Here on the GoInstant blog, we talk a lot about the importance of employee engagement. As we’ve shown on several occasions, happy employees make happy customers. In a recent post, we discussed how companies benefit by treating their employees well, but we left readers with the question of what that really means. How exactly do you motivate employees? In this tutorial, we’re going to cover four methods: give them responsibility, power, feedback and rewards, and they’ll be more inclined to take your customer experience to the next level.

Give them responsibility.

Some managers complain about having to micromanage their teams, but in the long run, micromanagement is highly unproductive. If you spend all your time micromanaging, you become less effective: strategic thinking requires that you let other people do the mundane stuff. And when employees feel they’re being watched 24/7, they’ll be less motivated to do things outside of their job description – even those that might benefit customers – for fear of overstepping boundaries. When you control every aspect of what your team members do, you limit their potential to do things you might not have thought of.

Your employees are the face of your customer service.

Hire people who have a track record of taking on additional responsibilities, and then let them have space. Trust them a bit. They should feel it’s up to them to make a customer’s day. Your employees are the face of your customer service – they are where the bulk of interactions and customer perceptions will occur. As you gradually give them more responsibility, they’ll feel inclined to do even more than what their job description entails. And with extra responsibility comes greater power – another essential ingredient in employee motivation.
Give them power.

Empower your employees to make decisions that will benefit customers. Give them the ability to fix customer problems without having to consult with their supervisor or manager first. This will ensure that problems are fixed quickly and efficiently, and customers won’t be left waiting on a decision that could have easily been made by the employee. Of course, some things will have to go up the chain of command, but most immediate customer problems won’t require manager approval to solve.

In an article in Business Insider, Chris DeRose cites Yum! Brands as an example of a company that empowers its employees by giving each of them the ability to spend up to $10 to fix a customer problem. In the interest of better customer service, employees are entrusted to make a decision that may even cost company dollars. That way, only the rare and costly concerns get brought to management, who are now free to work hard on more important parts of the business.

Give them feedback.

And make it constructive. Saying “you’re not working hard enough” or “you’re not doing a good job” is probably not all that helpful and will not be likely to improve the quality of an employee’s work. If quality is lacking, explain to him why, and do so in clear terms so he can fix the problem quickly.

Feedback should not always be negative. (If it is, then you may have a larger problem on your hands.) Positive feedback is just as important. When structuring feedback, whether written or verbal, make sure to always start and end with positive points. Tell them what they’re doing well before you explain what needs improvement. Furthermore, when you do give negative feedback, frame it in a positive light, using language that motivates and encourages, rather than scorns. Here’s an example:

Instead of:

Sally, you’ve got to stop doing things without speaking to me and your team members first.”

Try this:

Sally, the ideas you bring to the table are really valuable, and you should definitely continue experimenting with things that you think will benefit the company and our customers. I think these ideas would be even more valuable if you shared them with the rest of us first, so that we could brainstorm and expand on them as a team. If you feel we would benefit by going in a new direction, I want to encourage you to share your ideas with us early on, and we can be even more effective and successful as a group.

Why is the 2nd example is better? It starts by pointing out something positive: Sally’s ideas are valuable. It then uses positive language (continue, even more valuable, encourage) to motivate Sally and to reinforce her positive qualities, while highlighting the benefits of each suggestion made. Unlike the first example, it does not tell Sally to stop doing anything, but to keep moving forward. She’ll feel as though she has more responsibility and more power to make decisions, but is now encouraged to keep the rest of her team informed throughout the process. She won’t be put on the defensive, and she’s a lot more likely to get to work fixing what you’ve identified as a problem.

Give them rewards.

In most businesses, rewards take the form of higher compensation for employees who do great work. But for start-ups, it can be hard to offer higher wages right off the bat. After all, you’re trying to get your business off the ground. Keep in mind that employee engagement is central to this goal. But if you are unable to offer substantially higher wages, there are other ways to reward employees for their hard work.

Take them out.

One of my former employers used to take us out on a monthly company outing. They took us to dinner, out for cocktails and even to a local baseball game. It gave us all a little something extra to look forward to while digging through the trenches each week, and just before every outing, they made sure to emphasize verbally what a great job we were all doing and how much we deserved to be rewarded. In short, we were made to feel as though our work actually mattered. It may sound simple, but there are so many companies that miss out on this opportunity.

Recognize them with a certificate, plaque or trophy.

Employee recognition is another great way to reward those who go above and beyond. One of the companies I currently work for has built an “Innovation Award” system that recognizes employees with a trophy (homemade by one of our very own staff members). Each time someone does something innovative – no matter how small or large – the trophy is placed on his desk. When your coworkers walk by and see the innovation trophy sitting there, you can hold your head a little higher and feel good knowing you contributed to an innovative workplace initiative.

Create better working conditions.

If you can’t afford to compensate your employees financially, then offer other, less costly benefits, like a fun working atmosphere and flexible scheduling. I once struggled with leaving a company I worked for because the work environment was so relaxed and fun. I didn’t think I’d be able to find anything else like it in the corporate world, and even though the pay wasn’t great, I looked forward to going to work each day. It also helped that my coworkers and managers were all excited about the work we did. If you show your enthusiasm for what you’re doing, it’s bound to rub off on those around you.

It’s no secret that employee motivation is crucial to a company’s success. After all, would you be able to do what you do without the talented group of people you have working for you and with you on a daily basis? Motivated employees are more likely to stick around for the long haul, reducing turnover and improving customer satisfaction. When they see their own value to your business’ success, it becomes their success too.

What are some ways you work to increase employee engagement at your company?

In an article recently published in Business Insider, Chris DeRose offers four ways that McDonalds can fix its substandard customer service. His tactics are:

1. Create shared emotion around delivering a great customer experience
2. Keep simplifying work processes and rules
3. Invest more in tools and training
4. Reward and recognize great service

DeRose makes some great points about how these four practices can lead to improved customer experiences. He touches somewhat on how frontline employees most closely affect how customers perceive their interactions with your company and how and why it’s important to invest in and reward those who provide exceptional service. But he fails to state directly what some of his article implies, and what essentially sums up the solution in a nutshell.

Negative customer experiences are a result of negative customer perceptions, many of which occur during interactions with employees. Improving customer experiences, then, starts with improving employee experiences. It’s no mystery how this works: treat your employees right, pay them well, and offer them incentives that give them an invested position in your company, and they’re going to provide customers with better service and better experiences.

Invest in your employees, and they’ll invest in you.

DeRose talks about the importance of creating emotion around delivering a shared customer experience by helping employees realize the difference they’re making. Painting pictures of what can happen when you brighten a customer’s day with better service and a smile sounds really great on paper, and should even be included in any customer experience strategy. But thinking that you can do so while paying them wages below the poverty line and not investing in their well-being is a bit overly optimistic. If you’re not willing to make your employees’ day – or life – a little brighter by showing them they matter, then how can you expect them to do the same for your customers?

Investing in your employees puts them in a position to invest more in your company and in their jobs. Your employee will be inclined to treat customers the way she is treated, and less inclined to act in a way that could potentially cost her the awesome wages she’s earning.

Offering better compensation is likely to attract the best workers.

DeRose also stresses the importance of investing in better tools and training for employees:

Resources should initially be focused on training franchisees and the managers they hire so they have the right skills to train workers and build local environments where people want to work.

He definitely has the right idea here. Building local environments where people want to work is essential to creating better employee experiences. He goes on to say that companies should think carefully about the employees they hire, and only go after the best of the best.

The question remains, how do you attract the best workers? Simple. Offer better payment and better benefits. Give them a reason to want to do great work for you before they are even hired. Make that reason bigger than job security in a bad economy, and build a company culture that gets talked about, and you’ll have great potential employees begging you to give them an opportunity.

Give them a reason to want to do great work for you before they are even hired.

As a freelance writer, I am bombarded daily with job ads that offer pennies for “high-quality work.” I don’t even bother answering those ads. I know what I’m worth, and that the work I have to offer is valuable and deserves more than pennies for payment. By advertising lower pay, those businesses are missing out on an opportunity to attract people who will meet or exceed their standards. Simply put, employers who pay low wages are more likely to attract people whose work is sub-par.

Higher compensation packages stimulate economic growth.

It sounds a little crazy to think that your hiring decisions could impact a whole economy, but it’s true. Higher wages can help create better, more engaged employees, which strengthens your company’s image and increases its value. This ultimately stimulates economic growth because as your company grows, you’ll need to hire more people to keep up. So basically, you’re creating jobs, and employees will likely spend tons of their disposable income on your goods and services – especially if they are incentivized with an employee discount.

In difficult economic times, hiring budgets are often the first thing to get cut. Employees are laid off, companies are understaffed, and as morale hits rock bottom, service level and customer experiences bottom out too. Thriving businesses understand that investing in your employees means investing in your bottom line. The result impacts everyone from your customers and your company to your local economy. Instead of trying to explain to employees what a difference they can make in customers’ lives by doing a better job, why don’t we show them by making a difference in their lives first?

Competition is healthy. Without it, many companies would lack the motivation to succeed. In markets where goods have become increasingly commoditized, brands must work even harder to stand out. And as competition increases, companies are starting to recognize the importance of creating awesome customer experiences.

For many businesses, competition has become the driving force behind their improved CX efforts. In the text that follows, we’ll show some examples of just how that works – namely, how competition increases customer loyalty and company self-awareness, as well as what happens in industries where competitors are lacking.

Competition Drives Loyalty

Forrester’s 2011 Online Customer Experience Survey revealed that all businesses have something to gain from improving customer experience. Hotel chains have the most to gain in terms of revenue – 1.364 billion to be exact. $825 million of that comes just from retaining customers that would otherwise be lost to competitors. It’s no secret that a good customer experience increases customer loyalty.

For hotel chains, loyalty is especially sensitive. A hotel that delivers a bad experience can easily drive customers away and into the hands of its competitors. There are plenty of options when looking for a place to stay, and customers have nothing to lose when they take their business elsewhere, except maybe for reward cards, which have been shown to not dramatically influence customer loyalty. This increases pressure for hotels to up their CX efforts in order retain customers, and any business in a competitive space without sticky customers can learn a lot from their adoption of improved customer experience as a core business focus.

Competition Increases Self-Awareness

As competitors come out of the woodwork with innovative ways to meet customers’ needs, other companies begin to see themselves in a new light. Competition challenges and forces those businesses to move forward with improving customer experiences if they want to stay afloat. In the 1990s, GEICO and Progressive Insurance companies came forth and began to challenge the status quo. At that time, market leaders did not give customers the option to purchase insurance without going through an agent. These two companies harnessed the power of the Internet and provided customers with lower-cost alternatives, as well as the option to buy directly over the phone or online.

Today, technology makes it easy to find the lowest prices online and switch providers instantly, forcing companies to compete that much more for loyal customers. As a result, companies like State Farm, Allstate, GEICO and Progressive have all begun to take their customer experience as seriously as they do their pricing. (Source: Outside In)

Competition Drives Differentiation

We can see the effect of competition in another example – the wireless industry. In 2007, AT&T began offering the iPhone to its customers, through an exclusive deal with Apple. That gave the company an edge over its two biggest competitors, Verizon and Sprint. Those two companies eventually acquired the device, which forced AT&T to compete for customers. Today all three companies carry a wide variety of smartphones. Sprint has also dramatically improved its service, going from having the lowest Customer Experience Index score of any wireless carrier back in 2007, to having a slightly higher score than AT&T.
These companies can no longer solely differentiate themselves by the devices they carry or even the prices they offer. Customer experience must become a top priority, which makes it even harder to stand out in an increasingly competitive market. (Source: Outside In)

What Happens When There’s No Competition?

The absence of competition in certain industries, like government organizations, can result in a poor customer experience, because those companies have no motivation to better it. One blogger, in writing about her experience at a California DMV, pointed out that customers aren’t going to leave after a bad experience and run to one of its competitors, because there is no competition. Customers might complain publicly (as she did), but where else can people go to get a drivers license or renew their registration? A lack of competition can result in a lack of motivation for businesses to attract and retain customers by providing an above-average customer experience. This rings true for many organizations in the public sector.

As technology continues to increase, the marketplace will become increasingly competitive, no matter what industry you’re in. Quality customer experience will prove to be the biggest differentiator for many companies. What will you do to stay ahead?

What went wrong? We’ve got a few ideas. Four, to be exact. But more important than the mistakes themselves are the lessons we can learn from them.

Lesson #1: Know Thy Customers

Johnson implemented a ban on discounts. He believed in creating a fun retail experience that made people want to show up in stores and shop, so he got rid of coupons in favor of full-but-fairer pricing. Sound familiar? This is very similar to the Apple customer experience model. The problem with this strategy is that JC Penney customers were nothing like Apple customers. They really liked coupons. In an effort to target a younger audience, Johnson ended up alienating the company’s older customers who were used to heavy discounting.

The first lesson here is, know your customers. Understand their wants, needs and expectations from your brand. Customer loyalty is what keeps your business growing, so it’s important to target new customers in ways that don’t alienate existing ones. Perhaps a gradual move toward fewer coupons would have been better than an all-out ban right from the start. Johnson did recognize that, and went back on the decision later, but unfortunately it was it too late.

Lesson #2: Know Thyself

Johnson introduced the company’s third logo in 3 years. Constant rebranding is very confusing for customers and causes them to lose brand familiarity. As a result of this decision, many of JCP’s former customers began turning to a competitor – Macy’s.

JC Penney also shocked its customers with what seemed like an endorsement of homosexuality in a Mother’s Day ad campaign that featured two moms and later, a Father’s Day ad with two dads. The company received a lot of flack for this failed experiment because it was such a huge departure from JCP’s longstanding values.

The moral of the story is, know who you are. Understanding and staying true to your brand culture is essential to attracting and retaining a solid, loyal customer base. Yes, it’s okay to innovate, but do so in a way that lets you learn from smaller failures. And in case you’re wondering what that means…

Lesson #3: Leave room for small failures

Johnson didn’t test the pricing plan with shoppers. Instead, he took a strong stance against discounting so that he could get newer brands on board, but his drive toward quick results completely backfired. He made huge changes, all at once, so that any successes or failures associated with them would be proportional in size. As Forbes reports, there was no middle ground:

Within weeks of his January 2012 presentation to investors about the future of Penney, the company had new advertising, new pricing and a new logo, and was announcing a new fleet of designers who would be creating collections for it.
Mr. Johnson put the plans on pricing, marketing and merchandise into place without doing any small-scale tests.

The lesson here is that it’s okay to fail. But small failures are much better – and easier to bounce back from – than big ones. Johnson’s big failures were so big, he had a hard time regaining customer loyalty even after admitting he was wrong. Without customer loyalty, Johnson had little ground to stand on, and the board was forced to find a replacement.

Lesson #4: Know – and engage – your employees.

Johnson fired 10% of his corporate staff in April 2012, including all of the top executives and thousands of middle managers. He also got rid of commissions for retail employees, which, no doubt, hurt morale.

Firing top execs all in one sweep doesn’t leave room for you to build trust with existing employees. Johnson no longer had the networks of established executives to lean on. Though he was able to change the stagnant culture of the company by firing old leaders and replacing them with new ones, he lost his potential to form alliances with those who understand the existing culture and could support him in the changes he wanted to make.

Painful lessons from JC Penney

Though Apple is a great example of a company that creates awesome customer experiences, it’s not a one-size-fits-all model for all companies. Johnson’s biggest mistake was failing to understand the JC Penney culture – its brand, its customers and its people. Unfortunately for him, the result was negative, but fortunately for the rest of us, there are quite a few positive lessons to take home.

Improving Website Navigation

In general, online shoppers can be categorized as one of three “types” which I’ll describe below. When designing your website’s navigation interface, by thinking about what’s intuitive for each type, you’ll be able to design the best possible site. Everyone has different needs, expectations, and intentions, and it’s your job to try to reconcile those as best you can with a single interface.

For those who know exactly what they’re looking for

The customer who knows exactly what she’s looking for will most likely go straight to the search bar. Put it in a prominent place (i.e. above the main navigation bar) on every page, so she can find it easily. You may even want to test different positions to find out what placement yields the greatest number of on-site searches. Using autocomplete in the search bar to make suggestions based on what customers begin typing can also be helpful for those who may not remember the exact name of the product they’re looking for.

For those who are just browsing

The customer who is just browsing will need a variety of sorting options for viewing product results. For a dress shop, these might include things like price, brand, size, color, newest or most popular. Allow her to customize her experience by changing the number of results per page. Also, use breadcrumbs so users can easily navigate their way back and forth between pages and remember how they got to where they are in each step of the process.

For those who need some help narrowing their selection

Sadie’s Dress Shop may have a customer who knows she needs a blue, floor-length gown in a size 2 petite. She also knows that an empire-waist silhouette is probably going to be the most flattering on her, and that a strapless gown will be most comfortable for the summer occasion she’s attending. She has specific criteria, but is still somewhat in the browsing phase. Color and size may already be sorting options on your site, but imagine how much more helpful it will be if you also include other options by which to narrow her selection, like silhouette, occasion, length and neckline. It saves her time and makes for a much better customer experience, as she won’t have to filter through hundreds of product images to find the one item she wants.

Allow your customers to filter your products to find what they want

Quick view is another function that saves time. Quick-view windows pop up from individual product images on an assortment page and allow consumers to view the same details they would see on a product detail page, but without having to leave the assortment. This window includes specifics like price, color, size and possibly even a description about the product.

Lands’ End is a great example of a website that maximizes quick-view functionality. Each quick-view window contains the same amount of information that a customer would find on the individual product detail page if she clicked through. But why would she? She can view product details and even read product reviews right from the assortment page. If she sees something she doesn’t like about that product, she can continue shopping without having to hit the back button.

Improving Website Checkout

Checkouts are a crucial part of any online shopping experience. Once a user has added an item to her cart, any number of factors in the rest of the process can influence her decision to place the order or abandon ship. Simplify the experience by focusing on what customers must do at each step of the checkout process. Keep it linear and on one page, and don’t include steps within steps (like creating an account) that move users back to a previous step in the process. Instead, move them forward. Minimizing the amount of work they have to do, and the amount of clicks they have to make, can help ensure they won’t abandon their cart.

The most common steps in any online checkout include: viewing your cart, selecting a shipping option, entering shipping information, entering payment information and confirming the order.

Viewing Your Shopping Cart

Make your shopping cart clearly accessible from every page, and incorporate a window that pops up when a user adds an item to her cart. This window should confirm that the item was added and give her the option to either proceed to checkout or continue shopping. Before she proceeds to checkout, she will need to confirm she has the correct items in her shopping cart.

Pricing and Fees

Show all applicable fees in the shopping cart, including tax and estimated shipping, and use strikethroughs to show savings on special offers. You may also want to include an option to open a store card and save, but note that doing so might take the customer away from the site to fill out the credit application. If you do include this, emphasize how much she will save, and as soon as the credit application is complete, immediately redirect her back to her cart so she can complete her order.

Inventory and Product Recommendations

Let customers know how many of each item is left in inventory. If a product is, or is going out of stock, give customers the option to sign up to receive updates about when it will be back in stock.

Include additional recommendations for related products on the checkout page. Amazon does this in a small popup when you click “add to cart.” This may be especially helpful if a customer is interested in an item that goes out of stock during her shopping experience. If she sees something else that she likes instead, it may divert her attention from the fact that the original item she wanted is no longer available. Additional product recommendations also drive upsells. After all, she’s going to need a pair of shoes and a clutch to go with that special-occasion gown, right?

Sign-in Options

Some sites require customers to create an account and sign in before completing a purchase. However, requiring this can cause customers to become annoyed and abandon the site altogether. Instead of requiring sign in, offer customers the option to either create an account or continue as a guest. At the end of the checkout process, you can entice them to store their information for later use. That way they’ll create an account after completing a purchase, and you won’t risk cart abandonment.

Entering Shipping Information

Allowing customers to choose standard or expedited shipping ensures they’ll get their products when they need them. Let them know the estimated delivery date based on the chosen shipping option right from within the checkout window.

Make forms easy to fill out by including form field labels that explain to customers what they should be typing. For example, “Address 2” might be confusing for people who have never lived in an apartment, so including “Apartment no.” in that field is helpful. If a customer leaves out required information or types it incorrectly, make it obvious what needs correcting. Place error messages in clear proximity to the relevant fields where information is missing or incorrect. Don’t ask customers for the same information twice

Don’t ask customers for the same information twice. Minimize their workload by adding checkboxes for shipping addresses that are the same as billing addresses. You can also ask for their zip code first and pre-fill the city and state based on what’s given.

If your system doesn’t recognize the address input by the customer, show the closest match in your database and allow the customer to force proceed.

Entering Payment Information

Customers will be hesitant to place an order if they don’t feel the site is secure. Let them know their information is secure and visually reinforce it with badges, icons, borders and background colors around the form fields for secure-sensitive areas like credit card data.

Also, don’t ask for unnecessary information. If you don’t need their phone number, don’t ask for it. If you do need it, then explain why, especially if it might not be clear to the customer at first.

Confirming the Order

In the “confirm order” area of the checkout page, allow customers to opt in to a newsletter, but don’t trick them into doing so by including a pre-checked opt-in box that’s buried at the bottom of the page. Make it a clear choice for customers – it creates a better experience long-term. And make sure you offer them incentive for opting in, like receiving special offers, coupons or new product information.

Customer Support Communities

Support communities are places on your website where customers can go to find out more information about your products and services, based on what current and previous customers are saying. This includes user-generated content like reviews and photos/videos of customers experiencing your products in some way.

The benefits of customer product reviews

Reviews may provide additional information that’s not on a product detail page. No matter how detailed your pages may be, there are certain things that you can only find out from customers who have actually used the product. While your first instinct may be to only include positive reviews, negative reviews are just as important. They help generate trust in your audience, who will likely be skeptical of a website with only positive feedback. Potential customers will want to know what could or might go wrong with a product before they buy it. It’s fine to moderate the reviews that come in, but only delete the ones that are untruthful, abusive or don’t contain any helpful information. No matter what, be transparent.
While your first instinct may be to only include positive reviews, negative reviews are just as important

The additional content that comes from customer reviews is also good for SEO. Customers may use important keywords when describing their experience with a product. Unintentional or not, this will help your pages rank higher in search engines.

When structuring the layout of your page, make reviews easily scan-able. Allow users to rate reviews as helpful or unhelpful, and consider showing the highest and lowest rated reviews side by side at the top of the review section.

What to ask for in a review

Ask users users to rate products and indicate the number of votes each rating has received. Also, give them the option to filter products by rating on your search result pages and in your site’s navigation.

Each reviewer should provide her name and location. Location may be helpful to some customers in deciding whether the opinion of the reviewer is relevant to them. You should also include a section for the pros and cons of each product in your review form so that customers can scan them easily and decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

Make reviews social

Some sites let reviewers create profiles with pictures and bios. Users can click on their profile and see all of their reviews at once, giving the experience a greater sense of authenticity. Offering users the option to reply to reviews, report a concern or answer the question “is this helpful?” also increases customer engagement.

You may even want to go a step further and allow customers to upload photos or videos of themselves experiencing your product. This will require moderation, but it will show other customers how they might be able to get the most out of your product or service themselves. Toms does this with their shoes, in a section of their website called “How we wear them.” Customers upload photos of themselves wearing their Toms shoes to different occasions, like a walk in the park or even to a prom or wedding.

E-commerce needs happy users in order to get happy customers

No matter what you’re selling online, the user experience is an important part of the overall customer experience. When designing or updating your Ecommerce website, make sure you put your customers first. Think about and observe how they shop and design an experience that’s specifically tailored to their needs.

Help us improve this tutorial by sharing your ideas. What are some great user experiences you’ve had while shopping online, and what specific elements do you think made them so effective?

And if you want to get deeper into the UX rabbit hole, check out Selwa’s article on e-commerce product pages!

A healthy customer experience can be broken down in a similar way. Just like no good dietary regimen is complete without a balance of the 5 essential food groups, no good customer experience is complete without a balance of certain ingredients. If we compare the USDA food plate to a healthy recipe for CX, we can see a lot of similarities – just you won’t be able to eat it.

CX Protein: Customer perceptions

Protein consists of amino acids that form the building blocks for enzymes, DNA, hormones and muscle. In short, protein contains the building blocks that make up a strong, healthy body. If you think of customer experience as the body that you’re trying to build and strengthen, protein is an essential ingredient in the process. Without it, your muscles would be limp and your hormones unbalanced. So what are the fundamental building blocks of any customer experience?

Simple: customer perceptions. That’s what CX is all about. Focus on learning how your customers perceive you and what you can do to enhance their perceptions and you’ll be on your way to a healthier CX.

CX Veggies: Investment

You heard it time and time again when you were a child: “Eat your vegetables!” And the question was always the same: “But mom, do I have to?” If you want a stronger immune system, then yes.

In the same way, you may not want to stomach the “greens” required for a good CX strategy, but you’re going to have to if you expect to get anything out of it. In this case, the green refers to money. It might be difficult to invest dollars into a healthier customer experience, but the return on your investment is as good as what happens when you eat your vegetables. Eating your vegetables equips your body with antioxidants that strengthen your immune system so you don’t get sick as much. In the long run, you save money on medical bills. Likewise, investing up front into your CX strategy equips your company with the necessary resources to make it better. In the long run, you save money on marketing dollars that are often required to obtain and retain new customers after a previous CX fail.

CX Fruit: Empathy

Fruit is a healthier alternative to cakes, cookies and other sweet treats. It’s also loaded with antioxidants, which improve your immune system. Fruit is the counterpart to vegetables. It’s the sweet stuff – the stuff you don’t mind eating so much – though it may be harder to opt for instead of unhealthy cakes and cookies. It’s a lot like empathy.

We talk about empathy a lot in the CX world, because it’s pretty important. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathizing with your customers means understanding them, and understanding them helps you tailor your strategy to better suit their needs. Just like you don’t mind eating fruit, you also probably won’t mind showing empathy toward your customers. It makes sense to you that it would be important. But the act itself takes practice and discipline, especially if you’re not naturally empathetic. Check out our tutorial on empathy building exercises for some ways to build a culture of empathy in the workplace.

CX Dairy: Customer Loyalty

Children start drinking milk right out of the womb. It’s essential to a person’s physical development. At a young age, we are told to drink our milk, so that we can build stronger teeth and bones.

Customer loyalty does a lot that the of a healthy customer experience. It’s something you should invest in right away and always keep at the forefront as your CX develops. Loyal customers come back to you instead of turning to a competitor. They tell their friends and family about you. A company without loyal customers is like a body full of broken bones. Make sure your CX strategy gets enough of this essential ingredient, so you don’t end up in a wheelchair.

CX Grains: Employees

Grains are full of carbs, and carbs give you energy. They fuel your body and keep you going throughout the day. Carbs also burn quicker than other types of energy, so it’s important to get plenty of them, especially if you’re quite active.

Employees may be thought of as the grains of a healthy customer experience. Just like carbs, employees can burn out quickly and easily, so it’s important to keep them engaged. Engaged employees create engaged customers, and will give your CX strategy the energy it needs to keep going.

Make a healthy company

It can be helpful to think about improving the health of your customer experiences. When your customer relationships are happy and healthy ones, your company is likely to do well by every measure. On the other hand, if your company is starving, it may be time to beef up your customer experience with more nutrients. Feed it with these 5 essential food groups and you’ll be well on your way to better health.

What makes a really great product page? Lots of things, many of which we’ll dig into in another post. But before we do, we thought we’d share with you a few of our favorite product pages on the web today. We chose these examples because we thought they had something truly unique to offer their customers.

Amazon (Women’s Clothing)

Amazon’s women’s clothing pages are making use of video to show customers its products from different angles. It turns out there’s a lot you miss if you only look at a photo, like: how does a dress look when you move? And even if you’re not buying anything, there’s something magical about these videos. In the words of my colleague, Andrew Konoff, “it’s oddly mystifying to watch someone walk around in a dress on loop.” When you get to the page and hover over the video link, the woman in the video poses and turns in different directions. As a customer, you’re not just looking at a product – you’re experiencing it too.

Bass Pro Shops

Bass Pro Shops’ product pages are far from lacking in the information department. Customers are immediately equipped with answers to all of the questions they could possibly have about an item, through buying guides, customer reviews, and even a Q&A section. This innovative feature allows customers to ask and answer specific questions about a particular product before they decide to buy.

J Peterman

J Peterman is known for its in-depth, tale-like product descriptions. When you visit a product page, you aren’t just buying a jacket or a dress. You’re buying the story behind it, and every item has a unique set of experiences to share.

Modcloth

This is another site that makes good use of its product descriptions. Each one is written in a way that lets you experience the item before you buy it. Modcloth’s unique brand voice really shines through every detail. The descriptions are broken up into two parts, each viewable on its own tab. The first part is “the story” – the unique experience that the item has to share. The second part is “the detail” – all of the basic features that you need to know about, like heel height, sleeve length, fabric or material.

Warby Parker

Warby Parker pioneered the virtual try-on app. Every product page has a link to a web-based camera application that lets you see what their glasses will look like on your face. Try it out, and see for yourself.

Black Milk

Black Milk’s edgy clothing styles are begging to be photographed – on real people. And that’s why they set up their very own hashtag photo feed that lets Instagram and Twitter users photograph themselves in specific items and use a hashtag to feed their photos directly to the corresponding product pages. Pretty cool, right?

West Elm

West Elm has a couple of different features to assist customers shopping in different categories. If you’re buying monogrammed towels, you can choose between several different fonts and colors and preview the final result through an app on the product page. The site also makes great use of videos to showcase each product in a specific setting and to recommend related products. The end of each video tells customers to visit the company blog, Facebook and Pinterest pages to get inspiration and tips for decorating, so you can feel even more confident about your purchasing decision.

Walmart

Walmart goes a step further in its customer reviews section. Not only does it let you filter reviews by rating. It also lets you filter by customer gender and/or age. So if you feel that an 18-year-old girl’s review won’t be relevant to you, you can choose to only look at reviews from males aged 25 and up. This is a great feature for websites that have a ton of product reviews on items that might be age or gender-specific.

As an example, lets say you’re shopping for a humidifier for your kids’ bedroom. This product will have slightly different uses for a 65-year-old grandfather than it will for the parents of a child. So you may choose to filter the reviews to show those only from parents in your age group.

How do you design a good product page?

Each of these product pages offers something helpful to consumers that they’re less likely to find anywhere else. Keep that in mind when designing your own product pages. What features can you offer customers that are unique and helpful to them in making a purchasing decision? What can you do to help them experience your products before they buy? These factors could end up determining whether your website visitors decide to check out or abandon their cart.

Now it’s your turn! Share some of your favorite product pages on the web in the comments section below.

1. They know exactly what they want and would prefer the experience of being able to get it immediately, without paying for shipping, and without being hassled.
2. They need more information and would like to speak to a sales associate so they can learn more about the products and services in order to find what they need.
3. They are window-shopping, because it’s Saturday and they have nothing better to do.

Whatever the situation, overly aggressive sales tactics can annoy customers to the point of leaving and never returning to your store again. People visit stores for an experience, and if they don’t get that experience, they leave disappointed, with no intent to return and no incentive to tell their friends and family to shop there.

Pushy sales tactics don’t create loyal customers

Sometimes businesses even force their salespeople to push willing customers away. It’s a practice known as “walking the customer.” One New York Times article described it as a tactic that allows customers to leave stores empty-handed when they opt out of certain add-ons with their purchase. Associates are trained to push these add-ons in order to meet a certain sales quota, even at the risk of losing the sale altogether.

Employees are being trained to do whatever it takes to make a sale – even if it means lying to the customer and allowing them to leave the store empty handed. Not only are they losing out on a chance to make a sale in the first place. They’re also losing out on the opportunity to give a great experience that customers will tell their friends and family members about. Instead, customers leave stores disappointed and turn to a competitor, where they may even be willing to pay a little more for a better experience. And after all is said and done, they are likely to relay their negative experience to friends and family and advise them not to shop at that store.

Pushy sales tactics don’t create engaged employees

Negative experiences don’t just affect customers. They affect employees too. Instead of being motivated to provide great service, they’re doing what they’re told out of fear of losing their jobs. They aren’t engaged, and they aren’t empowered to make decisions that will result in a better CX.

According to the NY Times article on “walking the customer” when one associate couldn’t make an upsell on his own, he sought the help of his manager who then tried to make it for him. When he was unsuccessful, he instructed the employee to lie and tell the customer that the product he wanted was no longer in stock. The customer left empty handed, and I’m willing to bet that after delivering such disappointing service, the employee also probably felt a little empty inside.

There is no excuse for poor customer service

There have been many complaints from customers who have been forced to leave stores empty handed. No surprise there. But after all of the complaints, why do some stores continue to provide such poor customer service?

Many different factors might play into the decision, such as pressure from corporate, shortsighted revenue goals or the fear of losing money on products that might not yield as much profit. But whatever benefit these companies think they’re getting by pushing sales goals over service, they’re eroding their only true asset: customers.

What they don’t seem to realize is that they’re actually losing current and potential customers by creating these negative experiences. It’s easy to predict what might happen if you’re willing to lose a little money on an initial sale. Perhaps customers would willingly buy add-ons or return to make another purchase later. Perhaps they would tell their friends and family about the wonderful experience they had at your store and encourage them to shop there as well…

Who knows? They might even tell the New York Times about it too.

We’ve seen that phrase tossed around in the CX space for a while now, but what exactly does it mean? How do you create engaged employees who deliver the best experiences possible for your customers?

If you’re looking to foster engagement in the workplace, it’s important to consider the personalities of all those involved. A lack of engagement that’s a problem on your part is an easier fix than a lack of engagement that originates from within your staff. In the age-old debate of whether to hire for attitude or aptitude, attitude does matter. Here’s why.

Why Personality Matters

You can train employees on the knowledge aspect of any job, but it’s a lot more difficult to train for personality. If employees are enthusiastic about your company, your customers and your product or service, then they’ll take time to learn more about them. But if they don’t have the right personality, they won’t be enthusiastic or willing to learn more. Disengaged employees don’t care about their jobs or the companies they work for, which ultimately leads to bad customer experiences. You can’t foster engagement in an environment full of people who lack the passion to support what you’re doing 110%.

And don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault that an employee is unengaged. Think about it like dating: when a relationship doesn’t work out, it’s usually got a lot more to do with compatibility. And since you wouldn’t want to be with someone you’re not compatible with, why spend a huge chunk of your day with employees who aren’t as passionate as you are?

Engaged employees who are most likely to move your CX strategy forward possess all or most of the following characteristics.

7 Personality Traits of Engaged Employees

1. Passion

Passionate employees will be enthusiastic about creating awesome experiences for customers. Companies like Apple know this and only hire passionate people. They look for those who want to do really big things like change the world. Your company may not be out to change the world, but hiring people with that same strong sense of passion could significantly change the way you do business, for the better.

2. Curiosity

In “7 Lessons that Kids Can Teach Us About Customer Experiences,” we emphasized the importance of being curious about our customers. We must be willing to find out more about their lives and how we can enhance them through our products and services.

3. Confidence and a sense of ownership

Confident employees, who demonstrate a sense of ownership in their roles, will be proactive in making decisions that benefit customers. They won’t have to be told what to do. Hiring confident people frees you up to lead, rather than dictate or manage.

4. Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. If you’re trying to improve your customer experience, building a culture of empathy is an important part of the process, and hiring employees who are naturally empathetic can help move things along more quickly. But don’t despair! You can always learn how to be more empathic, though it may come easier to some.

5. Resilience and flexibility

When you’re dealing with customers, any number of things is bound to go wrong. Maybe you’ve angered someone who is now lashing out at your company on Twitter. Employees who are resilient will be able to bounce back quickly when things like that happen. With resilience also comes an ability to adapt in negative situations. Sometimes that may even mean doing something that violates company policy in order to make a customer happy.

6. Friendliness and a sense of humor

I once worked a busy shift at a restaurant where a customer found a rubber band in his food. My manager was called to the table and had to react quickly. He could have just shaken his head in disappointment, apologized, taken the plate away and promised to bring him a new meal as soon as possible. But instead, he decided to lighten the mood by telling a joke. He said to the customer, “you know, we’re actually having a contest tonight, and you won! Anyone who finds a rubber band in their food gets a free meal.” It might have been a risk, but it actually went over really well. The customer laughed, and by the time he had received a new plate of food, he had forgotten all about the rubber band.

7. A desire to serve

Engaged employees are committed to serving customer needs, and that commitment comes naturally to them. They have a desire to serve others, not because they’ll get something in return, but because they genuinely want to see other people happy. Hire people with serving hearts, and you’ll have customers who are well served and satisfied.

What About Aptitude?

Companies that hire for attitude have a tendency to disregard or downplay the role of aptitude in customer experience. But according to a Cornell Center for Hospitality Research Study, equal weight should be given to both. Mental ability is actually a very strong predictor in overall employee performance. Though engaged employees will be more enthusiastic and willing to learn, if they lack the mental capacity to do it quickly, you’ll spend more time training for knowledge than may be necessary.

What employee personality traits do you look for when hiring for customer experience?

Improving Website Navigation

In general, online shoppers can be categorized as one of three “types” which I’ll describe below. When designing your website’s navigation interface, by thinking about what’s intuitive for each type, you’ll be able to design the best possible site. Everyone has different needs, expectations, and intentions, and it’s your job to try to reconcile those as best you can with a single interface.

Ben, who knows exactly what he’s looking for

The customer who knows exactly what he’s looking for will most likely go straight to the search bar – like our imaginary friend Ben, who is trying to find a specific dress that his girlfriend had asked for. Put the search bar in a prominent place (i.e. above the main navigation bar) on every page, so Ben can find it easily. You may even want to test different positions to find out what placement yields the greatest number of on-site searches. Using autocomplete in the search bar to make suggestions based on what customers begin typing can also be helpful for those who may not remember the exact name of the product they’re looking for. In Ben’s case, he remembers the brand, but didn’t have the exact spelling of the style. That’s where a well-implemented autocompleting search bar could help him out.

Lisa, who is just browsing

The customer who is just browsing will need a variety of sorting options for viewing product results. For a dress shop, these might include things like price, brand, size, color, newest or most popular. Allow Lisa to customize her experience by changing the number of results per page. Also, use breadcrumbs so she can easily navigate her way back and forth between pages. Little cues like a link for “Back to Search Results” can help Lisa to remember how she got to where she is on your site.

Kari, who needs some help narrowing her selection

Sadie’s Dress Shop may have a customer – Kari – who knows she needs a blue, floor-length gown in a size 2 petite. She also knows that an empire-waist silhouette is probably going to be the most flattering on her, and that a strapless gown will be most comfortable for the summer occasion she’s attending. She has specific criteria, but is still somewhat in the browsing phase. Color and size may already be sorting options on your site, but imagine how much more helpful it will be if you also include other options by which to narrow her selection, like silhouette, occasion, length and neckline. It saves her time and makes for a much better customer experience, as she won’t have to filter through hundreds of product images to find the one item she wants.

Quick-view is another function that saves time. Quick-view windows pop up from individual product images on an assortment page and allow consumers to view the same details they would see on a product detail page, but without having to leave the assortment. This window includes specifics like price, color, size and possibly even a description about the product.

Lands’ End is a great example of a website that maximizes quick-view functionality. Each quick-view window contains the same amount of information that a customer would find on the individual product detail page if she clicked through. But why would she? She can view product details and even read product reviews right from the assortment page. If she sees something she doesn’t like about that product, she can continue shopping without having to hit the back button.

Improving Website Checkouts

Checkouts are a crucial part of any online shopping experience. Once a user has added an item to her cart, any number of factors in the rest of the process can influence her decision to place the order or abandon ship. Simplify the experience by focusing on what customers must do at each step of the checkout process. Keep it linear and on one page, and don’t include steps within steps (like creating an account) that move users back to a previous step in the process. Instead, move them forward. Minimizing the amount of work they have to do, and the amount of clicks they have to make, can help ensure they won’t abandon their cart.

We’ll cover the most common steps in any online checkout include: viewing your cart, selecting a shipping option, entering shipping information, entering payment information and confirming the order.

Viewing Your Shopping Cart

Make your shopping cart clearly accessible from every page, and incorporate a window that pops up when a user adds an item to her cart. This window should confirm that the item was added and give her the option to either proceed to checkout or continue shopping. Before she proceeds to checkout, she will need to confirm she has the correct items in her shopping cart.

Pricing and Fees

Show all applicable fees in the shopping cart, including tax and estimated shipping, and use strikethroughs to show savings on special offers. You may also want to include an option to open a store card and save, but note that doing so might take the customer away from the site to fill out the credit application. If you do include this, emphasize how much she will save, and as soon as the credit application is complete, immediately redirect her back to her cart so she can complete her order.

Inventory and Product Recommendations

Let customers know how many of each item is left in inventory. If a product is, or is going out of stock, give customers the option to sign up to receive updates about when it will be back in stock.

Include additional recommendations for related products on the checkout page. Amazon does this in a small popup when you click “add to cart.” This may be especially helpful if a customer is interested in an item that goes out of stock during her shopping experience. If she sees something else that she likes instead, it may divert her attention from the fact that the original item she wanted is no longer available. Additional product recommendations also drive upsells. After all, she’s going to need a pair of shoes and a clutch to go with that special-occasion gown, right?

Sign-in Options

Some sites require customers to create an account and sign in before completing a purchase. However, requiring this can cause customers to become annoyed and abandon the site altogether. Instead of requiring sign in, offer customers the option to either create an account or continue as a guest. At the end of the checkout process, you can entice them to store their information for later use. That way they’ll create an account after completing a purchase, and you won’t risk cart abandonment.

Entering Shipping Information

Allowing customers to choose standard or expedited shipping ensures they’ll get their products when they need them. Let them know the estimated delivery date based on the chosen shipping option right from within the checkout window.

Make forms easy to fill out by including form field labels that explain to customers what they should be typing. For example, “Address 2” might be confusing for people who have never lived in an apartment, so including “Apartment no.” in that field is helpful. If a customer leaves out required information or types it incorrectly, make it obvious what needs correcting. Place error messages in clear proximity to the relevant fields where information is missing or incorrect.

Don’t ask customers for the same information twice. Minimize their workload by adding checkboxes for shipping addresses that are the same as billing addresses. You can also ask for their zip code first and pre-fill the city and state based on what’s given.

If your system doesn’t recognize the address input by the customer, show the closest match in your database and allow the customer to force proceed.

Entering Payment Information

Customers will be hesitant to place an order if they don’t feel the site is secure. Let them know their information is secure and visually reinforce it with badges, icons, borders and background colors around the form fields for secure-sensitive areas like credit card data.

Also, don’t ask for unnecessary information. If you don’t need their phone number, don’t ask for it. If you do need it, then explain why, especially if it might not be clear to the customer at first.

Confirming the Order

In the “confirm order” area of the checkout page, allow customers to opt in to a newsletter, but don’t trick them into doing so by including a pre-checked opt-in box that’s buried at the bottom of the page. Make it a clear choice for customers – it creates a better experience long-term. And make sure you offer them incentive for opting in, like receiving special offers, coupons or new product information.

Customer Support Communities

Support communities are places on your website where customers can go to find out more information about your products and services, based on what current and previous customers are saying. This includes user-generated content like reviews and photos/videos of customers experiencing your products in some way.

The Benefits of Customer Product Reviews

Reviews help generate trust in a skeptical audience.

Reviews may provide additional information that’s not on a product detail page. No matter how detailed your pages may be, there are certain things that you can only find out from customers who have actually used the product. While your first instinct may be to only include positive reviews, negative reviews are just as important. They help generate trust in your audience, who will likely be skeptical of a website with only positive feedback. Potential customers will want to know what could or might go wrong with a product before they buy it. It’s fine to moderate the reviews that come in, but only delete the ones that are untruthful, abusive or don’t contain any helpful information. No matter what, be transparent.

The additional content that comes from customer reviews is also good for SEO. Customers may use important keywords when describing their experience with a product. Unintentional or not, this will help your pages rank higher in search engines.

When structuring the layout of your page, make reviews easily scan-able. Allow users to rate reviews as helpful or unhelpful, and consider showing the highest and lowest rated reviews side by side at the top of the review section.

What to ask for in a review

Ask users to rate products and indicate the number of votes each rating has received. Also, give them the option to filter products by rating on your search result pages and in your site’s navigation.

Each reviewer should provide her name and location. Location may be helpful to some customers in deciding whether the opinion of the reviewer is relevant to them. You should also include a section for the pros and cons of each product in your review form so that customers can scan them easily and decide if the pros outweigh the cons.

Make reviews social

Some sites let reviewers create profiles with pictures and bios. Users can click on their profile and see all of their reviews at once, giving the experience a greater sense of authenticity. Offering users the option to reply to reviews, report a concern or answer the question “is this helpful?” also increases customer engagement.

You may even want to go a step further and allow customers to upload photos or videos of themselves experiencing your product. This will require moderation, but it will show other customers how they might be able to get the most out of your product or service themselves. Toms does this with their shoes, in a section of their website called “How we wear them.” Customers upload photos of themselves wearing their Toms shoes to different occasions, like a walk in the park or even to a prom or wedding.

Great user experiences build better customer experiences

No matter what you’re selling online, the user experience is an important part of the overall customer experience. When designing or updating your Ecommerce website, make sure you put your customers first. Think about and observe how they shop and design an experience that’s specifically tailored to their needs.

Help us improve this tutorial by sharing your ideas. What are some great user experiences you’ve had while shopping online, and what specific elements do you think made them so effective?