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Give your employees autonomy
- Micah Solomon is a customer service expert, consultant, and the author of "Ignore Your Customer (And They'll Go Away): The Simple Playbook for Delivering the Ultimate Customer Service Experience."
- In today's oversaturated market, Solomon shows companies how stellar customer service can set them apart from the pack and create brand-loyal clients.
- For "wow" customer service, he encourages employers to recruit and train employees well, and give them the freedom to make their own on-the-spot decisions to impress customers.
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All humans, including the humans we call "customers," tend to remember what happens to us in our lives in terms of stories. The implication for any company striving to build customer engagement and loyalty is this: Merely satisfactory customer service, when everything is "just fine" but not extraordinary, may not be enough to lodge yourself indelibly in the memories of your customers. For this you'll need to step it up, at least in some interactions with your customer, in order to "wow" them in a way that will be truly memorable.
Courtesy of Micah Solomon
Micah Solomon.
So, what is a "wow experience"? It's when a service provided to a customer goes beyond fulfilling basic expectations and does so in a creative, unexpected way. This results in an experience that is likely to connect emotionally with your customer and will live on in your customer's memory, as well as being shared enthusiastically with the customer's friends, family, coworkers, and potentially others through social media.
The act of creating "wow" moments, and the feeling of being empowered by the organization to do so, can inspire the employees involved and be a powerful tool for improving teamwork, employee retention, and company-wide morale.
Here's how to do it, in six straightforward steps. Creating these moments can make all the difference in the world for the sustainability of your business model as well as for the engagement of the employees on your team.