If your organization is committed to delivering remarkable customer experiences then simply serving your customers is not enough. It is essential to go the extra mile and use each interaction with customers as an opportunity to "wow" them. "Wow" moments are hard to explain but everyone has experienced these moments when one is just blown away by the efforts retail staff takes to ensure customer satisfaction.

The best indicator that you – as a customer – just had a "Wow" experience is that you feel a strong desire to talk about this remarkable experience with your friends. And this is exactly what companies have to aim for: not just serve their customer but to wow them so that customers start to talk about your products, services and brand.

The Elements of Wow Experiences

Wharton School of Business has teamed up with the Retail Council of Canada to identify the elements that constitute a Wow experience and have identified five major areas:

• Engagement: being polite, genuinely caring and interested in helping, acknowledging and listening.
• Executional excellence: patiently explaining and advising, checking stock, helping to find products, having product knowledge and providing unexpected product quality.
• Brand Experience: exciting store design and atmosphere, consistently great product quality, making customers feel they’re special and that they always get a deal.
• Expediting: being sensitive to customers’ time on long check-out lines, being proactive in helping speed the shopping process.
• Problem Recovery: helping resolve and compensate for problems, upgrading quality and ensuring complete satisfaction.

The article also stresses the importance of selecting the right staff that is able to take basic information about shopper preferences and convert that knowledge to customized service. This is in my perspective the essential aspect for delivering remarkable customer experiences.

Delivering Wow is hard, but it can be done

When reflecting on these elements it is obvious that it is not “rocket science” that is required to deliver remarkable customer experiences. On the contrary, it is not  the most sophisticated strategy that will bring success but the discipline and committed of the organization and its employees to deliver “Wow” every day to every customer.

A "Culture of Wow", a commitment that is lived in the organization where every retail employee understands that it is necessary to Wow and not just to serve, is requires for organizations to achieve this.

References

• Getting to ‘Wow’: Consumers Describe What Makes a Great Shopping Experience
• Discovering ‘WOW’ — A Study of Great Retail Shopping Experiences in North America