How to enhance customer experience without forking out extra cash

These days, attaining a high standard of customer experience can feel like the holy grail for a company – especially as competition tightens and so customer experience starts to look like the only viable point of differentiation. Still, what if you have exhausted your customer service budget?

The good news is that you don’t strictly need to eke more pounds out of that budget to make a meaningful improvement to customer experience, as the following strategies illustrate.

Show your appreciation upon reaching new customers

Remember: each new customer who approaches your business is someone who could have instead chosen one of many rival companies in your sector. For this reason, you need to show the customer how much you appreciate them, and you can do that by greeting them with a welcome pack.

You don’t need to put too much into that pack; even just a “thank you” message or small gift would forge an instant connection with that customer, says CustomerThink.

Quickly reply to every query or complaint

A good rule of thumb is to prioritise responding to every single query or complaint that your business receives. You shouldn’t allow any exceptions here. It would be especially good practice to reply to messages that don’t obviously call for a response.

Such messages could include a customer enthusing to you about your service. Respond by thanking the customer in a note acknowledging their kind gesture.

Rein in excessive advertising

If a customer agrees to sign up to your mailing – or emailing – list, you shouldn’t exploit that situation by bombarding the customer with advertising. Yes, you naturally have an interest in spreading the word about your offerings, but it’s possible to do that subtly, rather than in a nuisance manner.

If you keep attempting to remind the customer about a product or service you have just unveiled, the customer could react by unsubscribing from your list and maybe even migrating to a competitor.

Endeavour to exceed customers’ expectations

If you don’t want to see any disconcerting discrepancies opening up in your service standards, you should take a proactive approach to looking after customers. In doing that and going “ABCD” (“Above and Beyond the Call of Duty”), you could more easily stand in your customer’s shoes.

Another crucial point to make here: when pledging something to a customer, remember to promise relatively little, making it easier for you to over-deliver and so impress that customer.

Thank your customers – including offline customers

When running a bricks-and-mortar outlet, it’s easy to thank a customer after they have done business with you, as you can verbally show your appreciation just before they leave the premises. Thanking customers effectively is not always as easy offline but remains possible.

For example, you could send a “thank you” in an email, and there are various ways of doing that, as Business 2 Community shows. Alternatively, you could thank even overseas customers over the phone, if you have their number and take advantage of cheap international calls facilitated by Planet Telecom.