Creating superfans through premium customer experiences

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

 Did you know that on average happy customers tell four to six others about their experience? Whereas unhappy customers will tell on average nine to 15 people about their negative experience. In today’s episode of the podcast, I’m going to be sharing some ideas for creating premium customer experiences that will create loyal and raving fans of your brand.

This is a juicy one, so make sure you stick around.

So let’s start with the basics. Why create loyal fans of your brand? Why is it important to create people that are so happy with the service they have received that they are telling other people about it?

Well, let me share with you some statistics. This is from an article by Beyond Philosophy, and I am going to link to the article in the show notes for today’s episode.

The first, the probability of selling to an existing satisfied customer is 60 to 70% as compared to 5 to 20 percent chance of you converting a new potential lead. So you can see by that stat already, it makes sense to look after your existing customers for them to have a happy and positive experience. The next stat, 55% percent of customers would pay extra to guarantee a better service. So people are happy to pay more to be looked after. The next stat at 96% percent of unhappy customers won’t complain to you about their experience. 91 percent of them will just leave and never come back. And probably go on to be one of those customers that talks to other people about their negative experience. Talking on average to nine to 15 different people about their negative experience. And again, this is just an average. I know that I’m one of those people. If I have an excellent experience, I will tell everyone about it. And conversely, I will also let people know if I’m not happy with the way that I was treated by a business. So some people go and sell even more than these statistics.

And the next stat that I want to share is that it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

So hopefully these statistics have got you thinking hmm. It’s probably pretty important for me to look after my clients, to give them an amazing experience. So they go to become those happy customers that go on to rave about my brand rather than go and spread negative things about my business.

The reason I’m feeling so inspired about this particular topic today, I have just come back from a workshop run by ActiveCampaign, who are my email marketing providers. And the training has really gotten me thinking about how I can create a more authentic, premium customer experience for those people on my email list.

So I do use tools inside my email marketing at the moment known as tags. So I capture information about people on my email list, and I do use this so that I am not just spamming my whole database all the time when I’m promoting a new offering. However, today’s training showed me I’ve got a long way to go on this front. And it’s really got me thinking about how I can find out more about my potential customers so that I can tailor their experience.

So an example of this, some people on my list might be based outside of Australia and they might not be interested in hearing about the events that I’m running here. Other people might like getting text message reminders for things. I’m one of those people. I love a good text. I have so many notifications and things going on. The more reminders I can get letting me know that something’s on the better. So this is another way that I might be able to give my people on my email list a more tailored experience. So if you are on my email list a survey will be coming out in the not too distant future to my audience to find out more about you so that I can give you a more tailored experience to support you in the areas that you need it. And if you aren’t on my email list, please make sure you do sign up in the show notes for today’s episode. I’ll pop up a link to one of my freebies, which is my 50 money affirmations. It’s these affirmations are really great way to shift your relationship around money. And I’ve also actually done a recording that goes along with it, so you can actually listen and say the affirmations along with me. So, as I mentioned, I do believe that there is opportunity for me to up level the experience that new potential clients have when they join my email list.

One area that I do believe I do pretty well in is offering premium service to my existing clients. Now, Obviously, there is always room for improvement, but I do take pride in making my high ticket clients feel special. My private clients get customized gifts. So when they first come on board to work with me, I do send out a survey. I want to understand more about them. And when I’m sending out a, you know, a birthday gift or whatever it might be, it’s not just a generic bunch of flowers, I’ve really thought about what is special to them and tailor gifts to them. And also the customer experience in working with me. Again, I check in on my clients regularly to make sure that they feel supported. I’m always sharing new ideas, new concepts with them to help them get the best results in their business.

So if you are ready to create a more premium experience for your clients, here are some things that you can do.

Firstly, Understand your clients and where they are at on their journey. You want to be specifically talking to your dreamboat clients and meeting them where they are at. There’s someone that I follow online and the other day in her marketing, she said, when we finally reached that elusive six figure level, and I realized that perhaps this person wasn’t the right person for me at this stage of my journey, because I’ve already achieved six figures of revenue in my business for many, many years now, not to take away from working towards that goal. I know that it’s a huge milestone. And in fact, Less than 10 percent of female business owners ever earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year in their business. So it’s not to take away from that metric, but it just made me realize that the experience I would have with that brand wasn’t quite right for where I’m at now.

So really think about where are your clients at? What are their problems? What are their pain points? If someone is a weight loss coach, for example, and they start talking about really advanced methods of training in the gym, someone who’s perhaps never been to a gym before, it might be a bit beyond them if they’ve, they’ve never even lifted weights before in their life. And maybe that’s not their dream clients and that’s fine, but it’s really like thinking, where are they at? What kind of languaging do you want to be using that really shows that you get them, you understand where they’re at right now.

The next thing. Oh my gosh, this is a biggie. When someone does sign up to become a client of yours, give them a warm welcome. I have automated emails so that when someone joins one of my courses or my programs, they get an email and literally the first line is a big, warm welcome. It’s great to have you here.

One of my biz friends joined a program. She was a little bit skeptical about this particular coach, very well known. And my friend decided to invest out of curiosity in one of her programs. So my friend handed over her credit card details paid, and she heard zip. Nada. She waited 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours. It was coming up to a week and she hadn’t even received a simple, thank you, I got your payment or welcome to the program. She hadn’t received any information at all. And as I said earlier, the context, this is not some small startup brand. This is a very large company, well known brand that should have known better. So have a think, what is the experience when someone finally does take that big step to work with you? They instantly get a confirmation, a big, warm welcome. Depending on the magnitude of the investment, there might even be a gift that comes along with this. When we bought our house, my real estate agent rocked up with a bunch of flowers, a bottle of champagne and a cheese board as a way of saying thank you and congratulations.

Next, when you are communicating either with paying clients or potential clients, can you ensure that there is excellent communication?

When I ran my book tour last year, some of the feedback that I had was about how detailed the communication was that people receive. And the reason for that, I know for me, as someone who loves to go along to events, so many times I’ve been coming in the lead up to the event thinking, is it still on? Where exactly is it again? What do I wear? Is this one of those instagrammable events where everyone’s going to have their hair and makeup professionally done? Or is it more of a jeans and sneakers kind of vibe? Is it more of a casual vibe? So in my email, I provided all the information. I let people know exactly how much food and drink they could expect so that if people were after a more substantial meal, they would know to eat before they came. Again, I know that I’ve been in the situation where I rocked up to an event that said nibbles. It had one tiny plate of food for a room full of people. And I sat there with my stomach grumbling for a couple of hours. I was not impressed. People don’t mind… it’s not like you expect to be fed at every event, but you just want to know so that you can be prepared. And I would say this is relevant to any experience with a brand.

My husband recently signed up to work with an agency. And again, they let him know every step of the way, Hey, just letting, you know, at the moment we’ve placed the ad to find a potential match for you and he’s getting regular updates and there’s a lot of power in communication. Even if it’s not communicating the best message necessarily, at least if you were getting updates, you know what is going on, as compared to you sign up for something, you hope that it’s still on and rock up there with no idea what to expect on the night, or you’re working with a brand and you’re waiting. I’ve also had this experience and going, when am I going to hear from you again? What’s the next steps in the process? I can’t believe I’ve handed over all this money and I still have no idea what is going on. So excellent communication is also a really powerful part of creating a premium customer service experience.

The next part of creating an excellent customer service experience is investing in education for both yourself and your team. Again, if you’ve ever paid to do a program or to work with an organization and the people you were dealing with seem absolutely clueless, doesn’t it give you such a negative perception. So don’t assume that people know if you have a team of salespeople, send them on sales training. If your own knowledge has fallen a little bit behind invest to keep yourself educated. This is again, why I went along to this ActiveCampaign training this morning, because I love to continue to learn more.

There’s a saying, which is you are either green and growing, or you are ripe and rotting. And you absolutely want to be someone that is continuing to grow in the area of serving your clients.

Next to give your clients an excellent experience, empower your team in the decision making process. If your team don’t have the capacity and this is of course, if you do have a team, if not not relevant to you, but if you do have a team empower them to be part of the decision making process.

If anyone’s ever worked for a micromanager, I know I have, I’ve worked for a lot of bosses that I could not make a single small decision without consulting them and I had to copy them in on every single email I ever sent. And if you are the bottleneck in your business, particularly as it is growing, you are going to find that customers are going to become unhappy because if everything stops with you, eventually it will get beyond your capacity. So really think about what are some decisions that I can say to my team, Hey, you can make a call on that. And even if it’s not quite the right call, I’m happy to wear that risk because I know that the customers need to be served.

In the space of excellent customer service. One of the things that you can do is really find out more about your clients wants and needs. So an example of this many years ago, I went on a retreat and one of the questions that she asked was, how do you like your coffee? It’s such a simple little question, but when it came to coffee time, and my coffee came out to me made exactly the way I liked it. I was made to feel really special. And this is definitely one of the questions that I ask my retreatees is when we go on our escapes as well. How do you like your coffee? Not only makes it easier for me, but it makes them feel really special.

Another way you can really up level and create a real wow factor experience for your clients is in tailored experiences. By learning more about them. And creating an experience that’s based around that.

So when my husband and I, it’s probably been a while since I’ve shared this on the podcast, but my husband and I actually eloped. We got married in Mexico at this absolutely lush resort and the customer service there was unbelievable. And one of the experiences that I will never forget, we were lying by the pool and this guy comes up and he said, Mr. and Mrs. Wood, Clare, Shannon. And we said, yes. And both of us thought, how the hell does he even know who we are? And he said, I am the manager of the resort and Shannon, I understand that you like spicy food. And Clare, I believe that seafood is your favorite. So this evening, if you are open to it, I would love to offer you a special meal with each of you having your favorite dish prepared. Is that something you’d be open to? And we were mind blown. No one had actually asked us specifically what kind of things we liked. So it must’ve come up in conversation. One of the hotel guests jotted it down, popped it into a system and then the general manager came and created this tailored experience around our likes. I was mind blown. Look at me, I’m still raving about it 10 years on. So think about some ways that you can create a really tailored experience for your customers.

Following on from that, what are some ways that you can go above and beyond and exceed expectations? Again, talking about being a raving fan of a brand. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before or not, but my dentist from Brisbane, where I used to live. Oh my gosh, the most amazing dentist. I’m going to pop his details in the show notes in case you do want to and check him out. But the whole experience was just wow, for a dental experience. So one of the things was that, I don’t know if you guys experienced this, but I’m a real cold frog. And particularly when I’m in medical settings, I’m quite often shivering because I’m so cold. Anyway, so you go in and get on his chair and he comes out with this heated blanket and says, would you like a blanket? I went, wow, yes. And at the end of your treatment, you also get a lip balm because your lips might be dry after having a dental treatment done. There’s just so many little amazing touches like that.

And it all comes down to understanding your customer’s pain and pleasure points. So again, my dentist had obviously had people come in and comment how cold it was before. Are you actually listening to what your customers are telling you? That is such a great place to start, which segues perfectly into the next point, which is around capturing feedback.

If you have come through any of my programs, or if you have worked with me, you will know that I am a huge fan of sending out surveys, asking for feedback. One of the ways that we get better, is that we hear what our customers have to say. Now, this doesn’t mean that everything anyone ever says you take on board and completely go and change your business. I know one time I did this and my customer said, we would like to do our coaching multiple of my customers, mind you, I think three or four of my clients at the time had said, we want to do coaching in person. And I thought, okay, that’s all well and good. But one of you’s in Perth, one of you’s in Adelaide, one of you’s in Melbourne, one of you’s in Sydney, you know, it’s clearly practically impossible for me to do our weekly coaching sessions in different cities. So while I took on board that feedback you know, it doesn’t mean that I went and executed on it. It’s just learning. It’s understanding what people would like. I also always allow the option for the feedback to be anonymous. So if people do have something they want to share, but don’t feel comfortable sharing their name, I do think that’s a great way to get more honest feedback.

Next step, when people are providing feedback, handle the feedback gracefully. I had an experience where I had some, an awful customer experience with a pool build up. And basically when I said, Hey, I’d like to have a conversation about this very calmly, I had someone yelling at me on the phone and I was like, I’m trying to give you some feedback to help you improve your business. I then left them a not so positive Google rating. And I got an email within minutes threatening to sue me for defamation. And I knew that it wasn’t defamation because it can’t be defamation if you’re telling the truth. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that if you are receiving feedback, you should be bloody grateful that someone is actually coming to you. Unlike most people, as I said, at the start, most people will simply walk away, not mention it. 96% percent of unhappy customers don’t complain. You would way rather they are letting you know so that you have the opportunity To rectify it. Or at least try and resolve it amicably. Let me share a positive experience of how this happened for me.

When I was flying interstate for my birthday, it was actually my 30th birthday and I missed my flight and I’ve missed my flights with some other airlines before and they were freaking Horrible to me, like, well, you should have been here on time and it’s going to be so much money to buy a new ticket. This particular counter, I’m going to shout out, it was Qantas airlines and the guy behind the counter said, Oh my gosh, I can see you’re really upset, come sit down, he got me some tissues, got me a bottle of water and said, okay, do you want to have a chat about it? Now I did have to pay for a new airline ticket, but he helped me to book the new flight. And then when I got on the plane, there was a little card and a small bottle of champagne that said, happy birthday, Clare. Now I am still raving about that experience years on, because that’s an example of how you can treat someone in an experience that, you know, really missing a flight’s not a Really positive thing, but I had such a great response, even though I still had to pay for a new flight.

So some examples of how I’m using this in my real world experiences, as I mentioned on the podcast last week, I’m currently launching my level up retreat, which is an intimate, intimate, in person, two day retreat where we actually going to be working on, you know, business on mapping out the 12 month plan ahead and really helping to work through your money blocks so that you can earn and attract more money in your business. So here’s some things that I’m doing to make the experience more premium.

Firstly, one of the things that I’m doing for this retreat, this is something new that I don’t normally do. I’m actually booking accommodation and arranging transfer from the accommodations. So everyone will get their own room at a nearby beautiful hotel. And I’m actually going to arrange the transfers to and from the retreat venue each day. There is a lush, lush venue with divine high end catering. I’ve been very clear about who the event is for. So it’s for like minded successful entrepreneurs. I’m really communicating, you know, this is really for people who are already successful business owners who wanting to step into the multi six mid six or seven figure mark in their business. It’s also a really intimate experience, which includes a networking dinner. And throughout the experience, there’s going to be some surprise little treats. And one thing that I do want to say about the surprise and delight concept, it doesn’t have to be anything huge. You don’t have to go and spend hundreds or hundreds of dollars buying your clients a gift.

Once you know, I was sitting in a doctor’s practice waiting for an appointment for my son and the receptionist came out with a silver tray and a glass of chilled water. And she’s like, would you like a glass of water? I was wowed again, years on. All they did was bought me a glass of water, but it’s so unlike the experience that you receive in a lot of businesses these days. A lot of times it’s the thought that counts.

And last but not least, this stuff is all really nice to have, but this is all icing on the cake. The most important thing is that you are delivering the transformation that you promise your clients.

You can have all the glossy brochures and the welcome gift. If you don’t actually do the thing that you say you’re going to do, you are still going to end up with unhappy customers. So make sure that your clients are having a transformative experience working with you. They are ultimately investing in the outcome.

Look, while we’re on the topic of the retreat, there are only eight spots available for this particular level up retreat, that’s happening in November, 2024. At the time the episode is going to come out, I know that some of those spots will already be taken. So if you have wanted to come along to one of my retreats, please go and check it out. The link is going to be in the show notes for today’s episode, and there is a payment plan so that you can pay it off over the next coming few months.

Today was all about excellent customer service experience so that you can create super fans of your business. Maybe you already have a great customer service experience, but hopefully this episode has inspired you to make it even better. And if you are clueless, If you think I don’t even know where to start on this, go back to grass roots and actually ask your clients and or potential clients, help me understand your pleasure and pain points.

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Clare Wood podcast, and I cannot wait to chat to you again next week.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio