Lucy - BQ Magazine EditorAs a business, it’s important you always do what you can to beat customer expectations. You want to make sure they not only fall in love with your product but enjoy every step of the customer journey. For their experience (and the chances of them re-ordering from you) begins long before the product is delivered to their door. Instead, they will remember and rate it from the moment they click on your website or interact with your brand. This journey will continue on until they’ve used the product and formed an opinion, extending to if they need to speak to your customer service team about a fault. So what can you do to go above and beyond and really make sure they like your brand? In this article, we take a look at some top tips.
Have an easy-to-use website
The first thing you need to focus on when trying to exceed customer expectations for a business is your website. This is basically your storefront so if it doesn’t entice them in, help them find everything they’re looking for and offer a seamless shopping experience, it’s just not worth it. You want a website to be modern and have all the necessary features such as a search tool, sort and filter button and live chat for customer service, but you also want it to be simple to navigate. There’s no point having all the bells and whistles if the fundamentals don’t work.
Ensure your customer service is up to scratch
Customer service is the epitome of any good business and by providing your customers with a great experience you can rest assured they will want to work with you again. Customer service includes things such as dealing with complaints efficiently and effectively and answering any questions or queries that customers might have promptly. You should ensure you have a consistent tone of voice throughout and that this is the same in all social media posts etc. If you receive emails, have a policy that they’re replied to within 48 hours but try and do it quicker, having an automatic reply to acknowledge you’ve received their mail and try to manage expectations.
Focus on the experience
Experience is everything and if you don’t provide your customers with something positive, chances are that they won’t be coming back to you in a hurry. You want to provide a product that fits their needs, but also an experience that is positive right from the off. By combining a good website, an impressive social media strategy, clever marketing, good branding, innovative packaging and a follow-up on their experience, they’ll feel like you do care. It’s the same things that all add up and make for an overall opinion of your business. It’s this opinion that can help you bring in new customers via word of mouth and ensure they do repeat business with you in the future too.
Ensure the shipping time is good
In this day and age, everyone wants something straight away. No longer are people happy to wait days on end in order to receive their item. With this in mind, it’s a good idea to ensure you have a quick shipping time for orders. If you have orders based on subscriptions for example, it’s vital you work with a good subscription box fulfillment company that can get your orders done quickly, and efficiently and please your customers when they come through the door.
Deal with any concerns straight away
While no business wants to receive a complaint or bad review, if you do experience this, you must deal with it efficiently. The way you show you deal with this can make or break a customer experience. Deal with it with grace, always be polite and remember the (sometimes agonizing) rule that the customer is always right. Reply publicly to any negative reviews and show what you’re going to do to make the situation right.
These are just a few ways you can go above and beyond customer expectations when you provide a product. You want to ensure your business is always held in high regard and that people remember you for the positive experience they had. This way you will not only get repeat business from them, but also from word of mouth spreading to other people. What are some top tips you have on how to go above and beyond customer expectations when providing a product? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.