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Five ways to improve your customer experience

July 17, 2008 | Hospitality Industry

When assessing your product, consider the customer experience. The process starts when customers research products. Think in terms of your consumers' needs and preferences, not your company's challenges and hurdles.

Based on her own experience finding the right place for her honeymoon, ClickZ columnist Heidi Cohen shares some interesting ideas on customer experience at every point in the purchase and usage process.

Some of her key suggestions:

The experience starts with the research process. Think about your customer’s needs and concerns. With experiential products, soft factors such as how you communicate before, during, and after the experience can make a big difference. For example, we received answers to pre-trip questions after we returned home! Consider how to make your communications go beyond the basics.

Don’t try to be everything to everyone. As honeymooners, we looked for hotels catering to couples and that didn’t offer children’s services. Each hotel’s staff made an extra effort to respond to our special needs, such as putting champagne in our room.

Delight and surprise your customers. While these factors don’t have to be major, they must be positive. Used to American-owned airlines on which you must bring your own food, my husband hasn’t stopped talking about the free wine he was served in a real glass with dinner on Air New Zealand. The key is to do something special that’s different from the expected.

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