“You will not BELIEVE this haircut I just got. It’s pretty straight and my hair is about 1/2 inch shorter!”
“I had the greatest experience at the bank today. I only waited in line for about five minutes and the teller looked me directly in the eyes – TWICE!”
“That staffing firm is AMAZING. They refer candidates who have some of the skills we need and show up most of the time!”
Nobody raves about average service.
To get people talking, you need to do more. Use these three ideas from Haley Marketing to stop “satisfying” – and start amazing your staffing customers:
Use surprise reciprocity. Everybody likes a pleasant surprise – even a small one. Social psychologist Norbert Schwarz found that as little as 10 cents was enough to create a more positive view in research participants who found money by surprise. In Scwharz’s words, “It’s not the value of what you find. It’s that something positive happened to you.”
So find little ways to surprise your customers:
- Send a hand-written “thank you” note when a client places an order.
- Create a simple “first-day-on-the-job” survival kit for new field employees, which includes small items like a pen, a notepad and a pack of mints.
- Drop off a box of donuts to a client, “just because.”
It’s not the monetary value of the gesture that’s important; it’s the fact that you did something unexpected that truly makes a service experience memorable for your customers.
Be phenomenal at one thing. Let’s face facts: no staffing or recruiting firm is great at everything. To stand out and amaze your customers, develop one aspect of your service that you can be the absolute best at. It could be your guarantee, your response time, your post-placement follow-up, or anything else you want – as long as it’s something that really matters to customers.
Always offer a solution. Even if that solution includes referring a client or candidate elsewhere! Under certain circumstances, the best service you can give a customer starts with saying, “No” – especially if you’re asked to do something you don’t have the resources/expertise for, or can’t attain the capacity for.
Certainly, you should always do whatever you reasonably can to create a great customer experience. But if you say “Yes” under compromising circumstances and fall below expectations, you risk undermining trust and ultimately alienating your best customers. It’s smarter business to tell a client or candidate that you can’t do something upfront (and provide an alternate solution), than to make promises you just can’t keep. In the end, your customer will respect your honesty and trust you even more.