WOW Your Customers With Memorable, Share-able Experiences

Part of the Entrepreneurial Magic Series

In my previous post “Razzle Dazzle Them With Great Customer Experiences” I talked about the customer experience and gave a few short, generic tips to get you started:

• Think about your business from the point of view of a customer
• Ask your customers to evaluate their experiences with each area of your business
• Ask someone impartial to evaluate your current customer service by moving through each area incognito
• Ask yourself what kind of experiences you demand of other businesses
• Think about how you can “Razzle Dazzle them and leave them wanting more…” and telling the whole world about it!

How to define and refine your ‘customer experience’ outcomes

First of all let’s define what an experience is and here the Websters is infallible

EXPERIENCE

a : direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge
b : the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation
a : practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity
b : the length of such participation <has 10 years’ experience in the job>

a : the conscious events that make up an individual life
b : the events that make up the conscious past of a community or nation or humankind generally

: something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through

: the act or process of directly perceiving events or reality

As you can see it is the direct personal participation in an event or activity and only with this kind of audience and customer personal experience can we start to create a share-able memory that will benefit our business. Now let’s really start to define how you can create memorable, share-able audience and customer experiences just like the big brands do it, giving you all the benefits of the impact of brands like Virgin, Coca Cola, Apple, Red Bull and more. Please note there is a difference between your audience experiences and your customer experiences and if you are to think like the big brands you will need to define both.

Your audience has not yet done business with you and therefore as you define an audience experience you will be looking at teasers, tasters, engagement and creating a memory that leaves them wanting more.

Your customers have done business with you and hopefully you have already left them wanting more, define how you are going to do that and define how you are going to create such loyalty that your customers become your brand advocates and spread word of your business, brand and specials, competitions and promotions far and wide because you have Dazzled them so much they feel like they are doing their friends a favour by recommending you.

Memorable Visuals – ask yourself these questions:

• What do I want my customers to see when they hear ‘My Business Name’?
• What imagery do I want my customers to visualize when they think about my business?
• Think about Coca Cola right now, what images come to your mind?

The Coca Cola logo is embedded in our culture everyone knows it and the brand personality and culture that Coca Cola has created is also memorable for most if not all of us – did you also think about summer, parties, beach picnics, fun in the water, fun with friends… Now think about how you can do this for your business by using great imagery via your own logo and the images you would like to leave in your customers minds.

Memorable Sounds – ask yourself these questions:

Sounds like this can stay long in your customers minds however most of us aren’t quite ready to create jingles yet, lol. However, you can decide what words, phrases and taglines you want associated with your business AND the kinds of things you would like your customers to say about your business and start to use them in your marketing. Think about what values, descriptions , keywords and phrases and taglines you want associated with your business. Please do not use generic terms we are talking about being memorable! Words like best, better, good etc.. are all generic to be memorable you will have to put words, terms and keywords together in ways that are unique to your business. See my previous post:”How to Be Legendary, Awesome and Fabulous.”

Memorable tastes and Memorable smells are also important to some businesses so include similar

Memorable Kinesthetics (feelings)

Hmmm… yes feelings all that esoteric stuff! No not really, feelings are memorable and all the other sensations are used to get down to this one priority!!!

Customers mostly remember how you made them feel and it is a priority for your business to assess what feelings you want associated with your business and how you want your audiences and customers to feel before, during and after they have done business with you.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What feelings do you want your customers to experience and feel before, during and after doing business with you?
• What feeling words would you like your customers to use when recommending your business? e.g. do you want them to feel safe, respected, cared for, inspired, motivated, assured…
• Think about businesses you do business with over and over again, why do you choose them every time? What feelings does doing business with them give you to keep you coming back?

Memorable Brands

• Think about a huge brand like Virgin, why do so many people do business with them? What experiences does the Virgin brand stand for that keeps their customers coming back for more?

Find a way to tap into this enviable ability to give your customers a unique, positive experience they will remember and your business could end up being just as huge, trusted, recommended and Liked!

Think of it this way …if you went into a coffee shop and ordered a cupcake with your Latte expecting the average house cupcake and instead you were served with one of these gorgeous creations, what would your customer experience be? Would you leave that coffee shop having enjoyed the beauty of the cupcake design, the texture of the icing and the spongy softness of the cake itself, and feeling surprised, happy, gratified? Would you tell all your friends?

Now that is the power of a WOW! Razzle Dazzle customer experience!!