Last week, I shared ten ideas to drive a better customer experience in 2020. As promised, I’m back with ten more tips. If you haven’t read part one yet, you can do so here. Or, you can see all these suggestions at once by reading my recent Forbes article. Without any further delay, here are ten more ways to create a better customer experience in 2020.
- Create your customer service mantra. This is a big one. We often spend a month preparing for a full-day meeting to help our clients create their mantra. For those that don’t have one, now is the time to create one. The mantra is a simple phrase—one sentence or less—that sums up your customer service culture. For example, ours at Shepard Presentations is “Always Be Amazing.” We want to be amazing to our clients and help them be amazing. Our friends at Ace Hardware have a simple one too: “The Helpful Hardware Place.” The Ritz-Carlton’s is a little longer. They call it their credo: “We’re ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Once you have your mantra, it’s easy to stay focused on what’s important in delivering an amazing customer service experience.
- Give back. ’Tis the season of giving. Why not become part of a cause or participate in a charity? Customers love when the places they do business with give back. It’s good karma!
- Have a weekly huddle with your team and spend five minutes sharing how someone created a great customer experience that week. Little reminders shared consistently with employees will help keep customer service front of mind. Plus, it makes everyone feel good to acknowledge team success.
- Publish a report or white paper that will benefit your customers. Customers love relevant information. This could be a great opportunity to make sure you have the most recent and relevant information in your field. It also creates confidence in your customer base by proving your knowledge and expertise. This can be a great marketing piece to attract future customers, too.
- Have everyone share an example of when they received a great service experience from a fellow employee. In this case, it’s better to receive than give. You get to recognize your fellow employees for what they’ve done for you. This serves as a good reminder and also builds stronger team bonds.
- Do more on social media. Participate in conversations on social platforms and become part of the online customer community. However, this isn’t an opportunity to sell. It’s an opportunity to engage. There’s a big difference!
- Have a contest where everyone submits a creative—even unusual—customer service or experience idea. As above, the prize isn’t about how good the idea is, but about the participation.
- Ask your customers my favorite question, which I refer to as the One Thing Question: Is there one thing you can think of that would make doing business with us better? Read every answer and take action on some of the better ideas. It’s amazing what happens when you listen to your customers! When you listen to them, they feel valued and appreciated.
- Have a contest to see who can deliver the best experience to an external or internal customer. It’s nice to recognize the best, but the prize should be a random drawing for all those willing to participate. Of course, you should share the best of the best.
- Don’t forget that customer experience starts with employee experience. Remember, what happens on the inside of the organization is felt on the outside by the customer. If you want to have a great customer experience, you must focus on your employee experience. Take care of employees, and they will take care of your customers.
There you have it—by now, I’ve shared with you my top twenty tips and ideas to upping your customer service/experience game in 2020. I hope you’ve found them useful, and that they’ve perhaps inspired some business-focused New Year’s resolutions! I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our Shepard Letter subscribers and readers a happy new year. Here’s to 2020 being your best year yet, filled with revenue, profits and, of course, amazing customer experiences!
