Delight has always been considered the magic solution for customer service woes. On top of that, is mistaken to be one of two things: a big gesture or common courtesies.
The first is not a very cost-effective strategy and the second is already a standard in nowadays customer service. But, that view on delight has to change!
What is delight?
Customers get to decide what’s delightful, not companies. And according to statistics, customers have some of the most reasonable expectations around.
The first step is to challenge the two old beliefs: that delight is built around singular moments of inspiration, and that delivering delight has to significantly drive up costs.
After breaking free from the two models listed above, delight can get back to creative, cost-effective gestures that reasonably exceed expectations and provide real value.
Keeping the online customer coming back
Loyalty is getting harder to buy. Motivating customers to come back is what every seller wants to do, but it’s no easy to achieve.
Buyers have access to an unlimited number of offers. How do you generate repeat sales in such a hyper-competitive environment? How do you stand out from the crowd?
Create loyal customers!
Surprise and delight is a strategy that gives customers unanticipated perks to renew interest in their products. Why is the element of surprise so effective? Because it’s addictive.
Surprise changes behavior, it’s cheap, it turbocharges emotions and fuels more passionate relationships between customers and brands.
An increase of five percent in customer retention can lead to anywhere between 25 to 100 percent increases in profits.
If implemented carefully and effectively, surprise and delight can create a cycle of happiness for your business.
A surprise-and-delight strategy has three main purposes:
– Make customers more loyal;
– Create higher-spending customers;
– Motivate word-of-mouth marketing.
Employed effectively, it generates one of the most powerful forms of marketing: word of mouth. For the generation that relies on social proof before purchasing products, successful word-of-mouth marketing is gold.
If your experiences with customers are so good that they share it with others, one act of kindness could become amplified to thousands of new potential customers. Keep your customers happy, make them spend more, and delight them enough that they will tell their friends, thus creating more exposure for you.
How can it be used in e-commerce?
The most popular online campaigns that still get a lot of attention, are:
Personalized offers
Providing a personalized offer after a customer has made a purchase shows that you are attempting to build a one-to-one relationship with your customers. You know who they are, what they like and you want to improve their experience by anticipating what they might need.
Sending the offer in a personalized email, and offering them a discount that’s exclusive to them can motivate repeat sales and create loyalty in your customer. The secret is making the interaction feel unique.
Exclusive events
Providing a customer with a gift or experience that seems too good to be true, and feels like a one time deal, creates a stronger bond between the company and the customer. It can also create some hype around your company.
For example, a membership model combined with a sales event can delight your most loyal buyers and make your business more attractive to new customers.
Random acts of kindness
This strategy is deeply embedded in providing a uniquely delightful experience. The value of kindness is immeasurable and unpredictable, but if you can surprise and delight an unhappy customer, instigating a U-turn in the customer’s emotions could motivate them to share their experience and in turn, endorse your brand.
Random acts of kindness can range from handwritten notes to show your appreciation, to going above and beyond to making the buyer happy.