In this article we look at some examples of customer experience and how they help companies’ business growth.
We will see why offering a good experience to your customer is one of the key activities to make business more effective in the long run.
Through proper “customer experience” we can generate strong and lasting relationships with people regardless of whether they are leads or customers.
Examples of customer experience: at the Restaurant
Congratulations Mr. Cremonesi for your elegance…..
Come on but how cool is it to be welcomed like that. Well, yes. But let’s start in stages.
Sunday night I was to have dinner with friends in Lake Como.
As is often the case, I was responsible for choosing the location and related booking.
And that’s how, when I arrived at the restaurant, not only was I graciously greeted by the dining manager, but he added a compliment.
How elegant Mr. Cremonesi is.
Beware that this step is no small one.
Not only did he compliment me but … he also added my last name, projecting me, if only for a moment, to center stage.
I was not a reservation, I was not a number-I was Mr. Cremonesi.
This aspect is extremely important.
Making our customers experience positive feelings makes them feel important, gratified. At the center of our attention.
Let us always remember that customers expect positive experiences from us!
As Maya Angelou said in one of her famous quotes,“I learned that people may forget what you said, people may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
If you think about it to Luca, the waiter who welcomed me to the restaurant, it didn’t cost anything, but it generated a pleasant feeling.
Examples of customer experience: from the Barbershop
Andrew Parrucchieri & Barbershop in Saronno is certainly an emblematic case of the customer experience.
Don’t just call him a Barber, that would be reductive and unkind to Andrew.
Because he is not just a Barber and Hairdresser. He is an artist.
His tools? Scissors, combs, razor blades, brushes, creams and lots and lots of pampering.
If you have a hectic life, or like yours truly you work 70 hours a week, you probably want to take time for yourself from time to time. I call them “the little personal pampering.”
Customer focus is crystal clear: “By appointment only.” Andrew is not interested in making numbers.
This was immediately clear to me when, 15 days ago, seeing no one in the chair, I walked in and the response was “a Client is coming in shortly and I don’t want to keep him waiting, could you kindly make an appointment?”
I think this is the key element.
How many times do we enter a restaurant, where we have reserved a table and have to wait 20 minutes because our table has been given “temporarily” to other people?
Or how many times at the dentist, hairdresser, beautician, various outlets do we wait 20 to 30 minutes because appointments have “overlapped”?
That is, they took more than they actually could satisfy!
An entrepreneur must inevitably make ends meet. This cannot be at the expense of “good and fair service” to the Customer.
For all these reasons, I appreciated and esteemed Andrew from the first moment.
He was willing to lose a Client in order not to displease an already acquired one.
Unfortunately, the opposite is often the case.
Think of telephone companies. They give rock-bottom rates to new customers and keep “full” rates to incumbent customers. Absurd!
Examples of customer experience: The Pellini Caffè website
Let me preface this by saying that I love this Brand and perhaps because of that, it saddens me to see some things not working from a marketing and customer experience perspective.
If I tell you Pellini Caffè what comes to mind?
Personally, the advertisement featuring a beautiful woman who has a small mole in the shape of a coffee bean.
From the point of view of market positioning, Pellini Caffè is definitely a strong, important brand with its own personality.
A company that invests and has invested so much in marketing to get … where it has gotten.
My father would say , “I’m also on television.”
This is why I cannot understand, or rather, accept, that such a company would make such trivial strategic mistakes.
A couple of months ago, in the midst of Covid, I decided to get a De’Longhi coffee machine, Magnifica model, for the office.
One of those that grind coffee beans at the moment. It was the time when you couldn’t go out and I had a great desire to make cappuccino in the morning.
I must say that the De’Longhi machine works really well. During the purchase process made on Amazon, I also bought two packs of Pellini coffee beans.
Last weekend I decided to make a new coffee purchase. I thought Pellini is an Italian brand, why buy the product on Amazon?
I said to myself. If they have e-commerce I will buy it directly from them, even if it costs a little bit more.
I think it is crucial to support Italian companies and in this period even more so.
Arriving at the site, I go to the product section, select the category “coffee beans” and choose “Pellini Espresso Bar No. 9 Cremoso,” too bad that nowhere is there a button to buy it and put it in the cart.
Then I think maybe you can’t buy the coffee beans but only the capsules. I go to the relevant section, but even there you can’t buy the product.
Strange I think, because at the top, in the menu bar, the “Shopping Cart” item is clearly visible, so e-commerce must be there somewhere.
I go to the contact section and write an email notifying that e-commerce is not working.
Since I’m on the site, I’m taking the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter, thanks to which I will receive a 10 euro coupon for coffee purchases.
I’ll try e-commerce again Monday morning, I told myself, they must have detected the error and reset the cart.
But the situation was definitely the same as the day before.
In return, I read the email I received from customer care, containing the discount code and the link to order the coffee, which, as it happens, leads to the e-commerce section of the site. Which doesn’t work!
I thought to myself, gosh these guys are crazy. They’re losing a lot of business and they don’t know it.
So I looked up the phone number and called the Company directly where a very nice lady answered.
I pointed out to her that e-commerce was not working. She responded to me.
“We are redoing the site. You can only buy coffee on Amazon.”
Then I point out to her that there is still a “Shopping Cart” section on the site and that I received the email after I signed up for the Newsletter. The email still contains the link to the site, but you cannot purchase the product.
He replies that he will point this out to the appropriate people, I guess the marketing department.
I later received an email from the marketing department, in response to my report, notifying that the coffee is available for purchase exclusively on Amazon.
I thought, “I’m here busting my butt to buy coffee directly from you, and you put it exclusively on Amazon?”
Then I return to the newsletter subscription response email to forward it to the marketing department contact, to point out to her that the link in the email still takes you to the official site where you cannot purchase the product because the e-commerce has been removed.
I prefer not to report my thoughts when I realized that the video on the home page of the site does not work and that the email used to confirm the newsletter subscription does not come directly from Pellini Caffè but rather from the @triboo.it domain i.e., the company that probably handles customer care on behalf of Pellini Caffè.
That said, I love this brand and I love Pellini coffee so I went to Amazon and purchased the product.
Now I want to ask you some questions.
- How many people do you think would have picked up the phone to report that e-commerce is not working?
- How many people would have reported that there is a wrong link in the newsletter subscription email?
- How many people would simply buy coffee from another brand?
To answer these questions, I must necessarily ask another question:
How important to you is the experience your customer or potential customer has when they come in contact with your Company?
The success of your company depends largely on this factor.
How much your customers love, respect and feel connected to your Brand, products and services.
If there is no such connection, they will buy from your competitors at the first opportunity.
Is this what you want?
Customer experience examples: Giving something extra
Giving more to your customer, surprising them, going beyond expectations.
And that’s how, this morning, as Andrew was doing his best to make me look new again, beard and hair to be exact, he told me he was going to make me a face mask for free.
He felt like pampering me.
This is a practical example of “giving something more to your customers when they least expect it.”
Andrew could have offered me a facial package with a 20% discount by saying, “reserved for our most loyal customers.“
This is not giving something extra. It is offering an ad hoc promotion, basically an attempted sale.
I’m no magician, but I can imagine the thought of many shopkeepers, “I’m already grossing little, all we needed was Cremonesi with wacky ideas.”
Customer experience examples: Why invest time and money?
Now if you also feel this topic is important.
If you also want to make a difference.
If, more simply, you want to keep your customers coming back to your premises, make them important.
Read the reviews they leave for you. If you notice that something is not working take action right away.
If some customers report a rude waiter, take action right away.
When a customer leaves a positive review, thank them immediately.
Don’t take anything for granted.
It is not just the good food or the location that attracts people.
It is the overall experience you give them that is the pleasantly disruptive effect.
It is the summation of every single element: location, food, wine list, service, hospitality, courtesy, friendliness, discretion.
The customer experience does not stop with just the reception and “living” in the venue. It starts much earlier.
It starts from the contact for reservation in all its forms: phone, social, via website.
A friendly, open and sunny response immediately generates good emotion. It predisposes the customer positively toward the venue.
It is crucial to remember that a positive emotion, can be changed to a negative one only after several experiences.
So if the person who answered the phone is extremely courteous and polite, it may offset an initial negative feeling from when you arrive at the venue.
Shopping experience examples: Why don’t customers enter my store?
The question is: Why do I collect little money? Why don’t Customers come into my store?
Okay there is a crisis. People don’t have money anymore. Everybody is doing badly.
It is definitely not an easy time. We all know that.
Yet there are busy bars, restaurants, and hotels and others empty.
There are home stores that work a lot and others you want.
There are shoe stores where you have to wait in line and others that do not work.
And then you find out that the salesgirl is unfriendly, the waiter is rude, the bar has dirty toilets etc.
Not only that.
Often times you don’t enter a store anymore because the salesperson was great at her job.
That is, she sold you a dress saying you looked great. Too bad you, in that dress, look really bad.
Of course, in the short term to sold a suit, in the medium or long term he lost a customer, which certainly represents a higher value than a suit.
Remember. Your customer’s lived experience is critical.
Customer Feedback Can Help Your Business
Make them feel important. They are the ones who pay your rent, your bills, your car payments.
Exceed. Even if you can’t, do it. A small gift today means new customers tomorrow.
Because if you amaze him, he will tell his friends or family about you.
It will bring you new customers.
On the other hand, if you fool him, even once, he will be your worst enemy, scorched earth all around you.
But a good user experience, as we saw earlier, is not just about giving a gift.
It is taking a real and deep interest in those in front of us.
About his problems, his dilemmas. It is essential to make him/her understand that, we are really interested in her/him.
Buddhist Law of Cause and Effect
This is something I firmly believe in; I have devoted an entire section of the website to this topic, which is called the law of Cause and Effect.
“You reap what you sow. What we put into the universe is what comes back to us.”
The world is governed by this law.
Translated into the practical if, for you today, giving a treatment as a gift involves a great sacrifice, you will get a great return and faster than you might expect.
We build a valuable relationship with our customers!
It is the way to build the success of our companies.
Today, companies are focused on implementing viral marketing or influencer marketing campaigns to improve visibility, engagement, web reputation and business.
Great, right and due.
Unfortunately, often times they do not take into consideration the most important activity.
The satisfaction of current customers, those we already have, those who feed us and whom we delude ourselves into thinking we can keep forever in time.
Nothing could be more wrong and unrealistic.
If a customer does not feel satisfied, fulfilled, pampered, they change.
I repeat again and again that to acquire a new customer, it costs five times as much, to retain an existing customer.
So let’s treat them well, let’s give them incredible experiences, let’s give them attention.
Let’s give them something more than what they really expect.
They will become our ambassadors, the best form of viral and influencer marketing there is.
The consumer deserves our respect because they have trusted us
And now let’s see why the consumer deserves our respect. Simple.
When they chose our product or service, they trusted us!
Well yes, when a person decides to buy one of our products or services, they have trusted what we have told them.
Of our advertising message.
Of what we have communicated through social channels, or the website.
We have basically created an expectation.
That very expectation cannot be disappointed. Because in choosing us he chose to give us his trust, and as we all know, trust cannot be betrayed.
Yet it is enough to turn on the television, listen to the radio, browse Social to see miraculous promotions. Amazing solutions that promise to change our lives.
You see images on product packaging that ignite your curiosity or worse yet, an incredible appetite and then you find out that that product, that tuna, that snack…. just doesn’t exist. It’s probably just in the heads of the “advertisers.”
Or, I know I have already mentioned this case several times in my articles, such as that famous sofa manufacturer who “are handmade by his craftsmen,” who “are made from fine materials,” and then sells them at 50 percent discount. Always!!!!
But how can this publicity be credible.
How can a Company survive in the market by consistently making 50 percent off its collections? The numbers don’t add up.
The Consumer is intelligent and deserves our respect.
The cornerstone elements of customer experience management
But now let’s abandon all delay and see, together, how to improve our companies/businesses.
Today there is nothing but talk about anything else:
- Customer Satisfaction
- Customer care (customer support)
- Customer Journey (daily activities dedicated to the customer)
- Customer Retention (ability to retain, keep a customer)
In short, we have realized that the Customer, that is, the customer, must be the focus if we want our companies to continue to grow.
The Product
A Product or Service consists of two main values:
- Tangible value: i.e. how it is made, what the materials are, how it is composed etc.
- Intangible value: that is, all those perceptions, sensations, meanings, design etc. that intangibly characterize the product.
It is clear that it is possible to sell a product or service by “disproportionately” leveraging intangible values.
Creating false expectations in the consumer who then fails to find tangible value.
Because he will only find out later that, that sofa is not made entirely by hand, that the tuna does not match the picture on the box, that that cream did not reduce his wrinkles.
Not only that. Sometimes messages are used that are really misleading almost bordering on the legitimate like “30% less fat.”
But in less than whom or what? Of the competitor? Which one? Of your own product? So how many did you have before fat?
Clearly, all this creates a state of anxiety and distrust in the consumer, who then, in the end, is still all of us.
Community. Because it is clear that all of us go through this experience at one time or another.
So how is it possible to make a difference in the Market to gain new shares and distance the competition?
Certainly not by sending wrong or misleading messages through our communication channels: social media, websites, TV etc.
One of the strategies that I think performs best is Focusing.
Thanks to Focusing you can improve your company’s business
That is, identify in your market, a niche that is still “virgin” and specialize in that very niche, offering maximum tangible and intangible value.
The absolute best which often includes, not only the best product or service, but also:
- the best shopping experience for the customer
- The best pre and after sales support in the physical store and online
- the best technical support
- the best people-that they are then the ones who make the difference.
The recipe is as simple as it is successful. That’s all.
It will not be necessary to make “hit-and-run” sales to make ends meet while thinking about the budget.
Customer loyalty is the best guarantee for growing the business of our companies. Because he/she will be our ambassador and talk about our products and services to those around him/her.
We must always remember that selling is a real mission.
Selling does not mean foisting something on the Customer that he or she does not need.
Selling is about helping the Customer realize their dreams, and if we find that we cannot help them, we simply do not sell them anything.
If you want to learn more about my thinking, I invite you to read this page “Spiritual Business“.
The most successful companies are those that, more than others, try to look at things through the eyes of the customer, try to understand his needs and invent new solutions to make his life easier.
Taken from “The Ten Rules of Success.”
Paolo Ruggeri
Why is it critical to differentiate yourself from your Competitors?
Give it a try and search Google, Facebook, Yellow Pages … etc… how many hairdressers there are in your town, perhaps within 100 meters.
Whether you have a Hairdressing Salon, a Restaurant, a Travel Agency a store etc., the question of your possible Clients always remains the same:
“How do I choose where to go? What are the differences between them?”
Can it all be reduced to price? Perhaps not.
Service? attention to the customer? I would say yes.
That is the purpose of this article. Make a difference and your Business will take off.
Of course we who do Marketing and Communications can give you a hand in making your Premises, your Business your Product or Service more visible, but my advice is to do as Andrew did: create from the start a special and exclusive Product/Service for your customers.
Examples of customer experience and the Marketing
When I embraced this profession a couple of decades ago, it was immediately clear to me how the marketing man, in fact, can be a manipulator.
If you do your job well, you can convince people to buy a product, often times even when they don’t need it.
At that time I promised myself to do this work ethically by embracing a philosophy called Spiritual Business.
I hate selling with the goal of short-term billing.
I love loyalty, forming a deep relationship with the customer.
Understanding their real needs and meeting them.
I love making a difference.
I would rather give up an assignment than make a bad sale.
Leveraging emotions, in order to sell, is definitely a widespread practice.
If we understand our interlocutor’s need, we can sell him anything.
Even a product or service that is not for him.
We definitely generate a sale in the short term.
But in the medium and long term we have gambled away our credibility.
Because we took advantage of that person’s trust.
Being an entrepreneur, regardless of the size of our company, means building the right strategy to ensure maximum success for our business, over time.
This passes, necessarily, in building a strong, sincere and lasting bond with our clients.
Therefore, we cannot, ever, betray their trust.
When they purchased one of our products or services, they trusted us.
They invested in our enterprise and credibility.
Reputation and credibility are the only things we cannot afford to damage.
If we are always honest and fair with our customers, they are also willing to forgive us a mistake. An oversight. A product that malfunctions.
We build credibility and respect and will have built the strength of our company over time.
Good day to all.
donato cremonesi
Customer experience examples to improve your business. Don’t miss these articles:
- Customer loyalty: five techniques you can use to increase sales
- Respect for the Consumer. It must be inherent in the Business Strategy
- Promotion strategies: did you run a Black Friday campaign?
- The statistics of the Global Digital Report 2019
- Greta Thunberg an interesting example of social media communication