Three Things That Negatively Impact Customer Experience In Your Business

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Image credit: www.freeimageslive.co.uk

One of the most important factors in establishing brand loyalty is the customer experience. Building Customer loyalty is about more than just creating catchy ads and running loyalty promos –it’s about creating a positive experience every time the customer interacts with your brand.

There are 3 (often overlooked) things that can negatively affect Customer experience in your business

  • Poor Ambiance
  • Poor Customer Service Culture
  • Poor Service Recovery Strategy


#1. POOR AMBIANCE

When Customers visit your business, what is their experience like? This is a question every business owner from the SME to big Corporations have to ask from time to time.
Ambiance matters a lot in the business of rendering service to people, and it is a key parameter in measuring Customer experience. The appearance of your business environment, speaks volumes about the quality of staff and services.

Ambient qualities like lighting & smell can affect the mood of those who visit your business. The sensations, smell, neatness and general feel are put into subconscious consideration whenever a Customer has a need to visit a particular business location (for example the younger generation will always want to visit places, cool enough to take selfies at)

#2. POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE CULTURE

If your staff is trained to see their job functions as simply receiving and disbursing deposits (or any specific role), instead of being Customer centric:

  • They’d handle Customers as tasks to be done
  • Have the impression that Customer Service is for those in the Customer Service Unit

This leads to bizarre scenarios like this –

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Customer:   Can i have some water please?
Waiter <with a jug of water>: You’re not in my section

Building a Customer focused culture takes deliberate planning, and must be driven from the top. Starting at the top means that leadership and management must set the tone.  Then, they must practice what they preach.  They must treat employees like they want the customer treated, and reward behaviors that drive the culture forward.

#3. POOR SERVICE RECOVERY STRATEGIES

Service lapses are inevitable in business, technology might fail, a overlooked issue might rear its head, there’s bound to be one problem or the other, even the most experience brands have experienced defects in their products and service. Is your staff well equipped or prepared to handle (recurrent) service lapses or deal with complaining Customers?

Having a good recovery strategy in place plays a crucial role in restoring Customer trust, achieving satisfaction and building loyalty, if you set out recovery strategies and train staff, they will be better prepared and more likely to be professional in handling complaints and service lapses.

Creating an wonderful experience for your customers is an important ingredient for building a strong brand and increasing customer loyalty. If you want your brand to grow (and, who doesn’t?), make sure you take these 3 things into account as you optimize the experience you present to your guests.

 

Kelechi Okeke
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