With the barrage of information online, it’s no longer a walk in the park to impress customers. They see the Instagrammable cafes and Pinterest-perfect pantries online. Through social media, they can peek into celebrity homes and wardrobes. So, your plain-Jane packaging and bare bones store may not impress them at all. However, do not lose hope. The plethora of online content can also serve as an inspiration for you.
First, browse through aesthetics online and create a mood board with your favorite colors, fonts, etc. Once you have that brand image — stick to it. Whether it’s boho chic or glitzy glam, your customers need to see consistency to remember your business. Don’t confuse them by trying different things all at once. Here are six more ways your business can impress customers.
1. Ace the First Impression
Whether you sell hoodies or manage a law firm, your website is usually your first chance to make an impression. Make sure you have a clean and easy-to-navigate online presence. Your brand colors and design elements should be cohesive at all consumer touchpoints. Answers to all the frequently asked questions should be easy to find.
If you run a service-based business, make sure to capture potential customer information before they leave the website. If they landed on your website after hours or on holidays, have a built-in appointment scheduling solution. This way no one needs to wait for Monday to call and schedule a tax consultation or dental cleaning. If they do, they might just hop on to a competing website and schedule a call back or appointment online, and you could lose business.
2. Offer Outstanding Customer Service
Once you have the customer’s foot in the door, make sure to follow up. Send an appointment confirmation email or text with any additional information. While chatbots can do a lot of things, they cannot provide the human touch. So, a call or email from a real person can make a difference opposed to an automatic reply to an unmonitored inbox.
To impress customers, you must take it up a notch. When they visit your boutique for instance, don’t take them for granted. Offer them excellent customer service regarding sizes and styles. Offer some upsells in jewelry and bags. Encourage them to sign up for a loyalty program when they check out, so you have their information.
Once they sign up, send them valuable offers periodically to stay current in their mind. Make the offers worth their time. Otherwise, hitting unsubscribe is easy. On the other hand, don’t bombard them with emails and texts too frequently either. That can be annoying, so it’s important to find a balance.
3. Provide Personalization Options
One popular way to make your customer service stand out is to offer personalization. Anyone can pick up a gift from the drugstore enroute to a party. However, if someone gets you a personalized gift, it means they put in more effort. A cutting board with your family name or a mug for grandparents with all the kid’s pics is more special than a plain version.
If your business offers personalization, it can really impress customers and the people they might be buying for. There really isn’t any limit to what can be personalized. From simple initials to entire family trees, your business can help shoppers find gifts that no one could have picked up in a jiffy — or re-gifted.
If you want your business to stand out, have a personalization option available for customers who have a little more time and money to spend. For the last-minute shoppers, you can have some generic ready-to-ship items too.
4. Don’t Compromise on Quality
However, just slapping a name on a backpack won’t impress a customer if the zipper breaks in the first week of school. Even if you need to charge a premium, customers usually prefer paying a higher price for good quality. Consistently delivering high-quality products or services builds trust and credibility. Customers are more likely to return and recommend your business if they can rely on the quality.
If a customer is pleasantly surprised with what they bought, they are more likely to leave a review too. That is a great way to attract even more customers. Many customers today rely on reading reviews online before adding items to their cart. In fact, 95% of shoppers read reviews before making a purchase.
5. Act on Feedback
Many businesses today ask customers to leave reviews or fill out surveys. However, not all of them make the changes suggested. To thrive today, businesses need to stay abreast of industry trends and be adaptable. The ability to evolve and innovate shows customers that your business is forward-thinking and committed to staying relevant in a dynamic market.
If several customers say the beef is chewy at your Thai restaurant, try to fix it. First, reply to the customer’s review offering to investigate the issue. Perhaps offer them a coupon to come back. Look for an alternate supplier for meat cuts and relay the information to your chef. Perhaps a different cooking technique can fix this problem.
6. Engage With the Community
Businesses must make money to survive, but to make an impression, you should go a step further. By giving back to the community, you earn goodwill with your customers and can enjoy tax benefits too. From supporting the local Little League team to donating one pair of shoes for every sneaker purchased, there are many ways to give back.
Only using sustainable packaging like paper or cloth can also make a difference for the environment. Your business is not just paying lip service to being green. It is showing by its actions that it is an environmentally conscious company.
Impressing customers is a multifaceted endeavor that requires a holistic approach. By focusing on exceptional customer service, product quality, personalization, and various other strategies, your business can create a positive and lasting impression that fosters customer loyalty.