5 Brands That Are Killing It In Customer Experience

Customer experience has become a competitive differentiator. As such, your brand must focus its efforts on optimizing interactions – digital and physical – if it hopes to win over customers and drive conversions. More importantly, you need to set yourself apart from the competition. And if you want to become the best, you must learn from the best.

Let's take a look at five brands that create and deliver excpetional customer experiences and identify how they're doing so well when it comes to customer service.

Amazon
It would be a huge mistake not to take a customer experience lesson or two from the "A to Z" retailer, Amazon. For one, the chance of having a bad experience on this digital retail channel is slim to none. Think about it. The site has gotten where it is now because it meets consumers' modern shopping needs, provides excellent support and is quick to solve any issues that may arise in billing or shipping.

And those aren't even all the reasons why almost 60 percent of 1,500 survey respondents¹ described Amazon's customer service as excellent, securing the brand the No. 1 spot in 24/7 Wall Street's "Customer Service Hall of Fame" in 2015 for the sixth year in a row. For reference, second place only earned an excellent customer service rating of 47 percent. The source explained that Amazon's customer experience strategy is based on "customer obsession."

Simply put, everyone on Amazon's team is dedicated to making its shoppers satisfied with each and every interaction. That kind of staff devotion might seem incredible, but it's attainable as long as your brand focuses on creating a corporate culture centered on customer experience excellence.

Gamestop
There's certainly a solid reason why Gamestop is one of America's most popular video game retailers in an age where physical media is increasingly replaced by digital. In brief, millennials, especially tech-savvy gamers, are often considered to be the least likely individuals to visit a traditional store, but Gamestop is attracting those consumers in droves. Why? It's about the people and the authenticity of human-to-human interactions with employees who are passionate about what they sell.

"[D]espite conventional wisdom, those millennials really do prefer to talk with a human than interact with a kiosk," Forbes' Paula Rosenblum wrote. "GameStop is one retailer who has clearly shifted from self-service to assisted service assisted by humans who share the customer's passion."²

Apple
Apple ranked third in 24/7 Wall Street's survey on the best customer experiences, and – if you haven't recognized the common thread between these industry leaders – it's because of Apple's employees.

Praveen Kopalle, professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, explained that Apple's customer suppot management starts on the staff level, stating that "employees who are motivated, who take ownership, who take pride in what they do" are able to set one brand's service apart from the rest - and that defined Apple's team.

Your people must care about customers, and the best way to do that is to show your employees that your care about them.

St. Louis Cardinals
When you think customer experience, you probably don't imagine a baseball park, but that might change if St. Louis Cardinals Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Dan Farrell has something to say about it. Ad Age recently reported that The CMO Club gave Farrell and his team a customer experience award for providing exemplary service for Cardinals fans.³ No surprises here – success stems from staff.

"If we have a specialty, I believe it comes from a dedicated and very tenured staff that strive for superior customer service with a keen attention to detail," Farrell told the source.

In that regard, Cardinals employees really care about monitoring customer experience with surveys and analytics. After all, a willingness to collect feedback and use it to fuel future initiatives is key to having the best customer experience strategy.

Sony
Tech companies must really care about customer experience management given the results of 24/7 Wall Street's customer service survey, since Sony also climbed its way into the hall of fame, placing eighth with 37 percent excellent ratings. Sony's employees – yes, again – are largely to thank for the brand's great customer experience. But its route to success is a bit different.

The source asserted that Sony is dedicated to employee satisfaction, and that directly rubs off on customers. The company's president and CEO, Kazuo Hirai , demonstrates that he cares about everyone who interacts with the tech brand - staff or shopper. That's a lesson that many organizations should take into account when creating a new customer experience strategy and looking for some outsourced assistance: You want your staff to be treated well.

It all comes back to the people who provide customers with great experiences regardless of where those consumers are in the purchase journey. Brands that want to be the best – like Amazon, Apple, Sony, the Cardinals and Gamestop – should take that strategy to heart.

Sources:

1. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/07/23/customer-service-hall-of-fame-2/

2. http://www.forbes.com/sites/paularosenblum/2015/09/14/gamestop-uses-data-and-customer-experience-to-survive-and-thrive-in-stores-and-online/#608c26de2e1f

3. http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/hit-customer-experience-park/303432/