No, you don’t have to send them a love letter or red flowers. Strange it may sound, but customers are the most innocent asset of your company. While most businesses focus on introducing groundbreaking innovations to attain customers, it truly isn’t that difficult to attract and engage your target audience. All you need is to serve them in an unbiased manner from beginning to end.
According to a report shared by Criteo, 59% of buyers in the United States shared their negative experiences with someone they know. The same study shows that 68% of buyers have shared positive experiences they had with a company.
Going with the reports, it’s clear that experience is the critical phenomenon that drives user behavior. However, the question is;
How to deliver a seamless experience?
There’s no unanimous definition, and it is mostly dependent on factors like industry, geographical location, target audience, etc. Still, we can consider specific vital points that can be of great help in determining the same.
Though it may sound like rocket science, the truth is, it isn’t. Neither do you need a professional to crack the algorithm, nor you need to have experience in running a successful business. All that’s required is to wear your audiences’ shoes and take steps accordingly. Without spending time further, let’s have a look at them.
1. Presentation
That’s where the first impression is created. Whether it’s your online presence or your product’s packaging, you need to be sure of how you present yourself. Another crucial aspect in this segment is your representatives. Ensure they are humble, respectful, and answer all customer queries in the most professional and friendly way.
With the evolution of technology, one of the most significant barriers that have come in between users and brands is communication. However, if handled carefully, it can be the most prominent pros. Also, don’t leave any stone unturned to offer them a seamless user experience. The same will determine your future bond with them.
2. Transparency
Even if you make your overall presentation flawless, it won’t help you for long if you aren’t transparent. Having said this, besides keeping a seamless communication channel, you must do it with utmost transparency. You need to be open about your brand, history, the team (if required), product/service, features, benefits, etc.
Also, it would help if you shared after-sale conditions with them. This is one of the major points where customers feel ditched. Consider avoiding hidden clauses. Remember, they know the amount they are paying and what they should expect out of it. Hence, be real, be transparent.
Transparency can also be a differentiator to create a powerful customer experience. For example, the team at Solitaire Brain openly blogs about their growth in the number of solitaire games played by new hires, and their roadmap, bringing their customer along for their journey.
3. Educating users
Educating your clients is also an important factor to deliver a seamless experience especially if you’re a freelancer or running your solo business. Your relationship with them will be much healthier and sustainable when your client knows what you’re capable of and what they should expect from you to deliver.
It’s also crucial for your solo business to make them understand that you need contracts and invoices to make this a proper business relationship. With a freelance invoice tool like Rimuut which businesses love to use to get tax-deductible invoices from freelancers they work with, you can make this whole process much easier and safer for both sides.
4. Personalized
Technology has given us numerous ways to interact and engage our target audience; however, despite so much advancement, it still lacks the human touch. Having said this, I intend to highlight the excessive use of bots to serve user queries. They may serve the purpose at the very initial stage, but it’s important that you have a ‘human’ answering and attending to them.
Apart from this, you also need to consider the design and content of your website. It must be relevant to your audience and industry. It has been noticed that most brands lose the personalized essence in an attempt to be creative and stand apart. You don’t have to do it, consider being part of your target audience.
5. Don’t Commit
While this may sound negative to most of you, but it’s still better than making wrong commitments. It has been noticed that to make a sale, brands tend to over-commit. This may be through your marketing campaigns or those done by your sales team. It can be related to features of your products, after-sale service, or some discount.
Any form of false commitment made by you may help you gain tremendous attention and create ‘milestones,’ but this won’t be for long. Soon you’ll begin to earn hatred from your customers and end up losing your market goodwill faster than the pace at which you earned it. And yes, this will be for a prolonged duration.
6. Support
Though last on our list but not the least. Most brands entertain and take buyers seriously only till the time they are prospective and conversion hasn’t happened. Meaning the sale is yet to be made. Once the conversion is made, they don’t pay much attention or fail to be as prompt as they should be. It isn’t about this being intentional or unintentional, we just don’t add it to the list.
Remember, retaining a customer is the most challenging yet resourceful thing to do. Keep after-sale support as one of your primary focuses, and ensure that your team counts it as a verse from the Bible. It is only then you’d be able to make a space ahead of your competitors. To do that you can conduct a Q&A session, online webinar and collect feedback to help them better.
Signing Off
Technology has made it very competitive for brands to sustain and grow in the market. While on one side, it has given vast exposure to brands, users have equal options to make a decision. And this isn’t confined to making a purchase but also in deciding it.
If you closely analyze the points mentioned above, the entire customer journey should be in front of you. This includes acquisition, engagement, conversion, and retention. Before leaving, I would ask you to prioritize the points mentioned above as part of your default modus operandi and adhere to them on every step. By doing this, you can stay assured of surpassing your competitors impeccably.