“The biggest mistake organizations make is that they fall in love with their business or products and not with their clients.”
Tony Robbins hit the nail on the head with this quote. Your customers are the lifeblood of your business and essential for your continuous growth. After finding and securing new clients through your lead generation and lead nurturing processes, you now have the chance to blow them away with a great experience so that they can’t help but tell everybody around them about your incredible business. This is what the final part of the customer lifecycle is about.
In this article, we’ll show you exactly how to provide an excellent customer experience, upsell your clients, turn them into raving fans for your business and get high-quality referrals. Let’s get to it.
How to deliver the best customer experience
Why do customers return to a brand over and over again? Intuitively, you might say it’s about the product or the price. Well, it’s actually the customer experience that matters! 86% of buyers say that they would pay more for a great customer experience. And 73% mention it as an important factor in their buying decision. Also, 74% of consumers said that they would stop doing business with a company if they received poor customer support. That means by improving your customer experience, you can ultimately secure more clients and sales. Here’s how to do it.
Develop a vision of what an ideal customer experience looks like
It’s hard to provide a great customer experience when you and your team are not clear on what this actually means. Time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and define in clear terms what an ideal experience for your clients should look like. A good starting point is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask: If I were my own client, would I be happy and satisfied with what I’m receiving?
Consider all the touchpoints that you have with your customers and create statements that can act as guiding principles for every situation. Try to make these as concrete and as actionable as possible. For example, stating that every customer will receive a reply within 24 hours is much better than merely mentioning that you plan to “respond quickly.”
Create an emotional connection with your clients
We’re highly driven by our emotions, that’s just how humans work. And you can use this to your advantage. When your customers are emotionally engaged, they are three times more likely to recommend your product or service and to make another purchase from you. So, how exactly do you connect with your clients emotionally? Try our three tips!
- Be empathetic, ask questions, listen carefully, and offer solutions.
- Stay true to what makes you unique. Don’t hide your quirks. This is what makes you authentic, relatable, and easy to connect with.
- Build a connection through stories. Share your personal journey and struggles.
Fix your mistakes
Mistakes happen. Period. Even in the most well thought out process, something can and will go wrong. And it’s likely going to happen in your business too. But don’t fear. This is actually an opportunity for you. Clients who encountered a problem that was dealt with in an excellent way become even more loyal customers. What’s crucial is that you shouldn’t try to hide the mistake. That just makes it worse. Instead, own it, be transparent about it, apologise, and do your best to fix it. This shows that you care deeply about your clients and their experience.
How to upsell
“Do you want fries with that?” is a classic line that everyone has heard at some point from a McDonald’s cashier. And it’s the perfect example of an upsell. Offering your clients another product or service that provides additional value for them is a win-win for both of you. You’ll save valuable resources as upselling current customers is 5-10 times cheaper than acquiring new ones and your clients are moving closer to their goals with your help.
Now, there’s definitely a right and a wrong way to upsell. You’ll want to stay clear of any sleazy techniques that trick your clients into buying more and more from you. Simply follow our advice, and you’ll be good to go.
Understand your client’s long term goals
When you first onboard a new customer, it’s worth setting aside some time to discuss what exactly he or she is aiming to gain from using your service or service. Try to understand what your client’s immediate and long term goals are. Based on that, you can develop a roadmap for your client that shows exactly how you can help them reach those goals. From there, you can easily identify any additional products or services that will help them on the way.
Focus on relevance and real needs
Offering your clients something that they don’t really need, and that doesn’t align with their long term goals can make you look sleazy and undermine trust. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to convince your customers to take the upsell at all because you’ve already shown them how this will help them achieve their goals. It should be a no-brainer for your clients to say yes.
Be transparent
Your clients should be able to easily grasp how your new offering relates to the product or service they already purchased from you, how it will help them achieve their goals, and what it will cost them. They will feel much more comfortable making a decision when they know exactly where their hard-earned cash is going.
Provide social proof
Testimonials and case studies can be powerful, convincing factors that can give your clients the last push. Show them how other customers of yours have successfully gone through the same process and achieved outstanding results.
How to turn your clients into raving fans
Whether you want to call them super fans, brand evangelists, or advocates, it all means basically the same thing: a group of customers that are so loyal to your business that they will try to turn everyone they meet into a new client for you.
Building this kind of following is not only reserved for big brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Netflix. It works on a smaller scale too. When you’ve implemented our tips for creating a great customer experience and provided extra value through upsells, then you’re already halfway there. We have some additional tips that will help turn your clients into raving fans for your business.
Make your clients feel special
Naturally, we all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to belong and be appreciated. That’s a feeling that you can actively instil in your clients. Let them know that they’re now part of your exclusive tribe and that they have your full support. There are many little ways in which you can make them feel special and appreciated. Here are a few ideas you can implement right away:
- Send a card/flowers for your client’s birthday.
- Remember your clients’ spouse’s/kid’s/pet’s name and ask about them.
- Give special offers and deals to your clients.
- Send a little welcome gift to new customers.
- Ask them for their feedback and take it seriously.
- Personally check in with them now and then to hear how they’re doing.
- Thank them for doing business with you.
Go the extra mile
Deliver more than you promised whenever possible. When you can delight and surprise your clients with extra value, they will feel the need to reciprocate in some way. That’s the right moment to ask them for a testimonial or a referral. You can also think of other ways to help your clients out, for example, by sharing their content online with your network or by introducing them to someone who they’d want to meet.
Make it fun to work with you
Your clients will appreciate it when you approach them with excitement and enthusiasm. Most experiences we have with businesses are simply bland and won’t be remembered. Make every one of your customer interactions memorable, so your clients start raving about them.
Ask regularly for feedback and input
You can do that with a simple survey, an in-person meeting, or a phone call. Your clients will feel valued when you ask for their opinion, listen attentively, and take their suggestions seriously. Why not follow up afterwards and let them know how you’ve implemented their advice? This is how you build a lasting long term relationship.
Here are some of the questions you should aim to answer continuously:
- How can you improve your products and services?
- How can you improve your customer’s experience even more?
- What else could your customers need from you? (e.g., additional information, other products or services)
How to get referrals
Referrals are an insanely cost-effective way to get new clients and accelerate your business growth. After all, when it comes to purchasing decisions, 83% of people trust recommendations from people they know like family and friends. Everything we’ve discussed so far in this article is designed to get your clients into the right mindset for giving you quality referrals. Still, you might feel awkward asking them directly, and you definitely don’t want to come across as desperate. Simply follow our tips to get started.
Now it’s your turn
Congratulations! You are now an expert in delivering an outstanding customer experience, upselling your clients, turning them into raving fans, and getting referrals. With this article, we’re completing our series on the customer lifecycle. In case you’ve missed the previous articles, here are the links to read more about lead generation and lead nurturing.
Now you’ve got all the steps, tools, and information that you need to create an amazing customer journey from the point where a prospect first hears about you over becoming a paying customer to being an advocate for your brand who refers new business to you.
Are you ready to optimise your customer experience but confused about where to start? Imagine you had someone who could guide you through every step and tell you exactly what to do. You could have a tailored step-by-step strategy that’ll include the exact steps and right tools to supercharging your customer lifecycle. Wouldn’t that make things much easier?
Because you’re already here and reading this, we have a pretty good feeling that you’re ready to take action and transform your business to reach the next level. And for that reason, we’d like to invite you to join us for a FREE Business Automation Roadmap Call. Simply click the button below to secure your call, and we can get you on the way to more clients and revenue.
