This week’s Wellness Wednesday focused on “The Gold Standard; Giving Your Customer What They Didn’t Know They Needed” by Colin Cowie.

Colin is the real deal when it comes to experts in the customer experience industry. I was impressed by the self-made story but when Colin started talking numbers of guests, budgets, and what seems like ridiculously meticulous details, I had a great appreciation for his work ethic and standards. Background on Colin:

• From Great Britain and moved to South Africa 

• Expertise is in customer service and events 

• Self-made business

• Had to make many business pivots even after all his accolades 

  • Putting on events for Oprah, presidents, and worldwide royalty

Things that stood out to me first:

• How can you elevate our customer’s experience? 

• How can we give something in order to initiate the principle of reciprocity? 

• How can you meet the needs of the customer before they have them

• How are you caring for your customers? And being proactive for their next order?

  • Nurturing emails- follow up a discount for the next order 

  • Follow up on what pairs well 

  • Follow up on a review 

Know your market:

• Base level:

  • Who else is providing your product?

  • How is it different from yours?

  • Is it more innovative? 

  • Does it have more features?

  • Their website or interface?

  • How do they deal with refunds?

  • Can you beat them in these areas? 

• Next:

  • What are they charging?

  • What are they giving away?

  • What was the experience like?

  • What customer segments are we leaving on the table?

    • Is that intentional or harmful?

Customer Experience: 1+1=3 (not 2) 

• Where does my industry fit into the bigger picture?

• What can you do or offer that will keep you ahead of the curve? 

• Where is our design vulnerable? 

   

Be Visible:

• Are you active on the right social media?

  • Are you using the right hashtags? 

• How does your customer want to be contacted and communicated with?

  • Email, text, DMs

• What do they really want to know? 

• What are you experienced in that will help them? 

• How are we activating word-of-mouth advertising?

• How can we activate influencers marketing?

  • How can others become storytellers for our brand?

• What’s your customer looking for?

• How can you anticipate what they need?

Decision fatigue: 

• “I’m much happier with 4 or 5 carefully curated choices, then a bunch of random things that try to speak to everyone” 

• By speaking to everyone, we speak to no one 

• Think of going to a restaurant with a 25-page menu vs the 1-page menu 

• Luxury comes from ruthless editing, get rid of the 90 percent that doesn’t move and hone in on the 10% that does 

Things Colin Cowie begs you to ask yourself:

1. How does this apply to me, our team, and our business?

2. How do I see the best customer service for our products and how can we curate the best version of this? (I will add, at your current capacity) 

3. What’s the lowest hanging fruit: the most obvious and easiest change you can make ASAP to meet that goal?

Things to keep in mind:

• “Luxury is no longer just for the elite”-

  • It’s based on the entire user experience, from the first point of impression to the website design and flows, to the checkout process, to the confirmation email, to the engagement on social media, to the handwritten note in the order- how can the entire experience overflow with excellence?

Follow up resources:

• Knowing the difference between customer service + customer experience

• Colin Cowie chats with other business owners on his youtube playlist

• Being seduced by customer experience