Master Class: How to Wow Your Customers – with Joey Coleman
Joey Coleman
Design SymphonyJoey Coleman is the founder of Design Symphony, a customer experience branding firm. You can also check him out at JoeyColeman.com.
Making a sale is exciting. But Joey Coleman says that it’s what you do after the sale that really matters.
“A great client of mine…makes a device that measures the ambient temperature in a room…a server closet, for example,” says Joey, founder of Design Symphony. “The actual profit model for them is in the recurring service subscription [that monitors the temperature].”
But a lot of customers weren’t installing the device, “which not only left a lot of money on the table, but was contrary to what the entire business was started for, which was to help people monitor their temperatures,” says Joey. Customers thought it would be complicated to install the device, so they didn’t do it.
So Joey’s solution was a simple one-minute video. “If by day seven after receiving the device they haven’t plugged it in, we send them a link to a video showing the CEO taking less than one minute to install the device,” he says.
Customers loved the video and started to set up their devices sooner, and the company’s revenue increased by a whopping 60-70%.
In his Mixergy course, Joey shares more of the strategies he uses to create a great customer experience after a sale. Here are three highlights from the course.
1. Hold Their Hand
It’s exciting for you to sell something, but it’s not always exciting for the customer.
“Normally when we make a sale, we’re jumping up and down and cheering, like ’Yeah, we’ve got a new client!’” says Joey. “We [don’t] realize that the customer is saying, ‘Oh my gosh, is this really going to work? Did I make a good choice?’ What’s left is fear, doubt and uncertainty.”
So how do you make them feel confident after they buy?
Show them they’re in good hands
After they buy, give them a positive experience right away.
“That first communication after the sale is really crucial to reaffirm in the buyer’s mind that they’ve made a good choice,” says Joey.
For instance, Zappos, one of Joey’s clients, sends new buyers an email immediately after they make a purchase, with a free upgrade to next-day shipping.
“Here Zappos is saying, ‘Hey, even though we are a billion-dollar-plus company, doing business with us is going to be a different experience,’” he says. “It’s just a tiny little thing that absolutely revolutionizes what people are emotionally experiencing right after they’ve given you their hard-earned money.”
2. Brighten Their Day
Sometimes customers have a negative experience that’s unavoidable.
For instance, one of Joey’s clients, Ongoing Operations, specializes in disaster recovery for computer systems. “If you’ve ever had a computer fail, you know what a nightmare that can be,” says Joey. “Imagine that happening on the scale of….1,000 or 10,000 employees. Everyone is freaking out.” And it usually means that some of their IT people will have to work overnight with Ongoing Operations.
So what do you do when your client is having a negative experience?
Lessen their pain
Find a way to show you care.
Ongoing Operations does this by sending Starbucks gift cards to the IT team the morning after an all-nighter. “They include a note that says, ‘I know you had a late night last night,’” says Joey. “‘So sorry. Thanks for being there in the trenches with us. Have a cup of coffee on us this morning.’” It’s especially meaningful because “usually gifts go to the CEO or maybe to an account rep, never to the IT guy,” he says.
And Joey says that every company has a negative customer experience it can improve. “Maybe you’re a logo designer and you’re into round four of the revisions and you’re hating life,” he says. “Step back from your business and look. What are [your customers] going through? And think about little things you can do. These don’t have to be big dollar spends, [just] show that you care.”
3. Wow Your Team
Most companies want to deliver exceptional customer experience, but there’s just one problem: their team doesn’t know what exceptional customer service looks like.
For instance, one of Joey’s clients, a software company, prides itself on offering a “first-class experience” to customers. But “the average call center rep, or admin person, or the person doing the bookkeeping, has barely flown in their life, let alone flown in first class,” says Joey. “And so how can you say to them we want to deliver a first-class experience, when they have no frame of reference for that?”
So how do you show your employees what exceptional customer service looks like?
Show them what you mean
Create a great employee experience.
For instance, that same software company holds an annual event for employees and customers at a world-class resort in California. “It’s consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful hotels in California, and the world,” says Joey.
And that experience helps the team create exceptional experiences for their customers. “Once they have a frame of reference, it will be so much easier for your team to deliver remarkable customer experiences to your clients,” he says.
Written by April Dykman.