Customer Service Ideas

The Change from Customer Service to Customer Experience

For years we’ve heard about customer service and while we still need to service our customers, there is a shift now to the customer experience and that’s where the money is! If we want to attract and retain long-term customers, we need to provide them with a little more than service. We need to enhance their experience, engage and retain them.  A customer who buys twice a week compared to once a week will make a huge impact in your business at the end of the year

Customer Service is giving the customer what they want – what they have asked for.  Remember what Steve Jobs said “a lot of time people don’t know what they want until you show them”.   Steve Jobs understood his customers at this point – customers don’t always know what they want because you haven’t created for them yet.

Think of the customer experience in this way: you go out to Kenya and buy some coffee beans probably costing only a few cents to fill a jar.  Ground and roast the coffee beans and fill the jar.  You can probably sell it for €3.50 for 20 cups of medium-sized coffee.  Now add hot water and each cup of coffee will cost you 25 cent. Pull into a service station and a medium coffee will cost you somewhere between €2.50 and €2.80. In a coffee shop somewhere between €3 and €4.50. You’re now paying for the experience of having the coffee in their business. Customers are paying for the experience all the time no matter if you’re selling a product or service. By creating is super experience you create a loyal customer who won’t pass your business again.

Be a business where the door is easy to open, the physical warmth is felt, you are welcome, your products and services clearly communicated for everyone to easily access them, great staff engagement with the customers and thank you the customer for the business. Listen to the customer. Don’t just be waiting to talk!