In a Family Reunion panel today, Bruce Hardie, regional director for the Northwest Region, shared actionable customer experience (CX) strategies to Family Reunion attendees at his session “Modeling Nordstrom, Disney, Amazon – Strategies to Keep Customers Coming Back.”
What can we learn from Nordstrom, Disney and Amazon?
Nordstrom is famous for its exceptional CX and how they go above and beyond what’s expected. They do this through empowering their salespeople to make decisions based on their best judgement when it comes to serving the customer. Additionally, they hold their sales associates to defined standards so the CX is the same across all stores.
In the case of Disney, they are famous for their attention to customers and details. They definitely want people to have fun and come back. They achieve this by exceeding expectations and focusing on making emotional connections. One way Disney does this is by being assertively friendly.
For Amazon, everything starts with serving the needs of the customer. They start with what the customer needs and then work backward. Moreover, they’re never afraid to apologize to customers as CEO Jeff Bezos famously did with a heartfelt apology after a 2009 incident.
“The customer experience model has changed from being a ‘gatekeeper’ to a service-based model,” Hardie said.
How can you provide top-class customer experience with a systematic approach?
Hardie said that, today, when customers assess your customer service, they compare you with any time they’ve had great service, regardless of industry. His suggestion to provide outstanding customer support is to use the “5S CX Model.”
Set
Present your value proposition: It’s extremely important to share your value proposition and to set your expectations.
Listen to your customer: Listen to your customer’s needs and concerns. Inquire and understand their expectations. Verify that there’s congruency between them and you.
Seek agreement: Make sure to agree on how to communicate. Come together and set mutual expectations.
Serve
Have standards.
Leverage technology: your Website, KW Mobile Search App.
Leverage people: your team, vendors, allied resources.
Survey
Check in frequently.
Ask for feedback: surveys, reviews and testimonials.
Track your “CX score.”
Make improvements.
Surpass
Don’t just meet expectations, surpass them.
Do unexpected things in unexpected ways.
Elevate your service.
Sustain
Stay top of mind.
Gain repeats and referrals.
The “5S CX Model” is a systematic approach that when put into practice will allow you to understand the customer and set expectations and deliver on them. You will be able to check in on the experience so you can then surpass the expectations.
“You need to make your systems as easy as possible in order to be able to replicate them,” Hardie said.
If you want to take your customer service to the next level and learn how to apply the “5S CX model” in detail make sure to check out our customer experience course here!