Improve Your Customer’s Experience

Time to Get Started

Now that you have some ideas on how to improve your business the question is where to start. One basic framework for customer experience consists of five steps, and is applicable to both online and offline stores.

Awareness: How to reach your customers and how to get them to your store?
You need to tell potential customers that you exist. Make sure you use both online and offline tools. Create leaflets to promote your business or add your company in Google Maps. For a great guide on how to asses your business to Google Maps click here.

Acquisition: What share of the customers do you reach and why?
Once customers know your business exists, make sure you entice them to visit the store. Let them know that you have a great discount/offer or a new product. Tell customers that they can try your products/services for free. If you ever visited Barnes & Noble, then you know that you can read books and have a coffee in the store – and all you have to pay for is the coffee.

Engagement: When customers explore your shop, do they trust your value proposition?
Once customers are in your shop you need to exceed their expectations. It should be easy for them to find products that are displayed in the right setting and with a good price. It is also remarkable how easy small things can put customers off. Dust in the corners might not mean a lot to you, but I guarantee that customers will take notice.

Conversion: Do customers buy your products or services?
If you have low sales, lack of compliance to one of the previous steps might be the reason. If not, then you need to look at the service and payment process. Is your staff welcoming and helpful to all customers? If there is a long line of customers waiting to pay, congratulations! But be efficient. There is a reason why H&M have multiple counters in their stores.

Retention: How to make the customer connect and come back to your store?
If you have done the first four steps well, you are in a good position. But you need to be ahead of your competition and connect with your customers. Ask them to sign up for your emails or hand out your business card. It shows that you care and they will remember you positively. After all, that’s what it’s all about.

What are you waiting for? Get started - your customers will note the difference!

Improve Your Customer’s Experience

Help Your Customers Decide

Never underestimate the value of a satisfied customer. Just as you’d like friends to enjoy your party, you want customers to enjoy the visit to your shop, be happy with the purchase and come back or even recommend your business to their friends.

Why do customers visit your store and what do they expect to find? How well are you displaying your products and in which setting? For all it is worth, you can have the best product in the world, but if no one understands how to use it they won’t buy it.

IKEA for example, displays their products in a setting where customers haven’t thought about them before. Why would you hang your postcards or wedding invitations on the kitchen wall? And yet, it's practical. It looks good and it makes you realize how organized your home could be. At this point IKEA shows their sales tactics. The clips are sold in packs of three, at a price so low that it is hardly worth not buying them. After all you’ve traveled a long way to get to the store. Right?

If you visit local shops, you might see similar examples that can inspire you. Showing how to use your products or placing a flyer with instructions can boost your sales. It is all about assisting consumers to make the most of their daily lives and offering them something they did not expect.

Move beyond products and services and make it an experience. Thus McDonalds offers more than a meal; it will host your child's birthday party, complete with a candle lit cake and clown. Or Hard Rock Café – are they really in the restaurant business?

The next post will give an example of a customer experience framework and some ideas on how to approach it. Until then – why not take a walk up the street where your shop is located. How does your business stand out in the crowd?