12 Low-Effort Strategies for Improving Your Customer Experience
Making customers happy doesn't have to require a lot of resources and effort; the simplest strategies can sometimes be the best.
A business's customer experience is an important indicator of its overall success. Your customers are the cornerstone of your company, and they should be treated as such. If they aren't satisfied with their experience, they'll likely take their business elsewhere.
Thankfully, you don't have to break the bank or hire tons of customer service reps to appease your customers. Below, 12 members of Newsweek Expert Forum shared some low-effort but effective strategies for improving your customer experience.
1. Go Through the Experience Yourself
Go through the customer experience yourself and ask yourself these questions: Would I buy this product or service from this company? Was my experience simple and seamless? What roadblocks or frustrations did I encounter? What can I/we do immediately and long term to improve customer experience? Then, take action! - Jenna Hinrichsen, Advanced RPO
2. Treat Customers Like Celebrities
We've found that a culture focused on treating customers like celebrities is very effective in building rapport and cementing relationships. Instilling this approach as an ethos versus an initiative is vital from a scalability and effort standpoint. Trust and give people the flexibility to create exceptional customer experiences at every touch point without having to manage the specific moment and result. - Jacob Kupietzky, HCT Executive Interim Management & Consulting
3. Listen to Customer Feedback
Most often than not, your customers are already telling you the things you need to know, whether that's through direct feedback or with their feet. As a leader, it's crucial to listen to that feedback, act on it and let them know that you heard them and acted on it. Start with small wins. Ask yourself, "What are the things that I can improve on today?" and go for it. - Austin Woodward, Taxbit
4. Offer a Digital Experience
Giving consumers the option to have a digital experience when they want one and to be able to talk to a human when they prefer that is a simple but powerful dynamic. This typically does not take a huge lift. - Chris Heller, OJO Labs
5. Thank Them for Their Business
I recommend organizations get back to the basics of customer service excellence. A simple "thank you for doing business with us" goes a long way with customers. Another way is to take time to listen to the customers' stated and unstated needs, learning to tap into them from an "at your service" perspective. This will increase customer loyalty and the company's bottom line simultaneously. - Nickquolette Barrett, iRock Development Solutions, LLC dba iRock Résumés
6. Put in Extra Effort
"Happy employees deliver happy customers" is based on hard facts; it makes money. If your leaders got 10% better at the simple day-to-day actions that inspire and engage their people, it could get 30% more effort from 60% of people, and for free! That extra effort can then be focused on delivering exceptional customer service, but not just from customer-facing employees; it needs to be everyone. - Chris Roebuck, Simply Success
7. Prioritize Client Buy-In
Client buy-in is essential when shifting any type of customer experience, regardless of the type of industry. This is especially true for more technical products that require special training to implement, utilize and interpret. In the majority of cases, customer experience is the product for SaaS companies. - Anthem Blanchard, HeraSoft
8. Seek Feedback from Every Interaction
Every touch point matters, so seek feedback for every interaction. You cannot improve what you don't measure, and without feedback, you are running blind. Start measuring to understand what matters at each step. If you don't drill down on your Net Promoter Score, you won't know why your advocates root for you, why some customers are neutral and what your highest priority should be to reduce churn. - Sumit Aneja, Voxco Survey Software
9. Offer a Personalized Experience
People, not technology, are most critical in meeting customers' needs. When polled, consumers say the top reason for their (customer) irritation is consistent with "not being able to speak to a real person." So, the ability to attract the right talent to drive the change and meet customer needs is what's critical. It's bodies, not bandwidth, that make the difference. - Brooke Sellas, B Squared Media, LLC
10. Allow the Customer a Direct Seat
One recommendation that has worked in my experience in understanding the dynamic between customer/consumer experience with minimal effort is by allowing the customer a direct seat at the table with the board or business leadership. We have gotten away from the "customer is always right" model, but we're never going to get away from "solving the customer's problem with our best product" model. - Michael Davis, Merek Security Solutions, LLC
11. Obtain and Analyze Each Touch point
Obtain and analyze each touch point of your consumer at the "virtual" and "real" level. At each of these touch points, what information is being exchanged and what experiences are being conducted? Is the experience both in alignment with the brand value and mission statement of the company? How easy is it for consumers to communicate with you? What's been the most frequent category of communication? - Vipp Jaswal, VM Inc
12. Supplement Existing Support With External Tools
There are lots of external tools that can help supplement existing customer support pipelines. Replacing people with tools will likely hamper the customer experience, but tools can help fill gaps such as long wait times or work hours to get people immediate responses if no one is available. - Noah Mitsuhashi, noahmitsuhashi.io
Previously published by Newsweek.