one standard approach.  

Last but not least, ten: feedback. Listen to your customers. Ask them without bias, introduce customer events, customer meetings. We can say for ourselves, we have an event called Behind Closed Doors. We don't promote it much either, not on social media at all, this is actually the first time I've even mentioned it. Managing directors, owners, senior VPs are in there, and they just exchange views. For us it's incredibly exciting, because we're there and we learn what individual people are dealing with. And because we learn it, we can build it into our services and make our services better, so that our customers and potential new customers from this circle or elsewhere can do more. What does that mean for you? Well, maybe you have customer clubs, customer cards. Do you have events for that? Do you bring people together? Do you have brand lovers who put a great deal of heart into your brand too? What do these people say? What do those say who don't like you, in particular, perhaps for objective reasons too? Have you spoken with them? Get that feedback. Ultimately, use all these insights in these new products. Not new, but you very, very rarely see it. Very often there's this system, I have a customer loyalty tool, I have a customer card, and I get a €10 voucher, 15% discount by post for my birthday. You can do more, that might work better. But have you ever seriously and appreciatively asked your customers, in our day and age, in our hemisphere? What can we do better? What didn't go well? That's definitely the step forward. 

I hope the ten points we've shared with you were inspiring for you here and there too. Things you could take something from. Feel free to subscribe to our podcast or YouTube, the YouTube channel, follow us on LinkedIn on the relevant channels as well as on Spotify Music and Podigee and co. Otherwise, of course we're not just happy about an exchange, we're always glad to be able to go down such paths with clients. So, enjoy the next episode. It's out next week.