Articles

Customer Experience Strategy | CX Strategy

Customer Service, Client Journey, Brand Experience, OH MY!

“I know what customer service is.”
“I think I know what customer experience is.”
“What is brand experience?”

CX

That is usually how a conversation about customers relating to a business goes. Companies are familiar with customer service and usually customer experience, although they sometimes conflate the two. Brand experience, on the other hand often draws a blank, or worse, it is lumped in with customer service. Do you see a pattern developing here? There has been a lot of conversation around …

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Customer Expectations at a Restaurant

I’ve been gluten-free for about a year now. In that time, I have learned to pre-screen restaurants to ensure that they either have a gluten free menu, they have gluten free options, or that they would be willing to accommodate. Living in Seattle also means that I am very spoiled—even if the restaurant doesn’t mention anything about gluten free options, the staff usually has enough training that we can make it work.

A restaurant’s menu is perhaps their most valuable tool. Not only does it tell the…

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The Pez Dispenser of Customer Service

To this day, I can’t figure out why pez dispensers are so popular. It’s a super cheap toy with some random head on the top of it. When you lift the head it gives you a less than average piece of candy. Is the excitement in moving the head or in receiving the candy?

Clearly, I am not a part of their target market.

But that is ok. I don’t need to be. This simplistic view of what some consider to be a collector’s item is similar to that of a customer dealing with a company’s customer or tech support.…

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Revealing the Truth About Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth is the best marketing a company can do. DUH! Even a caveman knows that! But what the caveman (and some businesses) may not know or get, is that you can say and encourage word of mouth all you want—it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen or happen the way that you want it to! A company needs to give customers a reason to talk about them. And there are only two reasons that a customer talks about a company, a product, or a service.

  1. They did something different or unexpected—in a good way…

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Blog-Aloha

The Power of Aloha Customer Service Is Unconditional Friendship and Trust

I have lost count of all of the different “types” of customer service and sayings about what customer service should be. Oh, and we can also add the different words for customer service and the actual customer! In the end, they all say the same thing, be nice to the people or companies that give you money.

When I was in Hawai’i, Oahu to be exact—and just so you know, there is no ‘w’ in O’ahu. I was there for a speaking gig and then magically it into a vacation. It was my first time there and wh…

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How to Effectively Communicate With Your Clients Easily

Communication is key to every relationship . . . open communication that is. As technologies change so do the ways, styles, and expectations of communication. This is particularly true with clients. As a business, you can make executive decisions about how your employees are to communicate with each other, but with clients . . . well that is a different story. In many cases, they tell you what works best for them, and communicating with them in their style of preference usually makes communicati…

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Do New Customers Get a Better Deal?

"Why do companies give a better deal to new customers than to their old customers? Isn't this odd?"

I saw this question on LinkedIn and I just had to laugh. Not at the question, because it is a great one, but because it is SO True! When you look at the data that companies track there are always items around marketing, acquiring a new client, expanding to new areas, referral incentives—but where is the emphasis on reselling or upselling to current customers? Another element that this brings up is…

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Remember, Your Customers Are Busy

I was reading Steve Pavlina’s series about how to network with busy people. The article itself is great. He goes over a lot of common sense things, and uses great analogies and stories to prove his point. His main point throughout the series is to help you see how a busy person perceives the way you are trying to contact them.

While I was reading this, it got me thinking that a lot of the points Steve makes, are the same points that companies tend to be ignorant of in their approach to marketing…

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