Category Archives: Customer experience

How the customer experience (CX) is evolving in 2022

The customer experience is every interaction that a customer has with your business, from the very first time they find your website, shop, or social media pages, to every time they comment or like what you do, right up to making a purchase or working with you.

It’s something that continually evolves, and since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, it’s developed faster than every before. During the various lockdowns, we all had to adapt our businesses to cope with being more visible online…and customers have found that they like the services that businesses started to offer during this time and want it to continue.

For the rest of 2022 and into 2023, there are several things you can do to ensure that your business evolves to match those new customer experience trends.

The Digital Experience

These days people use technology more than ever to find what they want – most of us reach for our phones to look at things we want to buy. We can see what the best products are, compare prices and look at reviews to see which is the best to buy. If you’re a small business and not online in several places, you’re missing a trick.

The obvious one is to have a website. I know that many small businesses have online shops, such as Etsy, to sell their products, but at the end of the day, you don’t own that shop. You must pay high fees and the owners of Etsy could shut you down whenever they want.

Whereas, if you have your own website, you own it. No one can take it away from you and you can put so much more information about your business on it – you’re not just restricted to a shop. As well as being able to tell your backstory through your ‘About’ page, you can also set up an email subscription to communicate regularly with your customers and set up a blog to share information with them. It’s more personal.

Your social media accounts are also useful to gain a following and promote your products or services. You can also promote your website, blog, or email subscription, with links to your website.

Consumers expect you to be on these channels and they are the best way to engage and interact with your customers and potential customers.

Be personal

Another positive for the customer experience is personalisation. They like personalised experiences when they engage with a business. And not just greeting them by name in emails etc, or remembering birthdays, they want more than that. They expect to be able to contact businesses on their terms – using email, chat, voice calls, messaging etc. They want their enquiry answered in a timely way and don’t want to waste their time waiting or having to repeat themselves.

Customer expectations

As things have evolved to a more digital world, customer expectations have grown. And if you make any kind of promise to a customer, they will expect it to happen quickly.

How do you find out what their expectations are? Ask them! Put questions on your social media pages to find out what they like and don’t like.

You could send out a link to a survey…and offer a discount in exchange for completing it.

It also helps to look at your competition to see what they’re doing and how they interact with their customers. If you run the same, or a similar business to that of your competitors, your customers will have similar problems.

Identify customers’ pain points

To turn your customers into fans and advocates for your business, you must exceed expectations. Look at the pain points that your customers have and find out how you can address them with what you do.

Some common pain points include shipping, returns, sizing and being able to easily contact you. By looking at these and other pain points, you can exceed expectations and create very happy customers, who will recommend you.

Your customers put positive experiences above everything else, as you can see from some of the latest statistics below.

The Omnichannel experience

Omnichannel simply means lots of different channels – social media, website, email, chat etc.

To maximise this experience for your customers, ensure that you are consistent across all channels – that branding and the way you speak and interact is the same. And that your customer service is excellent and exceeds expectations on all channels.

Data Security and privacy

Another thing that customers are very aware of these days is data security and privacy. There is so much on the news and online about this that most people know they have certain rights.

The emphasis on data security and privacy is only going to increase over the coming months and years. As your customers share more personal data, businesses must adhere to the General Data Protection Regulations, (GDPR) relevant to the country you trade in, as well as the countries you sell to.

You should ensure that you have a privacy policy and clearly you’re your data practices in that policy. You need to ensure that you are clear about your purpose and processes for collecting and storing customer data.

You need to have your customers’ consent to email them – most email subscriptions include an opt-in, where customers willingly give their name and email address, so they are consenting to you sending emails.

Never share your customers’ data with third parties or sell lists of customers email addresses.

You can find out more about GDPR online for your country, but here are a couple of useful links.

GDPR UK

GDPR EU 

Top tips for a great customer experience

Businesses with great customer experiences have higher customer referral rates and higher rates of customer satisfaction. This means you’re more likely to keep those customers’ loyalty and they’re more likely to come back for more. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can have – your customers do the marketing for you, saving you time and money.

In today’s market, you not only need to compete on price, but you also need to compete on experiences, that is, your customers want to feel emotionally connected to you and your business.

Here are some of my top tips for creating that great customer experience:

  • Every business should have a mission statement and set goals. Make the customer experience part of your mission statement and have specific goals to enhance that experience.
  • Be friendly – whether you are talking to customers face to face, or via video call or phone, SMILE! Believe it or not, you can hear that friendly smile. If you’re face to face, make eye contact. And always use warm, friendly language and tone of voice.
  • Have empathy for your customers. Do your best to understand them and what they want. Make the experience they have with your business, the best!
  • Provide value – by this I don’t mean that your products should be cheaper than everyone else’s. I mean deliver the best value you can, at the right price for your customers. Make sure your prices are easy to find and are visible – people don’t have to go looking – they’ll just log out. Make the sales process as quick, efficient, and easy as you can.
    Make sure that your shop or website is easy to navigate and doesn’t take ages to load – or you will lose customers.
  • Be easy to contact. This speaks for itself. Make sure that your contact details are on every channel you use…be that your phone number, email address or chat box.
  • Be consistent with everything you do and never stop looking for ways to improve. Listen to your customers, take note of any feedback you get and act on it.
  • Finally, show your appreciation for your customers. Sometimes a simple ‘thank you’ is enough, whether that is face to face or via email.

I hope that this article has been helpful – if you have any further suggestions or have any questions, please feel free to comment below. Alternatively, you can email me at cindymobey@outlook.com or contact me via my website.

The customer journey that wins customers

It doesn’t matter if you’re a big company, or a small business, we all must think about what our customers want and how we get them from that first stage, where they’ve just heard about your business, to the purchase and advocacy stage.

This is called the customer journey, and by making a journey map, you can plan your customers’ route, ensuring you meet their needs along the way. Does this sound complicated? Are you glazing over? It’s not as complicated as it sounds.

Knowing what your customers want

The first stage starts before your customers even know you exist. This is the part where you do your research to find out what people want and need from a business like yours…and knowing your ideal customer.

Let’s take sports trainers as an example. You could say that your ideal market is everyone, but it’s important to niche down to a narrower market in order for you to be able to target them with your content. So, are you going to concentrate on comfort, or go for pure fashion? Are you going to target younger people or older people? What colours do you want to go for? What style? So, before you can look at the customer journey, you need to know exactly who your customers are. You can do this by looking at your current customers, look at the insights on your social media pages and the analytics from your website.

Build a few buyer personas, so you know what your customers like, what they want and what makes them buy.

Stages of the customer journey

Stage 1 – Awareness

This is where your customers first hear about your business or have their first experience of what you offer. They see this largely through your marketing. It might be they google a product of yours and it appears on a search engine like Google. Google could point them to your website or online shop, it might show them your business profile on Google, or show your social media pages.

They may see a physical flyer, pick up your business card at an event, see an advert in a local magazine, or it might be someone you get talking to, who asks what you do. They also may hear about you through word of mouth from their friends or relatives.

Where and how you market your business will depend on their age and lifestyle, so that’s why knowing your target market is so important. If you are marketing to an older audience, for example, some of your marketing would probably be through Facebook. But if your audience is much younger, you would use as many social media channels as you can, especially TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The younger generation spend most of their free time online, so that’s where you’re most likely to find them.

Typically, people must be exposed to your business at least eight times before they start to recognise it, so it’s not a quick process.

Stage 2 – Consideration

This is where your potential customers are looking at what you have to offer and are thinking about whether your products or services fit the bill for them. Do you solve a problem they have and are you the person to go with over others they’ve seen?

Basically, are you worth investing in?

Your customer reviews and testimonials are what makes a difference in this stage. They want to see social proof that you’re as good as they’ve heard you are.

This is also where blogs come into their own – articles that potential customers can read that give proof that you know your stuff. The same applies to email newsletters. They may even sign up to your newsletter months before they become a customer.

The other thing that influences potential buyers at this stage is what they can see. Good images of your products, with good descriptions, telling them the benefits of your products – how they help, what they do and how potential customers can’t live without it! How will your product or service make their lives better?

So, good images and video on your website, online shop and social media are crucial.

Stage 3 –   Purchase

They’ve liked what they’ve seen, are convinced you are the right person to buy from and they go to your website or online shop to buy.

At this stage, it’s vital that your website or shop is easy to navigate, that it’s easy to pay for what they want, and everything is crystal clear as to what they can expect from you.

If they ask questions at this stage, getting a timely answer is an absolute must. Customer service is also an important part of the customer experience and their journey and can make the difference between getting that actual purchase or them going away and never returning.

Stage 4 – Service

Service is about going that extra mile for your customers. That age-old adage that says the customer is always right must come into play here, whether you agree or not. If your customer service hits the mark, you won’t go far wrong.

Things like a quick and efficient delivery service, securely and nicely packaged. You can’t always control the postal service and delivery times, but so long as you get an order out quickly and stay connected with your customer, this will go a long way to enhancing their customer experience.

If something does go wrong, don’t try, and hide it – be up front with your customer and admit to any mistakes and take immediate steps to rectify it. This is where communication is key – replying to emails, replying to complaints quickly, trying to resolve any issues to keep things running smoothly.

Similarly, if you have customers who are happy and tell you they are happy with your service, reply to them too and thank them for their comments. Always reply to every comment on your social media posts, every email you receive and reply to any message you get on social media. If you come across as genuine and friendly, and as a business who really cares and values its customers, things will go well.

Stage 5 – Loyalty

Loyalty is as it suggests – encouraging customers to be loyal to your brand and business. It’s about encouraging them to come back for more.

Gaining new customers is something we all aspire to, but retaining your existing customers is also crucial to the success of your business. So how do you keep that loyalty?

Send thank you cards with their order and maybe offer a small discount for their next order or add in a little small gift.

Introduce a loyalty scheme, with a card, so each time they buy from you, they get points. When they reach a certain number of points or have bought from you a certain number of times, they get a free gift, or a voucher valued at a certain amount that they can spend on your products or services.

Don’t ignore your customers once they have the product they’ve ordered. Leave it a couple of weeks, then message them to ask how they’re getting on with your product and how it’s working for them. Don’t be afraid to ask for a review.

Quite naturally, we don’t always think to leave a review if we’re happy with something – people typically only think about reviews if they have a bad experience. Sometimes a little prompt is all they need to leave a review on your social media page or website.

Invite them to follow you on social media, read your blogs or sign up to your newsletter.

Stage 6 – Advocacy

Advocacy – where the customer becomes your fan and tells everyone about how wonderful your products and services are. They use their experience with you and your business to shape other potential customers’ opinions. They might comment on your posts or share posts on social media.

They might talk about this amazing product they’ve bought from you to their friends and family, or they might give great stories about how your service is one of the best they’ve come across.

How customers behave at this advocacy stage is dependent on how they were treated in the other stages. Often it’s down to the overall customer experience they had with you, your brand, and your business.

And there you have it – the customer journey in seven steps. If you’d like help with any of these stages, or want help with identifying your target market, so you are hitting the ground running, give me a call or email me. I’m always happy to help.

What makes your customers buy from you?

Understanding consumer behaviour

Have you ever wondered what makes some people choose one type of product and another person choose another? For example, why someone would prefer to buy a designer handbag, whereas someone else is happy with one she bought from a local small business. What drives our choices?

Studying consumer behaviour is fascinating, as I’ve found by researching this article. So, what is consumer behaviour?

It’s the study of how people buy, use, acquire and dispose of goods and services. It’s not just about buying either, it could be they acquire goods through bartering, lending or leasing. Behaviour can be affected by how much they use the goods they buy. For example, if someone buys a can of drink, it is consumed just the once, but if they buy a laptop or tablet, it would be used over a period of time. Buying behaviour depends on how much that product is used.

Consumers are also influenced by others, through reviews. If a product has great reviews, or if a consumer’s friends are raving about how good a product is, they are likely to buy it. But, if their friends are really slating a product, or it gets negative reviews, they probably wouldn’t buy it.  

There are several factors that influence how consumers make their buying choices. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about five of them…

  • Psychological
  • Social
  • Cultural
  • Personal
  • Economic

All of these factors can be split down further.

Psychological factors

How someone feels about a particular product when they are presented with it will depend on their state of mind. Their state of mind will determine not just how they feel about the item itself, but also about the brand as a whole.

Social factors

Most of us want to be accepted socially, and this can affect buying habits. In order to be socially accepted, some people will mimic others, including copying what they buy.

Family, friends, work colleagues or other groups will play an important part in the way people see different products or services. These groups all help to influence buying behaviours.

Cultural factors  

Culture is not just defined by a person’s nationality. It can also be defined by who they associate with, religious beliefs or even people living in the same geographical location.

Personal factors

Personal factors include age, occupation, marital status, budget, personal beliefs, values and morals.

Economic factors

Consumers are affected by the economic condition of a country. This is evident at the moment with inflation at an all time high – people can’t afford to buy too many luxuries, as they have to concentrate on paying the bills, putting fuel in the car and buying food.

Economic factors include personal income and how much disposable income is left after everything has been paid each month. It also includes family income – again, what’s left over that the family can enjoy.

Consumer credit is another factor. People have credit cards so can buy goods when they want to. Consumers are more likely to buy luxury and comfort goods if they have access to higher credit, or can pay through a credit card, easy instalments or bank loans. I’m not saying this is good – it’s just a factor.

    

The Five stages of the consumer buying process

Now you understand the factors that influence the buying process, lets look at the five stages people go through when deciding to buy.

  1. The problem. A consumer notices they have a problem they want to solve. This could be anything from needing to get a new outfit for a special event, to buying a new tap for their sink.
  2. Research – the next stage is to research how to fix their problem. This might be trawling the internet for recommendations, or to look at various sites that sell what they’re after. It might be talking to a friend or family member for their advice.
  3. Find a solution – once they have all the information they need, they can start comparing brands and looking at reviews to help them decide on a solution.
  4. Buy a product – the consumer makes a decision and decides to spend their money on the solution they’ve chosen.
  5. Review the product – some consumers will leave a review about the product they’ve bought – some won’t. Either way, they will still personally review the product and decide whether they would recommend it to others…and whether they’d buy from that brand again.    

The four types of buyers

It’s also worth knowing about the four different types of buyers, so you can market your products or services accordingly. The four types are different, based on what motivates them to buy.

  1. The analytical buyer – this person is motivated by logic and needs to have lots of information. They want to look at all the data on the different brands and different types of products available before making an informed decision.
  2. The amiable buyer – this person is warm and friendly and just wants everyone to be happy. They can often be stumped by having to make big decisions, especially if there is a perception of a win/lose outcome.
  3. The driver buyer – this type of buyer is really concerned with how others view them, and whether they should follow the trend setters. Drivers are most concerned with their appearance rather than the relationships that are formed during a transaction.
  4. The expressive buyer – this buyer is driven by relationships. They hate the feeling of isolation and don’t like being ignored during a transaction. They like to feel as though they are your most important asset.

This being said about the four types of buyer, it’s difficult to put everyone into one category – people will often fall into a combination of the four.

Conclusion

As you can see, consumer behaviour is influenced by many things; psychological, social, cultural, personal and economic.

It’s also worth knowing the buying process and the types of buyers – this can help you figure out how you can reach and influence the people that are most likely to buy your products.

If you’d like to take a more in-depth look at your customers and target market, get in touch for a free discovery call.

15 Key Customer Service Skills

We all know that excellent customer service is good for your business, whether you’re a huge corporate, or a small business. No matter what you do, your customers are what makes your business work, so it’s crucial to look after them and make them feel valued.

According to Dimensional Research, 52% of consumers say that they have made an additional purchase from a company after a positive customer service experience. And that 90% of customers are influenced by positive reviews when buying a product.

So, what key customer service skills do you need to possess to make your business stand out?

Patience

They say that ‘Patience is a virtue’ and I’m a firm believer in this. It isn’t the easiest of skills to master, but patience will help you and your customer. It’s very important to hear what your customers have to say; they might be frustrated about something, or just simply confused. They might ask totally irrelevant questions, but it is absolutely crucial to keep calm, hear them out and then try and work through their issues together.

Active listening

Active listening is closely linked to patience. Don’t just hear what your customers are saying – listen carefully and, if necessary, repeat back to them what they’ve just said to you. This demonstrates that you’re listening and understand what they want or what issue they have.

Respect

Hand in hand with patience and active listening is respect. This might seem obvious, but important to remember. Respect is about treating your customers as you would like to be treated. You’d want the person on the end of the phone or email to solve your problem, be polite and actually do something. You can show respect by:

  • Using their name
  • Don’t interrupt them when they’re speaking
  • If you are face to face, look at them when they’re speaking.
  • If you’re on the phone, don’t be checking emails or scrolling your phone, give them your full attention and SMILE! It really does come over the air waves!
  • Wait until they have finished talking or telling you their problem before responding – then summarise what they’ve said and offer a solution.
  • If you can’t offer an immediate solution or alternative, tell them that you will investigate and get back to them.
  • Get back to them in a timely manner – when you said you would!

Self-Control

You are going to get a range of customers calling your business. Some will be happy and calm, will speak in a low voice. Some will be excitable and speak loudly and quickly; and inevitably, you will get the angry customer who shouts and yells, using harsh words – maybe even using expletives to insult you or your business personally.

This is the time to exercise self-control. This is not an easy skill to master, but it’s absolutely vital, especially with the shouting and yelling customer!  Don’t interrupt or tell them you’re not prepared to listen to them – they might just want to be heard and the only way they know how is to shout. Even though they are shouting, try to listen to the actual problem they have encountered. When they have finished, take a couple of deep breaths and then respond. Apologise if necessary and ask them how you can resolve their problem – ascertain what they want. Tell them that you understand their issue and repeat it back to them. Then, in a calm voice, try and discuss a solution that is good for them and for you and your business. You might have to offer an alternative product or service. They might want a refund or replacement. Whatever it is, there is usually a solution to be found, by talking it through with them.

Genuine concern

It’s well-known that showing genuine concern for your customers’ well-being is one of the most important good customer service skills. Concern for your customer is linked to being concerned for the reputation of your business. If you are not concerned about the success of your business and your businesses reputation, you’re not going to be very concerned about the happiness of your customers. They are inextricably linked.

Use positive language. Language and how you say something to a customer plays a big role in delivering excellent customer service. For example, if a customer contacts you to ask about ordering a particular product, but you don’t have any in stock

Negative response – That product isn’t in stock, so unavailable at the moment.

Positive response – We will be restocking that product next week, so I’ll contact you as soon as it’s available.

It’s a very subtle change in language, but makes all the difference to a customer.

Be flexible

It’s important to be flexible when dealing with customers. You may have a policy that says you don’t give away a free product or service, or you don’t do refunds. But there are times when this will be necessary to resolve an issue. If you find you have to bend the rules from time to time to keep your customers happy, it’s not a failure on your part. It can turn an unhappy customer into a future loyal customer – one who tells their friends and family how great you are and how you solved their problem, so worth keeping that in mind.

Communication Skills

This goes without saying really, but thought I’d add this into the mix. Communication is more than the words that you use – it also involves body language, facial expressions and tone of voice, to name a few. These can be very important when dealing with a customer who is not happy. 

  • Keep your body relaxed
  • Show genuine concern on your face
  • Keep your voice calm and neutral
  • Use positive language – words such as can, will, help and resolve are great words to use to help diffuse a situation.

Time Management Skills

It’s always important to be aware of the time you are spending with a customer. If you are finding that a particular customer is just too demanding, or you find you can’t resolve their problem, you need to recognise your limitations. It might be that they are not a good fit for you and your business. There is no shame in admitting this and referring them to someone who will be a better fit. This will save you both time and money in the long run. And that customer will respect you for solving their problem by referring them to someone who can help them.

Handling the unexpected

No matter how long you’ve been in business, there will at times be an element of surprise. At some point, you will face an unexpected situation, so always worth thinking about this so you have a plan.

Now, I have no idea what you might face with your business, but it’s worth knowing what you’ll do if you are faced with something you don’t know how to handle. I would ask the customer for a contact name and number, then make sure I completely understand the situation and tell them that I’ll come back to them. I always give them a specific time – even if I say, ‘I’ll ring you between 10 and 12 tomorrow morning’. This gives them confidence that you’ll look into their issue and gives you time to think about it and work out how you can solve it.

Just ensure that you do get back to them at the time you said you would. If you haven’t been able to get them an answer by that time, still ring them. Be honest and say that you are working on the problem, but it’s taking longer than you expected and give them a new time that you’ll ring to let them know the answer.

Responsibility

Responsibility links in with the element of surprise. If you take responsibility for the problem, your customer will respect and trust you in future. Get involved, be honest with them and stay with the problem until you resolve it.

Persuasion Skills

You will have customers who will be happy with the solution you offer. And there will, inevitably, be some that won’t. This is where persuasive techniques come in. Sometimes, a customer will want to know more about a product or service in more detail before buying. Persuasive skills will be giving them more details and turning that into why the product or service is suitable for them (if it is of course). This will obviously be beneficial to your business too.

You might need to use your persuasive abilities to illustrate exactly why the solution you offer is the best for them. You many need to offer an alternative offer – or try to explain in a different way. 

Improves your brand image

Your company brand is linked to your reputation. Part of earning that reputation with your customers is by doing things well, no matter how hard they might be.

Customer service sets the tone for your whole brand. First impressions really count and a helpful attitude assists in shaping that first impression. Everyone likes to have a positive customer experience and friendly, honest customer service. A good communications strategy will help you and your business to be seen as caring and one that really values its customers and their opinions. It should cover everything from how to talk to your customers and how that aligns with your brand and business strategy.

Feedback

Never underestimate the power of your customers. Customer servicing calls can give you valuable feedback about your business. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. For example, if you are made aware of an issue, you can ask for your customers’ opinions, through feedback surveys, social media and emails. These tools can serve two purposes; gathering feedback about a potential solution and getting you positive reviews and feedback that you can use to promote your business.  

Asking for opinions makes customers feel valued and can help improve your customer retention. If you use their opinions and suggestions, they will become brand advocates.

Measuring customer satisfaction, through the use of surveys, social media polls etc., help you keep an eye on your customers’ overall experience with your business and brand. You can often deal with a potential problem before it becomes an issue.    

Ability to close

I don’t mean closing a sale here. I’m talking about ending a conversation with a customer. Sometimes a customer just wants to chat and can go completely off subject. You need to be able to steer the conversation back to the point. Only end your conversation after you have solved the problem, or told them that you’ll find a solution and get back to them.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and treat their problem as yours. The customer needs to be aware that you care, value their opinion and they need to be confident that you will deal with whatever they throw at you.

Conclusion

It is well-known that customers are more loyal to those businesses that show transparency in everything they do. And they don’t mind paying a bit more if they are confident in your business and its transparency.

Excellent customer service promotes trust and loyalty; customers are more likely to try other products or services that you offer and they are more likely to recommend your business to their friends and family.     

User Generated Content ideas

User generated content (UGC) is the original content that is created by your audience. It can be anything from comments or reviews on your blog or social media site, to images and videos.

According to the Nielsen Consumer Trust Index, 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content more than they trust traditional advertising. This is probably because UGC is not paid for by the brand and created by your audience, so it is unbiased and seen as more trustworthy and genuine. It acts as social proof and helps you to grow your following, strengthen relationships with your clients, helps with SEO and can boost sales.

Here are a few ways to use user generated content for your business.

Credibility

When potential customers want to buy something, most like to look at product reviews before taking the plunge. Reviews show them that your product or service is reliable. Ratings and reviews can help increase traffic to your website, which ultimately can help grow your business and encourage those potential customers to buy from you.

I would advise every business to encourage customers to leave reviews wherever possible. You can ask them to leave reviews on your website, social media page, or on your Google My Business page.  

You can also give an incentive to get more reviews, by offering something like a discount or gift card. Send an email with incentive keywords in your subject line to encourage customers to open them.

If you get a negative review, don’t ignore it. Treat it as an opportunity to turn the customer round and gain their trust. Always reply personally to show that you care about their experience and try to solve the problem they’ve highlighted. If you do turn them around, they will then recommend you to their friends and family.

Host a contest

One way to get customer content is to host a contest on social media. You can even create a unique contest hashtag and get followers to contribute to the hashtag. Users could share their photos or videos accompanied by your specific hashtag to win a prize. If enough of your followers do this, it can push your hashtag to trend, which will not only build engagement with your target audience, but also build awareness of your brand and boost sales.

If you do decide to do this, just keep in mind that your hashtag needs to be simple and not difficult to spell…and also use one that sets you and your business apart from your competitors. And don’t forget to start using your new hashtag in all your own posts.  

Video

Video is a fantastic way to create user generated content. Video has such great potential for sharing and there is a higher possibility that video content will go viral.

User generated video give your audience a new perspective on your brand, which not only boosts your credibility, it also illustrates that your brand is genuine as these are the videos of real customers…not something you’ve created yourself.

Use events and holidays    

There are loads of different holiday seasons and individual days in the calendar, from Christmas and Easter, to Valentine’s Day or just summer! You could also choose to use a major event.

These holidays or events gives you an opportunity to engage with your customers and connect with them. This gives your followers the chance to share images or videos, use your hashtags, take part in a competition or even write a testimonial and share it with their friends.  

A few years ago, a major coffee chain launched a campaign during December. They produced a branded coffee cup with a Christmas theme and asked for inspiring and innovative photos with their cup in the photo. There was a prize of a gift card…and of course, in order to take part, customers had to buy the cup first. They were inundated with photos, which were really imaginative and published them on their website. Customers absolutely loved coming up with really innovative ideas, they loved seeing their entry on the website, (which of course they shared with their friends) and the coffee brand sold loads of coffee. All for a very simple idea.

Have a think about what you could come up with for your business.  

Recap

User generated content acts as social proof and helps you grow your following, strengthen relationships with your clients, helps with SEO and help boost sales.

Have you ever done this? If you have, I’d love to know how you got on. If not, why not try it out. Again, I’d love to hear all about it. Please comment below and share your story.   

How to solve your customers’ pain points

A customer pain point is a specific problem experienced by your customers at every interaction they have with you and your business.

If you want to build credibility in your brand and gain your customers, and potential customers’ trust, you need to understand their journey and what keeps them happy. If you can find your customers’ pain points, earn their trust, and solve that pain point for them, they will know that you care about them and they will be happy.

You’ll also be one step ahead of your competition!

Different types of pain points

Generally customer pain points fall into four different areas, no matter how big or small those problems are.

Support

Support issues are probably the easiest to resolve. Customers expect to have a certain standard of support from businesses they deal with these days. Whether they have a problem with one of your products, a query related to one of your products or just want more information, they expect to be able to contact you and get the answer quickly.

Some of the most common support issues are those of delayed response, lack of product knowledge, or your business is simply not on your customers’ preferred channel of communication.

These few simple problems can impact your customer retention and also the loyalty they have to your business.

And it’s so simply to resolve. Have options!

Delayed response

This could be solved by ensuring that emails/texts/messages etc., are looked at in a timely manner – look at them on a regular basis a few times a day.

Lack of product knowledge

This refers more to having employees – make sure that your employees know all about your products. Provide cheat sheets if necessary, so they know all the ins and outs of everything you sell.

Put good descriptions of your products on your website and give customers the option of contacting you if they have any problems or questions.

Preferred channel of communication

As well as having email/text/messenger, you could also use some of the more recent tools like live chat and AI chatbots. These allow them to speak to someone in real time.

Finally, always give a contact telephone number, where customers can speak to a person directly, or ask them to leave a message with their number and you will return their call within an hour….AND DO IT!  

Productivity

Productivity pain points often come about because customers expect to have a straight forward and easy experience when they contact a business. They don’t want to spend a lot of time on anything they see as frustrating or inconvenient.

It might be that a product is not how they want it to be, or expect it to be – some kind of inconvenience in using the product. Or it could be that there is some kind of problem with the buying process.

In order to solve this problem, it’s important to convince your customers that your product saves time and effort. This can be achieved by using images and good product descriptions, which explain your product’s features and benefits and exactly how they work and gives value. It could be as easy as having fewer steps in your checkout process.

Financial

The third pain point is financial. This is about the pain of spending money on their business that ends up putting them under financial pressure. This could be through spending a lot on subscription fees or membership fees. Or perhaps paying a lot on repeat purchases. Sometimes, products are advertised as being made to last, but in reality they have to be replaced frequently.

Transparency about pricing also comes into this area. Are there any fees that are hidden that are added on at checkout? Or, perhaps fees go up dramatically and this isn’t made clear.

If you have customers with any of these pain points, your goal could be to show your customers what value they receive when using and choosing your products over your competitors. Also, if they pay a subscription or membership fee, that the value, information and advice they receive is worth every penny. Lastly, be transparent about pricing, then customers know exactly what to expect and there are no surprises.  

Process

A process pain point is about how your business interacts with your customers through your processes. This could be as simple as they can’t get through to the right department when they need to, or that when they submit an order or application for something, that the process is not streamlined enough.

This could be a simple matter of streamlining communication processes to be sure that any queries are answered by the right people at the right time. Make it easier for your customers to contact you and ensure that your products/services are easier to use.  

How do you find out what your customers’ pain points are?

If you don’t know what your pain points are, how can you solve them? It’s important to find out…but how?

Conduct research

There are several ways to conduct research.

  • If you have an email list, you could send out a survey to find out if there are any pain points. Questions would need to be specific and written around the four different types of pain points.
  • Have a look at your sales pitch. Is there something missing?
  • You will have regular customers, but have you had customers that don’t come back for more? Look at your complaints or feedback. There may be a little nugget of information that you’ve missed – a throw-away comment that could give you an insight into why they haven’t come back for more.
  • In the same way, look at all your online reviews. Are there any clues into any potential pain points?
  • Hopefully, you will have worked on a few buyer personas, but there may be other audiences that you could reach, but you just don’t know why those people don’t resonate with your brand. Do some research on your competitors. If you know that your competitors reach a certain audience that you currently don’t, analyse what they do, and how their products or services reach those people.   
  • Look at how your customers interact with your brand. Are there things you could improve? Check that links work on your website and social media. Are you easy to contact?

Customer pain points can be a massive hurdle to you being successful. And finding your customer pain points is not necessarily easy to pinpoint. But, in order to get your customers’ attention and make them want to do business with you, buy repeat products, and use your services etc., it’s crucial to know what those pain point are.

If you can base your products and services on pain points…eliminating as many as you can, your customers will have more reasons to do business with you and there will be less obstacles in the way.