Small gestures to delight your customers

When it comes to customer service, Zappos is in another league of its own. It’s not a small-time player on the stage — it’s a legendary rockstar.

They did this by popularizing the idea of “delivering happiness”, especially in their early days of operation. Zappos made this work by finding small but significant and surprising ways in which they could add more value, more benefits or more personality to the interaction and transaction with their customers.

Where else can you find a company that covered the tolls of Massachusetts Turnpike motorists back in November 2011 because they wanted to make the drivers’ travel less stressful due to the holiday?

Or a company that told its customer to donate their wrong pair of shoes to charity while they wait for Zappos to ship the correct ones (overnight!) to her?

Or how about a company that had a courier pick up the shoes (at no extra cost) meant to be returned because the customer’s mother passed away and she didn’t have time to do it herself? Zappos even sent a beautiful flower arrangement to boot! Pun intended.

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After all, everybody loves to feel special. People like it when they’re valued. And customers are happy fans if you do random acts of unexpected kindness during your engagement with them. The surprise element is the cherry on top that helps you pull this off successfully and guarantees the delights of your customers.

To help you do this, start with this simple two-step process:

1. Prioritize which customers are more likely to engage with you.

Technically speaking, you can’t make every single one of your customers super delighted by doing small, significant and surprising gestures to them. You need to prioritize by targeting new orders placed by:

• Regular, repeat customers that have higher than average Customer Lifetime Value with you; and,
• First-time customers that placed an order that’s 30% higher than your Average Order Value

These customers are likely to be more engaged, so they spend more money with you. 70% of emotionally engaged consumers are willing to spend twice as much on brands to which they are loyal, so it’s important to pinpoint who these customers are in your circle.

2. Place “small but significant and surprising” delights for their orders.

Here are some gestures you can consider:

• Include a free product in their order. This could be a supplementary or complementary product that they’d love to use together with the product they ordered.
• Give them free or expedited shipping. If free shipping isn’t possible, make it cheaper instead.
• Place a handwritten “Thank you” note in their order package.
• If handwritten notes aren’t your thing, you can also send them a personalized email (or even video!) to thank them for their order.

At the end of the day, doing small gestures to delight your customers kill two birds with one stone:

– You improve your customer service operations and your business as a whole.
By the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Doing small but significant and surprising gestures for your client helps you stand out from the crowd and catch the attention of your loyal customers.

– Your customers market your product for you.
72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people. If your customers are overcome with warm fuzzies and feel-good feelings, you’re sure that they’d love to tell their friends and families about their great experience with your company.

Doing small gestures that’ll delight your customers doesn’t have to break the bank. If you prioritize well and personalize your service according to the customer’s preferences, you’re well on your way to becoming a rockstar brand like Zappos in the long run.

Have you had any experiences with small gestures in the past? Were they good – or were they great? I’d be thrilled to hear from you so let’s talk in the comments below. See you next week!

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