Just because your customers are satisfied with your brand’s services doesn’t mean they’re going to stick around. Chances are, they’re constantly on the lookout for a company that trumps you in every way.

That’s the hurtful reality, but confronting it head-on will make you grow.
Almost every brand out there advocates and aims for customer satisfaction. To gain customers’ approval, they work hard to get everything right: from omnichannel customer support and digital marketing, to perfecting the consumers’ in-store experience.
But times have changed, and these efforts are no longer enough. In a competitive and continuously changing business landscape, brands must do more than this to make themselves stand out.

Satisfaction won’t keep customers coming back.

Satisfaction is merely the minimum standard of the ideal customer experience. Sure, customers want a hassle-free journey, but this is only their most basic requirement. Most consumers automatically assume that today’s brands—regardless of the industry they’re in—would provide them various customer service channels and solve their issues efficiently. In short, exemplary performance is something that customers expect, not want, from brands.
These growing and changing consumer expectations are largely a result of the spread of tech devices and Internet connectivity. Mobile gadgets allowed everyone to be constantly online, and this shoved us all toward the age of the modern consumer. With limitless access to brand-related information, consumers have become more empowered. They’re now more discerning when it comes to choosing the businesses they’d buy from.

From satisfaction to loyalty

Customer satisfaction doesn’t always forge customer loyalty. To build lasting relationships with your customers, you must evoke positive emotions from them. And it not only entails providing their needs, it also requires making them happy and exceeding their expectations.
This is the secret behind the world’s most successful brands. They focus on cultivating loyalty, and what they get in return is an army of word-of-mouth marketers and repeat purchasers. Indeed, as many as 74% of consumers say they rely on word-of-mouth referrals in making purchasing decisions, and 58% of consumers go out of their way to share with others the positive customer experience they had with a company.

Building an emotional connection with customers

The brands that customers truly love are those that make them feel special. The positive emotions they associate with a brand are a result of a series of equally delightful experiences. Here are some ways to build emotion-based customer relationships:

•     Exceed your customers’ expectations, and use data to individualize their experience.

Through an omnichannel customer service strategy, you’ll be able to gather plenty of data about your target market. Use them to personalize the customer experience and make it more memorable.

•     Instead of targeting efficiency, shift call center agents’ focus to empathy.

Measure agents’ performance based on the quality of their interactions with customers. Veer away from purely quantitative performance indicators such as average handling time.

•     Be as creative as you can be in solving customer issues.

Give your contact center agents the power to make decisions that best suit a customer’s situation. Encourage them to be as creative and resourceful as they can be. This will help you create a memorable customer experience.