Customer service is no longer alive in the contemporary world.
Nowadays, it’s more about creating impressive CX memories through delightful and lasting customer experiences.
Yes, you heard it right!
These days, people are interacting more with businesses when compared to their friends and family members.
As a result, businesses now have more opportunities to get closer to their customers and do more than just deliver their products and services.
Hence, this is where the concept of creating unforgettable customer experience (CX) memories comes into the picture.
Memories in the form of beautiful experiences that a customer can remember, and ultimately, develop a deep sense of admiration for a brand and its services.
Yes, this is it.
This is the greatest thing that a brand can do to create unforgettable customer experience (CX) memories and leave a lasting impression on its customers.
So that brings us to the biggest question of this article, and that is, how to create impressive and lasting CX memories?
How to make sure that a customer ends up with delightful experiences?
Create Exceptional Customer Experience With CX Memories
To understand how to do this, businesses must look at their CX goals from their customers’ viewpoint, and not just from a commercial point of view.
Moreover, businesses need to be fully aware that creating awesome Customer Experience memories is a continuous process which doesn’t end after the delivery of one successful customer experience.
The truth, however, is that creating impressive CX memories is all about moving ahead from one perfect customer experience to the next.
Moreover, in order to craft an unforgettable customer experience memory and to gain a customer’s loyalty, one must be willing to walk a few extra miles.
And this becomes extremely important if your customer has been annoyed and infuriated by your products or services.
Instead of just sending an apology email, businesses have an opportunity to go a mile ahead and do something more to create a lasting CX memory.
So let’s see how can businesses handle such situations by analyzing various real-life examples.
How to convert a bad customer experience into a positive CX memory?
Consider any business in this world, there are times when there is either a lapse or a blunder in its services/products, leading to an annoyed and angry customer.
The bad customer experiences can happen because of various internal and external factors.
For example, such incidents happen when there is a delay in product/service delivery or if there is a technical glitch in the system.
Whatever may be the reason, it is ultimately the customer who is going to be mad at you.
But that does not mean that the customer service agents should accept the situation as it is.
Instead, they should focus on a service recovery strategy.
So, such moments of service gaps can turn into great opportunities for businesses to build exceptional relationships with the customers, if they are willing to create a positive image for their brand.
Generally, businesses try to focus on building awesome customer experiences.
But a successful brand is the one which strikes back with a strong service recovery strategy whenever there are service lapses from its end.
This is exactly what some of the companies have been able to achieve in recent times.
Take the case of Ola Cabs, which is a leading cab service company operating in India and other South Asian countries.
Ola Cabs recently set an example of perfect execution of its service recovery strategy, which has lead to the creation of a healthy relationship with one of its angry customers.
This incident happened when the CEO of a company faced extreme difficulty while booking a cab on Ola for his daughter, who was supposed to reach a friend’s house for a birthday party.
And ultimately, his daughter missed the party due to some technical problem from Ola’s end.
Therefore, the CEO raised this issue on Twitter by posting an angry tweet against Ola.
And Ola’s customer service agents were quick enough to offer assistance to the CEO.
They asked him to get back with the necessary booking details and promised to set everything right.
However, the angry CEO was determined to escalate the issue by posting another tweet, which said – “Now you can’t do any damage control, had an awful experience”.
He also vowed to write and share a detailed review of his bad experience.
In such situations, most of the companies either try to run away or discard the customer’s issue.
But instead, Ola chose to sort everything out, and hence, the end result was the creation of an awesome CX memory for its angry customer.
Ola representatives personally wrote a letter to the CEO’s kid, asking her for an apology.
They even sent her a personalized cake and added some credit into her mother’s account.
This gesture eventually brought a smile on the kid’s face, and hence, the CEO dropped the idea of sharing his bad experience.
So this is how the brands should respond in order to create an outstanding impression on their customers.
And this story not only depicts Ola’s strategy on creating awesome CX memories, but also shows their genuine intention to believe that a ‘customer is the king’ in their business operations.
As a result, many businesses are now focusing on creating an appealing and engaging customer experience for their customers.
They are even thinking beyond the traditional customer experience KPIs, that have been prevailing for years now.
Customer Experience or CX Memories – A gap that needs to be filled!
Despite many success stories, majority of companies still fail to employ such strategies.
However, this is a type of gap that needs to be filled by every company to harness the benefits of impressive CX memories.
According to a recent study by Ernst & Young, 80% of the CXOs interviewed by them believed that CX in India is far worse than the rest of the world.
They also felt that once they receive any negative feedback from customers, they need to act upon it within a predetermined time limit.
Hence, this issue is definitely unquestionable, and the brands need to solve it at the earliest.
This is because the concept of proactive and robust customer service is all about providing enjoyable customer experience even before the customers ask for it explicitly.
Currently, the e-commerce giant, Amazon is the best example to illustrate that being proactive is the key to take forward your CX strategy.
Amazon has been offering faster deliveries and flexible return policies apart from switching to offline strategies to improve their CX strategy.
Airbnb is another example of a customer-centric company.
It is currently taking the customer experience to the next level by offering unique and exquisite properties on rent and that too on some of the exotic locations in the world.
Airbnb lets its customers enjoy a new location just as the locals do, and hence, this makes the entire customer experience seem more than just a regular holiday.
And this is how the company has outperformed its competitors by creating beautiful CX memories.
As a result, when the customers go through such experiences, they become emotionally attached to the brand and thus end up becoming the most loyal customers.
Conclusion
“To connect with new customers, don’t try to get inside their heads, get inside their hearts. Create an emotional connection.” – Bill Quiseng
Business leaders must realize that great CX memories are formed when the customers can relate and remember them for a long time.
The brands should know that, at the end of the day, it’s the humans that they are interacting with on the other side.
Hence, their CX strategies should be based on more than the traditional KPIs.
Finally, the bottom line is loud and clear – see your CX strategies from a customers viewpoint, serve them as a friend, and ultimately win their loyalty.