Want To Keep Your Customers? Be Ridiculously Easy To Do Business With

You can’t argue with the evidence. Being easy to do business with attracts new customers, keeps existing customers and gives you a competitive advantage. Consider what we learned in our customer service and CX research (sponsored by RingCentral). Each year, convenience ranks as the most important customer service experience. These findings from the study back this up:

· 94% of customers feel convenience is important

· 70% are willing to pay more if the experience is more convenient

· 87% will likely recommend a brand or company if it provides a convenient service experience

David Avrin’s latest book, Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With, is filled with tip after tip on how to avoid friction that loses customers. The book’s subject is one I’ve been studying and endorsing for years. In 2018, I wrote The Convenience Revolution, which featured the five convenience principles: eliminating friction, providing self-service solutions, using technology, delivery and access (location, hours of operation, etc.). Avrin’s addition to the very few but important books on the topic goes in-depth with very specific ways any business can be easier to work with. With that in mind, here are seven of the many ideas and tactics he shares in the book. Make it ridiculously easy …

1. To cancel, return or change your mind. An easy return or exchange policy reduces the customer’s risk and increases trust in the brand. Easy and hassle-free returns are one of the top reasons customers come back.

2. To provide feedback. When your customers provide you with feedback, both good and bad, it’s a gift. They’ve taken the time to share their thoughts, so don’t make it hard for them to do so.

3. To be easy to reach. If a customer has a question, and you make it hard for them to find your contact information, what do you think happens next? They continue their search with a different company. We suggest to our clients that contact information (phone, email, etc.) is available, at least in the footer, on every page of their website. Really, it should be easy to find on anything that has your company or brand’s name on it.

4. To navigate the website. One of the reasons people love shopping with Amazon is how easy it is to do business with, and it starts with a 100% self-service solution. They make it easy to compare products, pricing and more. Most importantly, it is an intuitive experience. You know where to go. It’s easy to get to the shopping cart, and to check out. While not every company can be like Amazon, they can take lessons from how its website is designed. If nothing else, remember that a website is designed by people to be used by people.

5. To pay you. Avrin shared a great example of a vending machine that required him to use a QR code to pay for his snack. Traditional machines have the option of cash or credit card, but making a QR code the only way to pay requires extra steps. It can be an option, but taking away what’s most convenient could hurt sales.

6. To track the status of your order. Let your customers know when their order is shipped and when they can expect to receive it. And, so there’s no hassle in checking on the order, include tracking information. Once an order leaves the warehouse, one of the major carriers typically takes over, such as FedEx, UPS or the USPS. It’s much easier for your customer to click a button and enter a tracking number than to search for your phone number, call you, wait on hold and eventually ask an agent, “When will I receive my package?”

7. To resolve issues. When a customer has a problem, do you offer self-service solutions? Do they need to call? It doesn’t matter what channel the customer uses to get their problem resolved, they just want it to be easy and fast. I refer to a metric I call “Time to Happiness.” The shorter the time, with little (or no) friction, the better.

Why do we make the effort to be easy to do business with? The answer is summed up in Chapter 25. When you create an easy and frictionless experience, you make it ridiculously easy to choose you over your competition!