It’s never been more important to provide customers with a positive experience.
In this day and age, buyers don’t just want to buy a product in a store or order a meal in a restaurant. They want to enjoy an experience.
If you’re keen to ensure your business provides a tailor-made customer experience, here are 5 top tips.
1. Pay attention to aesthetics
Whether you run an online store, or you own a hotel, a restaurant, a clothing shop or a beauty salon, it’s essential to consider the aesthetic impact of your business.
When designing the shop floor, looking at graphics and themes for your site or planning the layout of your cafe, always bear your target market in mind. Who are you trying to attract, and how you can ensure that your vision matches their taste and style?
Go for design concepts, colors, shapes, and patterns that complement your brand, use market research to find out what your buyer likes, and look at inventive and imaginative ways you can make your business stand out.
From custom lamps from stores like PTY Lighting and bespoke furniture to feature walls and statement tiles or art installations, there are lots of different ways you can create the right ambiance and lure customers in from the street.
2. Add personal touches
You may have thousands, even millions of clients, but that doesn’t stop every individual wanting to feel special. Customers like to feel valued, so treat every single client as a VIP.
Simple touches like addressing customers by their first name in emails and offering a personalized welcome note in a hotel can make all the difference.
3. Focus on incredible customer service
Customer service plays a critical role in client experience. If you run a restaurant, for example, it doesn’t matter how wonderful the food or wine is if the service is poor. If you had to wait a long time for a drink, your starters arrived cold or the waiting staff was rude, there’s every chance you won’t go back.
As a business owner, you should instill a culture that values customers. Think about how you could make the experience more enjoyable for your clients, and be willing to go above and beyond.
If you’ve got potential buyers wandering around your store, for example, ask if they’d like any help or information or offer to pop the clothes they’re carrying in the fitting room while they finish browsing.
4. Include tailored features
When you run a business, you want your customers to feel special, and you also want to provide a service that is useful and valuable. Offering tailored features is a great way to cater for the needs of individual clients, and also to stand out from the crowd.
If your online clothing store offers a personalized fit service, for example, and you can recommend a size based on previous purchases, a customer may be more likely to shop with you than your competitors.
5. Increase targeted communications
If you have a mailing list or followers on social media, take care to engage in targeted communication with your customers. Clients don’t want to be bombarded with irrelevant offers or discounts that aren’t available to them.
If you are sending out emails or sharing posts on social media, cater it for your audience, get your timing right, and address recipients personally.
If you own a bar, for example, consider sending out a message on a Friday afternoon inviting your customer, Helen, and her friends for happy hour cocktails that evening.
Have you ever stopped to think about the experience with which you provide your customers? Hopefully, this guide will ensure you’re heading in the right direction.