Customers are constantly looking for businesses that can give them more. Essentially, they are searching for brands that are willing to go the extra mile and deliver an exceptional level of service. Businesses that achieve this will witness tremendous benefits. For instance, it can be a great way to gain customer loyalty. You might also find that you will be able to gain an excellent word of mouth. If you impress your customers then they are more likely to recommend you to friends, family members, and even followers online.
The concept to keep in mind here is surprise and delight. Essentially you need to focus on taking action that customers will not expect but that will show evidence that you are offering a valuable service or product. Crucially, this can be a way to separate yourself from the sea of competition and even gain loyalty from customers of key competitors. So, how can you do this?
Go personal
One of the best surprise and delight tactics would be to show customers that you know or understand them. By doing this, they will feel a stronger connection to your brand. They will believe that you care about not just the sale but who they are.
One of the easiest ways to do this is through an abandoned cart email. If a customer was close to purchasing a service or product but bailed, there can be a variety of reasons why. By sending an automated email, you can remind them of the purchase. When you create this sale, you can use information about previous shopping habits and online behavior to personalize it and ensure it connects to what they want and what they were looking for online.
Engage in new ways online
You might also want to think about engaging with your customers online. Of course, typical levels of engagement aren’t enough. You need to go further than this. For instance, you could assess social media posts to understand the pain points for particular customers or users. Kleenex was incredibly successful during their campaign.
The company searched for media posts online of people feeling unwell or under the weather. They then engaged with family members and friends to ensure that the individual received a get well package filled with Kleenex items. This provided three key impacts. It affected the individual that received the package as well as the friends and family members. The campaign also had 650,000 impressions and the company achieved a 100% buy-in.
You can also think about searching social media for key events or points in customers’ lives. For instance, you could look out for anniversaries, promotions or any type of celebration. A brand could then send a gift or free merch to that customer to mark the occasion. This is known as the ‘how did they know’ tactic. Customers are left shocked and amazed that a brand is this attentive.
Rewards
One of the easiest ways to show value to a customer is to provide them with something for nothing. Customers love the idea of getting great products or services for free. Typically rewards are somewhat predictable. For instance, a company may provide money off coupons to subscribers around the festive season. This is valuable to the customer, but it isn’t particularly surprising.
So, you should be looking for ways where you throw them off guard completely. This isn’t as easy to do as it seems, however, Mastercard has been successful here. They used a campaign to surprise more than 97,000 customers.
This started with surprises through social media. However, now there’s an app where Mastercard and other companies can surprise and delight customers with rewards at different points on a random basis. As well as this, customers can use the same service to pass rewards to both friends and family members.
Celebrity live connections
Some companies have been successful in surprising and delighting customers in truly magical forms. Disney is an excellent example of this. To promote Alice Through The Looking Glass, the company arranged for Johnny Depp to don the full Madhatter costume. A live stream was set up where the actor appeared to be static on a billboard. However, when members of the public were close enough the billboard came alive. Depp began to interact with the individuals on a live stream and suddenly these people were talking directly to a celebrity.
Disney has created this campaign twice in two different ways. The second time, Depp appeared again, this time within the Pirates of the Carribean ride posing with the animatronics before coming alive. This was used to promote the fifth film in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise. The first video gained four million views on Youtube.
Thank you cards
Are the days of snail mail behind us? It’s true to say that genuine interactions with brands through the post are something of an anomaly these days. So, if they do occur, they can be quite surprising. But will they delight customers? They can if you make sure that you send a thank you card. Crucially, you can consider providing a thankyou card that is handwritten. By doing this, you are showing customers that you care and providing evidence that you have taken the time to take this step. The thank you card can be paired with a gift for additional value. However, even just sending the written note can be enough to delight your customer base.
Rebate
Some companies are providing a rebate on products that customers buy. With this option, companies will offer all or part of the money back for a product that they have sold. All the customer will typically need to do is share their purchase on social media. This helps the company grow its reach while providing value to the user. Rebate offers can be sent to a certain number of customers at random. Alternatively, the percentage of the rebate could be based on the following that an individual customer has online.
Any of these tactics could be the ideal option for ensuring that you surprise and delight your customer base.