Want to get customers on your side? Then help them in the nick of time just when they need you the most. In today’s fast world, everyone is constantly on the go and they rely on their mobile devices to provide quick information and fast answers. Are you ready for when your customer uses their phone to find out the information they need from you?

In a recent report, Pew Internet Research quantified some of those top reasons we turn to mobile phones for “just in time” information/ help.

Pew found that in the last 30 days, 86% of smartphone owners have used their phones in one of the following ways:

• 41% coordinated a meeting / get-together.
• 35% solved an unexpected problem that they or someone else had encountered.
• 30% decided whether to visit a business, such as a restaurant.
• 23% looked up a score of a sporting event.
• 20% looked for updates on traffic or public transit information to find the fastest way to get somewhere.
• 19% got help in an emergency situation via mobile phone.

In fact, Pew found that about 62% of the entire US adult population used their phone for “just-in-time” activities. (View more of the report here. )

I’m sharing this research to spark you to brainstorm about how your company creates positive customer experience via mobile devices. Think about how you can help customers easily access important information via a mobile device. This can be delivered via a mobile optimized website, mobile app, text message or other.

Here are a few ways I see companies helping customers“just in time” and building positive experiences:
• Sears offers text message alerts when the item you ordered online is ready for in store pick up.
• JetBlue has a mobile website that is very easy to use to get flight status updates and more.
• Movietickets.com also has a mobile friendly website to find movies and buy tickets last minute.
• LifeWise (health insurance company in WA) has a mobile app that offers your insurance ID card on phone so you always have it with you.

Two actions you should take:

1. Create a mobile version of your website – it is a huge help to customers. It also creates a positive customer experience instead of a frustrated one (when a company doesn’t have a mobile optimized website). If you haven’t created a mobile website, please make this an immediate priority. (To make the internal case and to get backing for this investment, check your web analytics tool to see how many hits on your website are from phones and mobile devices.)
2. Think about how else you could help customers when they are on the go – build up positive customer experiences.

What device are you using when you are standing in line? How about when you just landed in Boston on the airport runway? Obviously, your cell phone. And what are you doing on that phone? Using apps, visiting mobile optimized websites (the others aren’t worth surfing from a phone), sending text messages… you know, the usual stuff.

You know you aren’t alone, just look around you anywhere you go. People are focused on their phones. The latest research shows there are more smart phones in use than other types of cell phones (46% of adults in the US according to Pew Interest Research).

I’m bringing this up to emphasize the fact that you need a mobile strategy for your business.  You customers expect more and more from your company via mobile.

Here are a few of their growing expectations.

• Customers want a mobile accessible website (not just your current website, it doesn’t look great on a small phone screen and is often hard to use). Are you like me? Do you groan when you try to access a website with your smart phone and find it isn’t made for a mobile device? Usually I just give up.
• Customers want mobile apps that make their life easier or better.
• Customers want it to be easy to find your store details, inventory info, and whatever other tools help them make decisions, make a purchase or reservation, donate or whatever.
• Customers want to reach your customer service via their preferred channel – that increasingly means social media channels like Twitter (where they spend lots of time already in their day).

Customer expectations will continue to grow on par with the speed of technology innovation. You’ve no doubt heard how mobile devices will soon will become our wallet, our office, control our home remotely (appliances, security) and beyond.

If you don’t have a mobile strategy today that ties into your overall business goals and customer engagement strategy start now. Your mobile strategy shouldn’t be far afield from the rest of your business strategy. You’ll want to consider where your customer touchpoints occur via mobile just like you consider all channels where interaction points occur. Of course, you’ll want to find out what would be most useful to your customers as well. Start by examining their life and their needs, how many mobile users are hitting your website today? What are they doing via their mobile phones? Figure out how you can make it easy to interact with your company/ service/ product and you will be ahead in the game.

No one wants to be left behind when competition wins market share for playing in the space their customers live – the mobile/ wireless space.

Companies are afraid of losing ‘control’ of their brand message. There are two parts to their fear. One, customers have the freedom to say whatever they want; and, two, that is only that message in the marketplace.

You can see that in part two you as a person responsible for the brand message or customer communications (yes you!) can jump in and be a part of shaping what’s presented in social media.

We already know that #1 is happening. Putting your head in the sand won’t stop it. Don’t let your fear of what customers are saying stifle your willingness to work on part #2. This is where you can become the hero of your customers and business value – offering helpful messages and bringing balance to what is being presented. Plus, you can gain ideas that can help shape your business direction and focus.

The best way to overcome this fear is to engage with customers in a dialogue via social media. Leaving negative comments alone doesn’t make them better, but engaging and solving problems and responding really can.

Let’s look at an example of possible public dialogue:

• @CustomerA tweets that they got a stale piece of cake from your bakery
• Your bakery replies and apologizes and offers @CustomerA a new slice of cake free of charge at a time of their convenience
• @CustomerA tweets “thanks @bakery you really made my day, you guys rock”
• @CustomerZ, who follows @CustomerA, now chimes in and says how much they like @bakery too
• Now, when @CustomerA talks with friends in person, she tells them that @bakery is so good that they responded to a complaint within a day and not only offered a new slice of cake, but also promised that the bakery will keep a closer eye on freshness.

As you can see, if @bakery hadn’t engaged in dialogue with the customer then the dialogue about @bakery would only have consisted of negative comments. But the conversation now includes positive comments, too. Customers like to see companies responding on Twitter (or any social media) to customer services issues – it makes them feel like you are a company for them (because you use Twitter like they do). In fact 62% of customers have used social media to get customer service help. (Study: http://bit.ly/w1s6N4 )

This creates a very positive customer experience for customers, too. If they are active in social media, receiving a response makes them even happier with your business.

Intuit, the software company, found that after only 3 months of engaging in social media negative comments dropped 30%! That’s a strong case for getting engaged in social media with the right plan, approach and messages.

Another benefit of engaging in social media is that customers can help each other (following your lead). This deflects calls/contacts from your customer contact center. This happens because other customers are watching your messages and their friend’s messages and they can start problem solving to help other customers. Customers like to help each other, that is why Yelp is so powerful: Customers want to help other customers find the best places (or dishes) to eat or save their money and avoid bad places. It’s the customer fellowship.

In our example above, @CustomerA can now tell anyone who complains about the bakery to be in touch with the company via twitter to report the issue (where it can be once again be brought to their attention) and the customer may even get free cake out of it!.

This customer-to-customer support also puts more positive dialogue in the marketplace and offers even faster responses to issues – that helps diffuse any situation faster.

Everyone knows about the proliferation of the latest “deal” emails and offers (a.k.a. Groupon, Living Social, Google Offers, and the like). However, marketing is more than just offering a discount. Marketing that relies only on price cuts becomes a battle over the lowest price but that doesn’t help company grow or build long-term customer relationships. (There will always be a competitor with a lower price who can steal away your price-driven customers.)

Instead, what is needed is an evolution of marketing to focus on listening to customers, engaging in dialogue with them, and being responsive. Those are key elements to earning customer loyalty. Think about your customer relationships as a 2-way street instead of just focusing on the 1-way street of transactions/purchases which tends to treat customers as nothing more than a walking wallet.  If you focus on 2-way dialogue and create great customer experiences you’ll find that customers wish to repeat the experience (buy from you again). And maybe they will even tell their friends (cha ching!).

In your marketing efforts, be sure to focus on providing value to customers (value doesn’t necessarily mean price-based offers). Yes, there will always be a segment of consumers that primarily act based on price, but I’m talking about the rest of the universe who can more effectively contribute to your bottom line. It’s been proven in more and more surveys that there are customers willing to pay more for a better experience (which is of value to them).

How can you provide value to your customers (read: what do your customers value)?

Here are a few ideas:

• YOUR PROCESSES: Make it easy for customers to do business with you (customers value their time). You can do this by making it easy to buy, to renew, to repurchase, to pay an invoice, to make a return or reach an agent who can quickly solve problems. This can be a real differentiator from your competition and can contribute to loyalty. Heard of Commerce Banks “kill a stupid rule” approach (read here: http://www.bankstocks.com/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=3735&ArticleTypeID=2) this can help you kill bad processes making customers lives easier.

• WHAT CUSTOMERS NEED: Think about what your customers need…and do what you can to support/ solve /meet that need. This need doesn’t have to be just around your product/service. Perhaps your customers need first access to information so they can make decisions faster, or perhaps they value “being the first to know.”  I’ve had firsthand experience with a company where getting first access to new content was hugely valuable to our customer evangelists. They wanted to be first to share that new content and I discovered this was a HUGE traffic driver for the website. We grew traffic (for free) by tapping into that need. That was of high value to our customers and kept them coming back because we satisfied this need for them.
• YOUR MESSAGES: Stop selling and pushing and start helping, educating and sharing with your customers. Here’s an example of what I mean. Home services professionals can help educate their customers on how to care for their homes rather than just sending out discounts. After all, how many discount emails can a customer really use from a painting company? Instead, they can recommend the best schedule for maintenance (not just the kind related to painting, for example) and the best way to protect the value of a home. Other ideas of value could be how often to paint the inside or outside of your home. Or, when to replace a hot water heater or how can you determine if your washing machine is about to call it quits. There are plenty of home owners who value free education about maintaining their home investment. And they will value the company who makes it easy for them to do this.
• A GUIDELINE: The best rule of thumb for the ratio of information/ education to promotion/ sales messages in your communication is 80% education, 20% promotion (it can vary, but keep close to this ratio to best engage customers in the long term). This applies to all marketing: e-mail marketing, social media, etc. It’s not that promotional offers are bad, but customers wear tired of them quickly. Here’s an example of wear out on promotional messages: I have received one email a week selling me on the premium service of YouSendIt.com. Every subject line is about buying their service. How many customers want to see you selling your services in their email box continually? None. There is nothing new in each email and nothing of value to me and thus it becomes a negative customer experience. I finally unsubscribed after deleting their messages for weeks. Now they don’t have permission to contact me, and all because they didn’t offer value but instead just pushed their paid services on me.

Moving away from too many price promotions allows you to instead listen to what your customers value and rethink your marketing messages to orient around what they feel is valuable. Have a dialogue. There is no dialogue when marketing just consists of transaction focus messages – that is pushy. The best approach for long-term customer value and business value is to offer information and education, ask for customer feedback, listen to customers and then tailor your marketing messages/methods and business offerings accordingly.

When a company makes a promise to its customers (via its website, via marketing, via policies or contracts) AND fulfills it – it builds trust. Makes sense right? You make a promise and the customer hopes you will live up to it. When you do fulfill your promises, it satisfies the customers and it may even make them more loyal.

Here are 2 examples of companies living up to promises. See what you can glean from these leaders:

1) JetBlue- Do you remember the JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights?  They created The Bill Customer Bill of Rights a few years ago after the big snafu that left customers stranded on runways during a snow storm.

Good news: JetBlue are serious about adhering to their Bill of Rights. I experienced that first hand during a flight from Boston to LA. Before the flight departed, we were informed that we would have to stop in Denver to refuel because of strong headwinds that were forecast for the trip. The plane simply couldn’t hold enough fuel to make the full trip. The refuel stop lasted an hour in total and so we arrived late to Los Angeles.

Shortly after that flight I received this email message: We’re sorry that you did not experience the high standard of service we aim to provide every JetBlue customer. Please accept our sincere apologies and this flight credit for the inconvenience you recently experienced with us.

Every passenger received that message as well as a $25 credit. Before the flight took off, a JetBlue flight attendant announced that they were waiving the fee for all their premium in-flight movie options. Awesome! They really lived up to the promises they make to their customers. Result? I love JetBlue even more than before. I bet this message and flight credit will melt even some of the grumbling passengers on board who were mad about the refueling stop. (Um, we can’t fly without fuel !).

2) Amazon.com- The online retailer has a price-matching guarantee when you place a pre-order. If they lower the price after you purchase an item, they issue you a credit. That happened to my husband. He pre-ordered a new CD and after he paid for it the price dropped $1. Amazon let us know of the price change and processed the $1 credit to our credit card.

No doubt, the idea of processing small credits on this scale could drive some finance professionals nuts. (Considering the cost to Amazon of processing the credit and all.) But think about the signal it gives to customers. The message is “we care” – about customers, about their finances, and we value them as a long-term customer. It is a nice message that shows the value of a customer relationship. And it stands out during a time when the majority of companies don’t make customers feel valued.

When you have trust in a relationship, the relationship is likely to last longer. Your customers will be surprised when you keep promises because it is rare to truly feel valued as a customer (not just valued for transactions).

What can you do? How can you use these ideas?

• Make a list of all the promises you have made to customers – in sales meetings, in contracts, in communications, via customer service. Check and make sure you have processes in place to live up to those promises. Make sure someone is accountable for enforcing those promises and correcting them when they haven’t been met.
• Tell customers when you are honoring a promise you have made – they will appreciate it and likely be more grateful (and loyal) for it.

I’ve taken a fair number of surveys in my life but despite taking time to offer my opinions about how a company is performing, only about 1% of those companies has ever shared how that information was used.

Here’s how you can stand out from the competition and get your customers attention: Listen to them and respond to their feedback!

Perhaps you heard about “voice of the customer” programs. But what happens to that voice once it’s been heard or captured? That’s what matters.

Don’t waste your time or your customers’ time if you can’t act based on survey results. That imperative should drive every survey question you write. Each question must lead to actionable results because if it doesn’t, you should be hesitant to pose that question to a customer.

How do you listen/act and create a WOW customer experience? Consider these two points:

• Create a follow up plan: What kind of follow-up plan do you have with customers after they take the survey? How about after you review the results and consider what feedback you can use/implement? Consider telling customers how you plan to use the feedback they provided, what you plan on changing or tweaking based on their feedback. Be as specific if you can. Send the message out via email but also post it visibly on your website (that sends a good message to current and potential customers) and link to that message from your Twitter and other social media accounts.

• Send the right message: The message you send when you follow up and communicate the results is “you are important” and “your input is valued.” Sounds like a good message for your customers to be hearing, especially in a world of hyper-competition.

Here’s an example of great follow up. I stayed at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving, TX, recently. It was a quick one-night stay, and I took the obligatory email survey. Although the survey was way too long, I was intrigued by the portion of the survey about the hotel restaurant. I had eaten dinner there and wanted to share my comments. I filled in my rating and my comments about the menu. Guess what? Within just a day or two of completing the survey, I heard from someone at the hotel about my menu comments. She wanted to thank me for my input and she said they were going to revamp their menu in January and she would be
talking to the chef about my comments.

I was blown away. It made me feel better about the five minutes I spent on their long survey. Now my hotel experience went from “fine,” to “really memorable.” I would stay at this hotel and recommend it to any friend after that. I am also going to Yelp about it (write an online review of the hotel).

So before you survey customers or launch a listening program, make sure you have a great way to follow up and thank them. Share with them how you are using the information they provided to improve their life, their experiences, and your business. That creates a great experience, and a great bond.

Here’s a great idea I heard from some top notch CX (Customer Experience) professionals while at the inaugural CXPA (Customer Experience Professional Association). Read on below and steal this idea for your company!

Create an ambassador program. One way to find these ambassadors is to have employees nominate peers to be an ambassador – of what? YOUR customers!

Here are some general elements of one customer ambassador program I learned about:

• Front line (customer facing/interacting) employees can be nominated by their peers.
• As front line employees, they hear customer ideas, needs and suggestions all the time. This is a program for that information to be shared. (Have you ever met a front line staffer who didn’t have great ideas to share? I’ve found they always are full of ideas and never seem to have an outlet for them.)
• Those selected to be ambassadors contribute 2 hours per week for the program.
• Create a forum for the ambassadors to share the ideas they hear with those who can make a difference (this may be product managers or whoever shapes your products/services). One option is to create an internal web forum for sharing ideas. The ambassadors post ideas and questions and the product managers respond.
• Then host meetings twice a month (or more) to discuss the ideas and work through the definition and of them and any possible next steps.

To get started you need the “call” to get ambassadors nominations or applications and a mechanism for them to share ideas efficiently. You want to select staff (as ambassadors) that love to spread the word and help out customers (so they’ll keep sharing ideas in the online forum). A kick-off meeting for the ambassadors (with key execs echoing the importance of this work) is a great note to begin on.

The ambassadors are often advocates who spread the word of the program to their peers and others – and you’ll want to publicize the ideas generated from the program and the results to the larger employee base over time.

What you get is a great conversation between those who listen to customers daily and those who shape the evolution of products and services you offer. What an ideal team!

Recently I heard Aimee Lucas of Crowe Horwath (public accountants:  http://www.crowehorwath.com/) speak about the right kinds of metrics and measures they use to measure their operations and the customer experience (including voice of the customer).

I really liked their 3 prong approach to measurement:

1. Metrics about the company (examples: employee retention, operational metrics, etc)
2. Metrics about the employees (example: how many are mentioned in client surveys for providing “above and beyond” service; and metrics/feedback from employee opinion surveys)
3. Metrics about the clients/ customers (examples: retention rates, business growth, engagement levels, NPS, number of customers lost and gained, etc)

I like this because it makes sure they are taking into account all the factors that lead to customer engagement. They measure not just happy customers, but the “upstream” of well-performing engaged employees and a company that supports the success of everyone.

I encourage you to think about how these 3 categories can apply to your business and what metrics you watch on a regular basis.

One of the key principles in customer experience management is consistency. Without consistency, some customers may get a great experience and others will get something mediocre. I consider customer experience and consistency to be “BFF” or best friends forever. They are joined, never to part.

Here’s a personal experience to illustrate. I called AT&T to get help with some additional features / services I needed while I was traveling recently. They explained it all, I selected the right options and they even set the expiry date for these temporary features. Nice. At another time, I needed to call AT&T to check my phone warranty (my cellphone battery wasn’t holding its charge). They took care of the issue quickly and sent out a replacement battery. Wow, I actually felt like they appreciated my many years of patronage (since I was just past warranty expire date). I even said to one of the reps, “I can’t believe I can get such great treatment at AT&T.”
The third time was not so good.
I called AT&T with a billing question (I’d rather do this all online, but sometimes you have to call) and the rep said she couldn’t help me very well. She told me I should wait 2 more days (for my bill to appear online) and then someone from AT&T would call on that day. I waited; no one called. Then, 3 days later, they called at 6:30am when my phone was off. They called again the following morning when I was on the phone and so I missed their call. (I was going to write a blog about how consistent AT&T was until that last hiccup. You see my point on consistency!)

Your organization needs to be trained on how to deliver the same experience over and over again with reliability. This may sound daunting if you think of every touchpoint you have with your customers. Take heart. Yes, you want consistency as much as possible, but start with a focus on providing consistency around the most important customer touchpoints.

How do you know which touchpoints are most important? Your customers should tell you. They may really need reliability in billing, ease in customer service renewals or no hassle returns. You can start to learn what these touchpoints may be by calling a few key customers. Let them tell you the most crucial areas of their experience (with a company like yours). Then test out if other customers report the same focus areas. (Of course, there are formal ways to approach this with customer experience mapping. I highly recommend that, but this is a good proxy to quickly test out where to focus. If you need resources for CX mapping, let me know, that is a great approach.) If you can find a few touchpoints that are key to customers, see what you can do to consistently deliver the best experience at those intersections. Working to create greater consistency is a great internal exercise that builds this competency (you’ll need that talent regardless of the touchpoint).

Consider these diverse ways consistency is needed:

• Channel consistency – how consistently can you deliver a positive experience online (any page or section, with any online tool or function)? In your call center? Via your store personnel?

• Cross-channel consistency – does your in-store or customer service experience feel as positive as your website experience, or vice versa?

• Policy consistency – are your employee’s hands tied in one area or one channel that creates inconsistencies? For example, can phone customer service reps offer refunds even though the web self-service options show that refunds aren’t possible? I’m sure you’ve run into issues like this as a customer, and you likely know where this happens in your company.

What does consistency earn you?
When you are consistent, you have a platform that allows customers to tell their friends what they can expect. Just think of a restaurant that offers great food and service on one visit, but fails to deliver during the next visit. The restaurant won’t gain anything (like word of mouth) and may likely lose something (like repeat customers and positive WOM).

In the last round of customer experience mapping sessions I participated in, multiple customers explicitly said that they put their personal reputation on the line when they recommend a company. And they take it personally if the friend doesn’t get the same level of service.

Create a consistency mantra in your company and you’ll create a solid foundation for growth.

I hadn’t set foot in the store for three years. Yet the welcome I received felt like a homecoming.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Nine years ago, back when my husband and I lived in Boston, we bought our wedding rings at a boutique jewelry store called Kosmima. We had always admired the elegant, hand-crafted creations in its windows whenever we drove through the leafy suburb of Chestnut Hill. When it came time to buy rings, we ventured into the store and we were immediately taken with the uncommonly warm and helpful service provided by the owner, Pano, and his wife. It was clear to us that Pano genuinely wanted to help make our wedding day as special as possible. He takes as much care over the customer experience as he does over the craftsmanship of his jewelry.

Great service makes an impression on customers, it’s a key part of the customer experience. That’s because it’s so rare to truly to be valued by a company you’re buying from. It’s a special thing and it can make a lasting impression.

Last week I was reminded of the “bond” that sparkling service creates.

I haven’t lived in Boston for over three years but I ventured into Kosmima during a recent visit to the East Coast. I mainly wanted to get my rings cleaned and also ask a question about ring sizing (the rings have started to feel loose). To my surprise, Pano and his wife remembered me. They immediately started cleaning my rings and pointed out that one of the tiny diamonds in my wedding band had fallen out. (I never even noticed that the diamond was missing, it’s the size of a spec.) They replaced the diamond—at no cost! Wow, that was an unexpected delight and a memorable customer experience.

We chatted about ring sizing. I didn’t have a long enough visit for Pano to resize the ring so Pano made a great temporary fix to help my ring fit tighter. He said I could come back during my next visit to get the ring re-sized if I wanted to. I really felt important. Pano and his wife really care about me even though I’m not a big spender and even though I don’t live in Boston anymore. Didn’t matter. They both wanted to be of help.

I did tell them that their service was so good I couldn’t go anywhere else. They understood that bond and appreciated my loyalty. I feel good, I trust them, I know them, and they care about me. It’s a special feeling in the life of a customer.

No question, this is my jeweler for life even if I have to fly 3,000 miles just to see them. When I next look to buy jewelry, this is the store I will visit.

How are you using service to bond customers to you? You can make a real impression just by recognizing customers, treating them as valued clients, and providing immediate help and quick answers to questions. Take off your professional hat for a moment and put on your customer hat. Now make a list of the ways you’ve been impressed as a customer and then see if you can translate any of those ideas and experiences to your business. Can you make it easier and faster to get service and support? To get a refund or return something? Can you respond to customer service emails faster? Small things make an impact (not just free diamonds – ha!).

Diamonds are forever. So are loyal customers.