MC: 0:00

Experience Action. Let's stop just talking about customer experience, employee experience and the experience of leaders. Let's turn ideas into action. Your host, Jeannie Walters, is an award-winning customer experience expert, international keynote speaker and founder of Experience Investigators, a strategic consulting firm helping companies increase sales and customer retention through elevated customer experiences. Ready set action.

Jeannie Walters: 0:31

Welcome back to Experience Action, where we take customer experience challenges directly from you and turn them into opportunities.

Listener Question: 0:40

How can small businesses compete with larger companies in delivering exceptional customer experience?

Jeannie Walters: 0:46

This is such a great question because so many of us, we're the little guys. Right? We're up against all the big multinational organizations that have processes and systems and supply chain management and all sorts of things that maybe we just don't have. So what does that mean for small business? There are so many small businesses in the United States and I am very proud to be on the leadership council of the National Small Business Association. This is a nonpartisan group and essentially, we are looking out for small business. So this is very close to my heart.

Jeannie Walters: 1:32

Now when I think about what we can do as small business owners and leaders when it comes to customer experience, we actually might have some superpowers. We get to know the customers. We actually know the names and the lives of our customers in ways that it's harder to do at massive scale. So what can we do? Well, let's take a page out of any customer experience strategy and the expectations that customers have today. In fact, there are recent studies that have come out showing that 73% of customers will say that customer experience is a driving factor in their decision making with a brand. Yet only 49% of the consumers who said this felt that that was being delivered. So what does that tell us? That tells us that as small business people, we can actually really look for understanding what those expectations are. We can leverage our size as a strength for more concierge service for things that maybe we can't scale at the thousands or hundreds of thousands of customers point, but we can certainly do if we have maybe a dozen or so. So what does that mean for us? Customers increasingly value personal connection. So if we focus on that, look at your customer journey.

Jeannie Walters: 2:55

If you have not conducted some journey mapping for your small business and what customers are actually experiencing, that's where I would start. Think about that. One of the things I often highlight when I have audiences of small business people is we have to think about what are the actual interactions and the touch points that we have with customers. Sometimes we've been kind of taught that the only way to think about business is essentially getting customers in the door and then, once they're in the door, we don't have to worry about them. Now, of course you and I know that's bunk right and what I mean by that is if you look at your journey, think about things like invoices. Think about things like the first time somebody walks into your establishment or calls your business. Think about what happens if they go on your site. Think about all of those different points of interaction and what you can do to improve it just a little bit. Make it a little more personalized. Something like that can go a long way for a small business, because you're building the relationship from the very beginning and they are investing in you. Like it or not,

Jeannie Walters: 4:06

There is some risk for customers when they are going with a small business. Maybe it's harder then. It would be for an Amazon, right? Maybe they have to actually find a parking spot or they're not sure about the return policy. So if we set up barriers like that, if we set up things that feel like they're barriers just because they're not like the big guys, it's time to start examining what can we do. We might not be able to have as liberal of a return policy as some of the bigger brands out there, but what can we do? Can make sure you're happy with this and then check in on them if it's a big purchase. So when we look at how to really think about this, think about the companies that are big now but didn't start off that way.

Jeannie Walters: 4:58

Zappos, from the very beginning, focused on customer happiness. What can we do as small business people to really invest in that idea? So if you start with journey mapping, you want to make sure that you're looking for the places where maybe there's a gap. There's a gap in expectations because somewhere else in the marketplace there is a competitor who might be a big company, who is providing a little more, something easier, more convenient. Maybe it's price. We might not be able to do much about price, but what can we do about being easy, convenient and more personal? Can we follow up being easy, convenient and more personal? Can we follow up? Can we make sure that we are getting to know our customer and proactively looking out for them?

Jeannie Walters: 5:44

One of the stories I share in some of my keynotes is about a local pharmacy that I've worked with. Now they're very local, they're independent and they did something extraordinary. They actually followed up with me in advance because they saw that one of our prescriptions was going to be very, very costly. Now I won't go into the whole story here, but I just want to say that that earned our loyalty of, a family what, it felt like they were looking out for us in a way that the big pharmacies couldn't. That's the type of thing to look for. Where can we proactively let our customers feel valued, feel like we are not only looking out for them when they purchase something, but looking out for them throughout their customer journey. ..

Jeannie Walters: 6:29

Sometimes with small business, we have the opportunity for community building as well. Now, this I've seen with some personal trainers, some folks like that, who build community one-on-one but then create space for those customers to get together, Thanksgiving in it's local or. location-based That's So by providing that community, you're basically helping like-minded people find each other and support one another. That community can actually create loyalty, can create that sense of you know what? I love this place. So think about when you see things on social media with people posting about I've been here 100 times or taking a picture with their favorite restaurant's owner. They have those relationships because not only has the customer invested in that, but the business has invested in that too. So think about ways you can invest in those personal moments. How can you create that? And then a lot of this comes down to who is serving them Our employees, the ones who are directly interacting with customers. They have so much to do with the experience for small businesses. So make sure we are hiring, training, onboarding and then empowering our employees to make the right choices. And two of the tools that I would recommend no matter if you're a small business or a big business are thinking about your customer experience mission statement and your success statement, and the reason is because those tools can empower your employees to understand what is your North Star, what is most important.

Jeannie Walters: 8:13

When we talk about customer experience, I get those phone calls from leaders who reach out and they say we want to differentiate with customer experience. And I say that's great, let's talk about what that looks like. How do we define that? And they say, no, we just want to do that. So what should we measure? Well, obviously, if you have not defined what the customer experience means for you and your customers, you can't really define how to measure it. So don't fall into that trap. Make sure that you are really thinking about what is most important.

Jeannie Walters: 8:49

Take a page from the book of the brands that know themselves really well. You know, one of the brands I talk about is REI. They actually have decided that they are not going to be open the day after Thanksgiving. In the United States, that's called Black Friday, because that's when retailers typically get out of debt and into the black on their balance sheet. So why did they make that choice? Because they believe that a life well-lived is lived outdoors. They wanted to give their employees and customers a reason to experience that long weekend. Once they started doing that, people thought they were crazy, but they did it because they believed in who they were, what they were offering and who their customers were. Now, since 2015, they've been doing that permanently. They have a hashtag called Opt Outside, and not only have they been in the black, but customers have rewarded them with even more loyalty, more purchases. People want to work there, so they become an employer of choice.

Jeannie Walters: 9:53

There are all sorts of benefits. Once we actually know who we are, what experience we want to deliver and who our customers are and what they expect from us. If we can really connect those dots, everything else becomes a little easier. It helps us set the right expectations. It helps us deliver those personalized experiences. It helps us connect the dots with our customers so that they think of us as more than where they just bought a product or get a service, but really a community, a connection. That's the power that small business can bring. .

Jeannie Walters: 10:30

So if you're looking at this, if you're really considering this as a small business leader, start with really defining who you are. What is your customer experience mission? Define, how will you know, how will you know if you're delivering on this and what will it do for your organization? And then look at your customer journey and figure out where are those moments that you can make it a little more personalized, that you can proactively reach out and help connect with your individual customers. All of that could lead to really big things. That's the superpower of small business. What a great question.

Jeannie Walters: 11:11

Thank you so much for asking and please, if you have a question, don't forget you can leave me a voicemail. Just go to askjeannievip. And if you haven't yet checked out our learning center at experienceinvestigatorscom, there are so many resources for you there. Check those out and reach out to us at Experience Investigators if you have any questions or if you need support on your customer experience strategy and the journey within your organization to deliver outstanding experiences that really live up to who you are and deliver for the customers that you have. Customer experience is everyone's business, and so we're glad that you're here. Thanks so much for being here. We'll see you next week To learn more about our strategic approach to experience. Check out free resources at experienceinvestigatorscom, where you can sign up for our newsletter, our Year of CX program and more, and please follow me, Jeannie Walters, on LinkedIn.