Customer Experience: 3 Companies That Get It

In a recent article we wrote about how important it is for you to provide your customers with a great experience before the sale and stellar service after.

The experience he will have if he does business with you matters a lot to your potential customer. Excelling in this critical area like the companies we profile in this article can help you can lay the groundwork for a very successful business.

So do you want to do customer experience very well? Keep reading; this article will help you.

We will profile three companies renowned for providing their customers with a wonderful experience that includes ease of buying, high quality products, great customer service after the sale – especially if there is a problem, and marketing to their database of previous buyers to make those all important repeat sales.

Something To Keep In Mind

The scope of this article is much broader than just customer service, but great customer service is a vital part of the overall customer experience. Not every customer experience goes smoothly, even for these three very successful, well known companies.

But when problems occur these companies work hard to solve them ASAP. In customer service and so many more aspects of the customer experience, we can learn a lot from them.

Three Companies That “Get” Customer Experience 

As you read the next part of this article, ask yourself how you can take the lessons you learn from these stellar customer experience providers and apply them in your business.

Amazon

Perhaps no company in the world has revolutionized e-commerce like Amazon. At first it was only an online bookstore, but over the last several years Amazon has steadily diversified and is now the world's largest online retailer.

Amazon makes the online buying process extremely simple. Here's one of the ways they do this: first-time buyers are prompted to set up an account that stores their information to make future transactions quick and easy.

The Amazon.com website is divided into many different sections for the millions of products they offer, and searching for and finding products is simple. When making a purchase, you will be offered similar, related products. This is classic win-win business thinking.

You win because you are offered additional products from which you may very well benefit. The merchant also benefits because they stand to make additional sales.

With Amazon, not only is checkout and purchase extremely simple, products are shipped quickly. And Amazon follows up with with its customers post-sale by email in a way that is helpful without being obnoxious or obtrusive.

One of the beauties of Amazon's customer experience is the ability customers have to do so much without having to have help from an Amazon employee. But when problems do happen and customers require assistance, Amazon's very capable and well trained customer service staff responds promptly and courteously.

Another way Amazon provides a stellar customer experience is by holding outside merchants who sell products through the Amazon site to a very high standard of customer experience and service excellence. Merchants that have problems with 1% or more of their customer's orders can be barred from selling products through Amazon's website.

So what can we, as online marketers, learn from Amazon? There are enough valuable lessons to fill up many books, perhaps. But here's one: whether you are marketing online, offline or both, make the process of shopping and buying from you as easy and low stress as possible.

Apple

“Once a viable market opportunity is identified, the next major step is to create and deliver the solution to address it. A large part of the success of the product is determined by how well this is accomplished and how well a good customer experience is delivered.

The key to understanding customer experience is that it is not just the User Interface, but encompasses every aspect of how the product solves the customer need. This directly drives customer satisfaction. Apple has been masterful at accomplishing this.”

So says this article talking about the outstanding customer experience Apple provides.

There's a valuable lesson here for all of us who are online marketers – find out exactly what your target audience is looking for and provide it for them. Apple excels at this, and they do customer experience very well. A 2011 study concluded that Apple delivered “the 'most admired customer experience' in the marketplace”.

Apple seems to have all elements of customer experience “dialed in”, including their in-store service. They train store employees to follow the company's “5 Steps Of Service”, and these “customer experience superstars” are renowned for their ability to make visitors feel welcome and at ease.

Apple has struck a strong emotional chord that resonates with their customers. Many have made the leap from “customer” to “raving fan” and no longer view Apple products as just consumer electronics but as an integral part of their lifestyle and even their identity.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

There's a powerful lesson in this quote for all of us who are online marketers. How people feel when they are considering making a purchase from you and when they are your post-sale customer is critical to a stellar customer experience. And you can do a lot to influence how they feel.

So go out of your way to make them feel valued, appreciated and important to you, before the sale and especially afterwards. Doing so will go a long way toward giving them the customer experience they crave – the type of customer experience that helps build empires like Apple and Amazon.

Nordstrom

This luxury goods retailer has long been admired for its outstanding customer service and overall customer experience. The company is also noted for its very high quality products.

According to  David VanAmburg, of ACSI, “Nordstrom is at the top of that industry (retail) because despite the fact that people are paying more for the products, they are of very high value and in almost all cases this a more important driver in satisfaction than price”.

So what can online marketers like you and I learn from Nordstrom? Even if we aren't in the retail business, great service and high quality matter. Both are critical to the wonderful experience we want to  provide our customers.

Also, take a moment to reread the previous quote. Then ask yourself “what does it have to do with my business?”. Consider this: if you will provide great products, you can often charge more and your customers will happily pay it. This puts you in a much more advantageous position than trying to compete based on price alone.

Landing Pages And Customer Experience 

As the example of these three stellar companies shows us, customer experience is multifaceted. It applies to much more than just the sales process or customer service when there's a problem.

But remember that customer experience does matter during the sale, whether you are doing business face-to-face or through your online store. And in online marketing, nowhere is customer experience more critical than during the conversion process, that point where you are trying to convert an online shopper into a buyer.

To consistently experience a high conversion rate, you need landing pages. And you need to set up your landing page with persuasive copywriting and clean, uncluttered design. Your landing page has to do a lot of “heavy lifting” for you.

So why not give this critical part of your online marketing campaign a boost? Keep in mind that not all landing pages are the same. Why not give yourself the “unfair advantage” of using state-of-the-art landing page templates from Lander.

Why Lander? Our landing page templates have been optimized to help you enjoy a higher conversion rate. And Lander offers you the easiest-to-use landing page platform in the Universe! Lander enables you to launch landing pages in a matter of minutes, landing pages that are a snap to manage!

Lander offers you the ultimate high quality landing page platform. Not only do we give you a great customer experience, we will help you give your customer a wonderful experience.

And here's some great news: you can try any of Lander's templates for free and with no obligation! So why not try Lander today? Why not start today enjoying the many benefits you stand to gain from being a Lander customer.

Do you have any questions about Lander and how it can help you take your online marketing campaigns to a higher level? Contact us today.

Happy Marketing!