Guides 7 m August 13, 2021

How to Wow Your Customers (for Real) in 2021

If you want your business to survive and thrive, you need to earn your customers’ attention, and really wow them. In all honesty, this has always been true, but we live in an age when so many products and services are similar! No wonder customers want someone who stands out in that sea of sameness.

Businesses that want to succeed and be noticed, need to adapt to these changing times when rarely anything matters as much as a good WOW factor. This is a big part of creating an amazing customer experience, which is a crucial element of your business.

Brands with superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that lag in that regard. Not only that, but 73% of consumers say a good experience is key in influencing their brand loyalties.

To get that amazing customer experience and show your customers that your company is worth remembering, here is how you can wow them:

Customer Experience

Customer experience, or CX for short, is the holistic perception customers have of their experience with your brand or business. It’s the result of every interaction they have with it, from the quality of your products or services to navigating the website and even talking to customer service.

When you deliver a great customer experience, not only do you increase customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, but you also get lots of positive reviews and recommendations. Amazing CX comes from putting the customer first, and when you do that, they’ll put you first too.

Improving customer experience doesn’t have to be difficult. The most precious tool you have for that is customer feedback. When you collect feedback, measure, and analyze it, you can see what your customers want from you and what exactly needs to be changed if there are any areas of friction.

Statistics show that customer feedback is the number one driver of successful customer experience strategies. It’s true that companies that put their focus on CX are more customer-centric than profit-centric, but this shouldn’t worry you. A happy customer is also one who spends the most.

Remember that customer experience begins with your first customer interactions – including, but not limited to your contact form, chatbot, or confirmation email. Make sure these interactions are very human by creating messages that truly speak to people and show there’s a real human being at the other end of the communication. For instance, a simple “Thank You” message displayed upon form submission could make a huge difference in how people perceive your brand.

Not sure what to say on such a “Thank You” message? Here are some ideas:

Inspiring Thank You messages your forms should have

The importance of surveys

The road to a better customer experience begins with data that you can collect from CX surveys. These surveys are specially designed to help companies understand their customers; thoughts and feelings about their products and services.

There are multiple types of surveys you can create, and they depend on where the customer is in their journey. You can send surveys pre and post-sale, following a support call, and when someone’s returning an item or canceling your service.

The four main types of CX surveys include:

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score survey
Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey
Customer Effort Score (CES) survey
Point-of-conversion survey
Retention survey

How to improve customer experience

If you want to learn how to wow your customers with CX, here are a few tips on how to do that:

Cultivate a company culture that is hyper-focused on customers
Make sure every employee across all departments is involved in improving CX
Think about what your customers want and do your best to provide that
Create customer profiles and make sure you understand them better than anyone else
Make listening to customer feedback your priority
Create an unforgettable experience
Find ways to reduce friction as much as possible

Most importantly, use a form builder to build forms and surveys that help you collect accurate customer data during your CX research.

User Experience

Anyone who’s been in any type of business will tell you how much user experience (UX) matters. Today’s customers want the best possible experience, and they want it now.

Amazing user experience consists of:

Ease of use. This refers to how effortlessly customers can access, buy, find, and review your products and services on your website. Another big part of ease of use is mobile friendliness.
Beautiful elements. You need to remember that aesthetics is everything for those who want to win over any customer. A 2015 study by Adobe found that two-thirds of people would rather read something beautifully designed than something plain when given 15 minutes to consume content.
Visual search. Your customers want to see images, not just text. If you want to stand out from the crowd, enable visual search and allow them to find you in Google’s Images section as well.
Quality content. Content plays a big role in creating a user experience that will help you wow your customers. If you want to be unforgettable, create valuable content that’s engaging and interesting. Good content isn’t only important for UX, but it also boosts your SEO.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the first of the five tiers of content marketing. SEO ensures your website comes up at the top of search engines when your customers look for it on Google. But user experience is a close second, and without it, you can’t find success.

Moreover, you need to think about the other three tiers which are content strategy, content creation, and content distribution. Content is a big part of UX. If you don’t have a great user experience and quality content, you lack the much-needed wow factor.

Personalization

There is a not-so-secret way to win over any prospect, and that’s personalization. If you expect your customers to remember you and know who you are, you should show them that you know who they are as well. Personalization is the key to a great customer experience and your overall success.

If you carefully analyze the customer data you have and figure out their individual wants and needs, you’ll learn their preferences, develop buyer personas, and make problem-solving much easier.

However, there’s much more you can do with personalization:

Keep customers engaged. Through personalization, you’ll be able to provide better recommendations and a user experience that is tailor-made to each individual customer. This will keep them on your website longer and more importantly, it’ll get them to come back.
Build customer loyalty. Great customer experience made with personalization can greatly improve customer loyalty. Since customers have so many choices, they’ll stay loyal to those brands that provide them with a personalized experience and meet their needs every time.
Tap into customers’ emotions. With enough information about your customers, you’ll be able to create digital advertising messages that tap into their emotions. Whether it’s invoking a memory or showing support to a cause they love, that emotional response can be a powerful purchasing influence.

You can find examples of personalization in brands of all niches. For example, BetterWorldBooks understands its customers are passionate about literacy and knowledge, so they donate a book with every sale. This is a classic example of how to wow a customer by tapping into their emotions.

Another brand that does personalization right is CVS Pharmacy. When you enter their website, they allow you to save preferences and delivery choices, provide you with a wishlist, and send you personalized coupons and offers.

Do the Unexpected

Finally, one of the best ways to wow your customers is to do something they would never expect. The beauty of doing something unexpected is that there are no rules and that you have free will to do whatever it takes to impress your audience – even something crazy!

Let’s take a look at the shoe retailer Zappos. This brand is the king of unexpected surprises and marketing tactics that get them noticed not just by their customers, but also by people who would have never heard about them otherwise.

In 2010, they overnighted a free pair of shoes to a man who was the best man at a wedding but came to the venue shoeless. And in 2011, they sent flowers to a woman who had to undergo harsh medical treatments that damaged her feet.

Conclusion

Are you ready to become your customers’ favorite brand? If you pay close attention to customer experience, user experience, and personalization, you’re going to go further than you think. And don’t forget to do something unexpected from time to time!

If you really want to bring that wow factor to every step of the customer journey, you may want to check out our Form Template Hall of Fame. This gated content is meant only for a small circle of people who sign up. These templates will help you wow your customers with super easy to fill out e-forms created with their needs in mind. Curious? Have a look and see for yourself!