The unauthorised guide to creating happy customers with your web site

We ran a contest on Facebook over the last couple of weeks to find out the most effective thing you've done to create a great experience for your customers.
People who responded went in the draw to win Debbie Mayo-Smith's book "101 Quick Tips - Create a Great Customer Experience".

We all know the best way to bring your customers back (with a queue of friends behind them) is to give them a great experience. And you came up with some fantastic experience improvers which you can see below.

Why write an article myself if I can get you to do it for me?

Anyware is a web design company, so I suppose we better make this about the web. And we don't want you accusing me of blatant plagiarism. So I've added ways you can use our stolen tips to make your web site do all the work for you.

Let's start at the front door

Jane from Spectrum Health and Fitness says "We greet and farewell every one of our members by name and we know all of them. The personal touch really goes a long way - as long as it is genuine."
Nice one Jane.

The obvious way to do this on the web is in your email newsletter. Always ask for a first name when people subscribe and ALWAYS address your readers by their first name in the first line of your newsletter.
Doesn't that personal connection just make you feel important and appreciated?

Respond Like It Matters

Steven from ShipMyTrade says "Replying to ALL email enquiries, no matter how mundane or insignificant they may seem."
Great point Steve. It's so easy to leave emails sitting in your inbox for a few days (um, or forever).

Not much I can add to 'webify' this one.
So let's go the other way. At Anyware we do everything humanly possibly to pick up every incoming phone call and respond to the ones we miss within an hour. And we've won plenty of new business because we did this and the other company did not.

Keep It Personal

Samantha says "smile and kept eye contact! Amazing the difference it makes :o)"
Such a good tip Samantha and it costs you nothing.

If you've been to one of our seminars you probably have visions etched in your brain of me ranting about how important it is to make a personal connection when writing the text for your web site.
Create a personal connection by using words like we, I and you. And never refer to yourself or your company in the 3rd person unless doing so adds value.
Talk to the person on the other side of the page like they were standing in front of you.

Over Deliver

Lisa Wilson (Photographer) always gives them more than they expect. "I matte their portrait prints ready for framing."
Great tip Lisa. Nothing delivers a great experience like exceeding people's expectations.

This one's a bit trickier on the web. It's not easy to email someone a free coffee.

So I'd go for understanding your best customer really well. I mean get inside their head and know exactly what motivates them to find you so you can give them the exact information they want laid out right in front of them. No searching, no wading through irrelevant waffle and no waiting for slow web sites to load. Give them exactly what they want, right now.
That impresses most people so much that they buy from you.

Focus on your best customers here – the rest will still find you ok and we don't mind if we don't impress them quite as much.

Focus on the Experience

At Anyware, the best thing we did was get the whole team together to collectively write our core values and vision. (You can see them here: http://www.anyware.co.nz/vision.php)

Now each of us own and live this core value: "Service - relentless pursuit of the perfect customer experience".
And it's amazing how clear this attitude becomes to your customers when everybody is consistently focused on such a statement.

We use our web site to make this work for us by telling everybody about this core value when ever we can. On our web site, in our email marketing, Facebook and (soon) in our email signatures. The web really helps us show you that we genuinely mean it.
The web is great for screaming something like this from the rooftops.

What Does Debbie Say?

I asked Debbie Mayo-Smith the same question and she said "The best thing I can think of that I do as a one-woman-band so to speak it to try to be as immediately responsive and helpful as possible. Its incredible how many people/businesses do not answer emails - at all! How many people make it a pain to do business with them."

Making your web site do this work for you comes down to what we preach in our seminars – removing barriers.
There's a thousand ways you can improve your web site to make it easier for people to do business with you.

Focus on convenience for your customers – start with simple things like giving them all of your contact details or making your navigation easy to use and key information easy to find. Small details make a huge difference.

Predict and answer your prospects questions so they can decide to buy from you while still on your web site. If you don't know what those questions are, ask Google (Google is very clever and knows every question your competitors' customers have ever asked).

Success Comes From a Great Experience

Creating a great experience for your customers is the foundation upon which any successful web site is built. Join us at our next web site marketing workshop to get the whole picture.

Thanks for all your great ideas and if you have any comments or questions about us using your material without permission just send an email to

Happy marketing,
Phil

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