How to Create an Emotional Customer Experience

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.” ― Vincent Van Gogh, highly influential post-Impressionist artist

Great storytelling evokes emotion. Using the power of storytelling, you can create emotionally compelling videos with equally compelling messages that will continue to resonate with your employees and customers and build brand loyalty.

This video is one of the best examples of storytelling I’ve seen posted on www.publicwords.com. If the video doesn't appear below, you can view it at http://youtu.be/7s22HX18wDY

 

This post also provides tips on how to recreate the same “magic” for your videos.

Here are two articles from www.ragan.com to help get you started on creating videos to engage your employees, who are the “key to delivering your customer’s experience,” according to Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit (TCEL) keynote speaker Peter Neill, Former Chief Customer Officer, Level 3 Communications:

• 20 Ideas for Your Next Corporate Video:
• An A-to-Z Guide to Producing Internal Videos for Employees:

Want to hear more from Peter on customer experience in person? Join him at Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit 2014 in Miami in April. To learn more about the event and register, go to www.iirusa.com/totalcustomer

Stay connected with TCEL:

• twitter.com/TotalCustomer #TCEL14
• linkedin.com/Total Customer Experience Leaders
• facebook.com/TotalCustomer

Peggy L. Bieniek, ABC is an Accredited Business Communicator specializing in corporate communication best practices. Connect with Peggy on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and on her website at www.starrybluebrilliance.com.

Customer service classes now in session

KTUU of Anchorage, Alaska recently ran a report on a customer service course being offered by the Cook Inlet Tribal School. This two week course teaches students how to learn how to effectively deal with customers and manage their employees properly. As noted in the video below, there is a lack of workforce in Anchorage, so it shows when employers put their employees directly to work with out first training them on the basics of customer service. Watch the news report here.

FedEx Ranks Highest in Customer Service in a Recent Survey

According to this article on the FedEx site, the premier provider of transportation services ranked number one in customer service in the 9^th Annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient TM (RQ) Survey.

FedEx also ranked high in other categories, it ranked number 12 as both a good company to work for and company with good employees. This goes to show us that there is a very strong correlation between employee satisfaction and levels of customer service. Happy employees and those who enjoy working for a company are more likely to give superior customer service than unhappy workers. The article also notes that there is a strong correlation between a company’s overall reputation and the likelihood that a consumer will purchase, invest, or recommend the company’s products and services.

Robert Fronk, Senior Vice President, Reputation Strategy at Harris Interactive mentions:

“For Americans to hold a company in high regards today, clearly more than just profits are needed – companies need to focus on overall corporate social responsibility and how their employees are treated in order to build trust with today’s consumers. FedEx takes these responsibilities into account in how they behave as an organization.”

Customer Service Innovation: How to get there

In a recent blog post at Creativity At Work, they highlight ten ways to stay in the game when it comes to service innovation and keeping your customers at the center of the customer service strategy.

The ten reasons listed were:

1. Approach Service as if you were the customer -- See what part of your business customers are having the most trouble relating to, or the most difficult part of the shopping process you put them through. Fix those parts of the process.

2. Create a process map and identify service bottle necks – What are the steps, processes and people that a customer comes to your business? If you see the whole process, and identify the troubled points, the whole company can see what they can adjust to make the service better.

3. Work backwards from the ideal state to a solution. Find where you want to be, and work from that solution down to fix the service in your company. If you start a beginning point, it’s very easy to get off track and not end at that solution.

4. Benchmark to establish standards and reference points. See what other companies are doing to measure and make their service better throughout the company. Strive to be like those best companies.

5. Copy the innovations of industry leaders: Customers look for consistency when shopping with companies. See how other companies are finding and keeping customers through the consistency with their services.

6. Measure and monitor current levels of service: Survey the customers to find their levels of satisfaction, and this will also show where the company is not pulling their weight in certain categories of service.

7. Solicit ideas from employees: Brainstorm with your employees to find out what they know the customers to want. They’re in constant contact with the customers and could have a potential solution to that one thing you’re having trouble with.

8. Solicit ideas from your customers: It’s your customers you’re trying to please, so find out what you could do to make them happy through market research, customer surveys and other means.

9. Seek an outside perspective: Look to other who have no idea of the situations your dealing with. Their clear view could help you find the solution.

10. Employ performance tools like a Balanced Score Card: Find a way to link your service measurement to your company strategy. This process needs to be measured in order to know if you’re making progress.

The Customer Experience

In a recent blog post at Customer Think, Mei Lin Fung tells a story about her friend’s customer service experience at Whole Foods. The outstanding customer service will gain Whole Foods more business through the customers word of mouth communication than any advertisement for the store ever will.

It is very important that a company always pays attention to customer at every touch point. With this story of the manager helping the customer personally find a recipe not available in the store, and then finding all of the ingredients, it shows that the manager truly cares about the customer. It is important to have employees who have respect for the customer, other employees, and have a genuine belief in the product.

A customer will come back into your store because of the treatment they receive from the employees. It’s critical to know that you have this touch point taken care of.