Creating Superfans Podcast Episode 301: Brittany Hodak

The number one thing that you can do to improve your customer experience is to audit the scripts and common responses that your employees are using when they’re interacting with customers. So oftentimes without even realizing it, customers can hear things like, I can’t do that, from one of your employees or or maybe even you, and that’s not a great response to hear as a customer. So look for simple swaps that you can make in your language. So for example, instead of saying, I can’t do that, you might say, here’s what I can do. Or you might say, let me look into some alternatives. Instead of saying, you’ll have to and then telling them what they have to do in a command statement or as an order, you could say something like I recommend or it might be helpful if or next time you’ll want to. So just little simple swaps. They seem really subtle, but they all add up.

One of the principles that I talk about a lot is that I really think there are only 3 types of interactions that we ever have. At the end of an interaction, we feel better, worse, or the same as we did before it started, net negative, net neutral, and net positive. These small language tweaks can take something from a negative or neutral interaction to a neutral or positive one, so they’re really, really important. I’ve actually put together a list of 25 simple swaps. So things like saying thank you or my pleasure instead of no problem and other just really common things that you or your team may be doing without even realizing it. If you wanna get that list, I’ve made it really easy. You can go to Instagram and follow me at Brittany Hodak and just send me a DM with the word swap. We’re using ManyChat which is an AI tool that a lot of people are using for automation on socials right now.

We’re trying it out. I’ll let you know later in the season how it’s going, but everybody, has really been pleased with with some of the cool things that we’ve done from stage and on socials in the past few weeks. So I’m excited to keep trying that and we’ll report back. But just go over to Instagram, follow me at Brittany Hodak, and DM me the word swap, and you’ll get a list of 25 simple swaps to help reframe your language to be more customer centric. This was something that I initially put together for my 6 weeks to Superman’s masterclass, but because you’re awesome in tuning into this episode, you can get it completely free. Alright. The number two way to elevate your customer experience. I always loved this quote by Sam Walton.

So I grew up not far from Walmart headquarters and did a lot of work with Walmart, both when I was in corporate America and then when I launched my own company. Walmart was actually my first big client, so I have spent a lot of time in Bentonville and have a lot of respect for Sam Walton. You know, every everything that he’s ever written, I think, is is is spot on in terms of how to build a great business. And one of my favorite sayings of his was, if you wanna understand the customer, you’ve got to walk an aisle in their shoes. Now obviously, he’s playing off the, you know, walk a mile, but the idea of walking an aisle in your customer’s shoes is really powerful. Whether you have a physical location or not, how can you do a walkthrough acting as a customer? Maybe your website your website is not mobile responsive. Maybe there’s something that’s creating like a super low load time. Maybe there are lots of annoying pop ups.

Maybe in your physical location you have, like, grungy floors. Maybe there are posters up on the wall that need to be replaced. I went on a rant on LinkedIn a few, months ago because I was in an elevator in the Nashville airport, and there were all these posters talking about that there was a national mask mandate. And I was like, yo. This expired, like, 3 years ago. Why are there still, you know, 3 foot by 3 foot posters in the elevators talking about something that has been not true for, like, a 1000 days? So walk an aisle in the shoes of your customers. And remember, everything is experienced. So that metaphorical aisle or literal aisle is going to help you find things that you can improve.

And by the way, sometimes it is very literally like walking the aisle. I was checking to a hotel in Vegas a couple of days ago for an event, and I asked where I asked where something was. And the woman behind the counter said it’s actually really confusing. Let me show you. And she walked with me to show me where the entrance to the gym was, which I thought was really, really cool. Alright. Number 3, if you want to elevate your CX, identify the 3 most common questions that you or your teammates get asked by customers and ask yourself, why are we getting these questions so often? Is it because we have the opportunity to communicate a little better? Maybe you could record a video that answers the questions. Maybe you could pin certain posts from your social feeds that help address these before they get asked or maybe it’s about clarifying the information that you have on your website or your instructions or your product pages.

Every quarter, you should take a look at the questions that you’re getting asked most and say, are we getting asked these for a reason? And if it’s something that you’re able to provide a little bit of clarity before it becomes an interaction, you may wanna consider having those be addressed somewhere that your customers and especially your prospects can find those answers. Alright. Number 4 is one of my favorites. I often say that your customer experience is never going to be better than your employee experience. EX or employee experience is at the heart of all great CX. And one of my favorite questions to help train your employees to think more about customer experience is to regularly ask them about a great recent interaction they’ve had. So if you have a weekly or even a daily meeting with your team where everybody is standing up, getting together, preparing for the the day, week, whatever ahead, ask them who has had a really great experience as a customer recently that you want to share. This is going to get people to start paying attention and noticing in those interactions where they’re on the customer side.

It’s it’s like working a muscle, training yourself to to notice these things. So ask the question and then encourage discussion. You can say things like, how could we apply this to what we do, or what’s an example of something on our end that we could elevate in the way that we just heard our teammate describe. And then, of course, you can also, on the flip side of that, ask people to identify a moment where they provided an amazing experience for one of your customers, either something they did themselves, something they saw a teammate do, or this could be a really great opportunity to incorporate the feedback from your own customers. So, hopefully, you’re already making it easy for your customers to share feedback with you, including feedback that’s bragging on a team member. I love now I see this a lot in in restaurants. I decided a Chick last week, but I’ve seen it at a few other places where there are QR codes on the walls, like, printed posters with QR codes that say scan this QR code and let us know about your experience. So if you’ve got something like that in place where you can easily share those things that have happened where your team has been on the delivering end, that’s a great thing to couple with that question.

But just get in the habit of talking about experience because if it’s not top of mind, it will slide down the priority list. It’s like why all of our moms always tell us to stand up straight because we know we should do it, but we forget. So ask that question regularly. Alright. Number 5, look for small surprise and delight moments. This could be something people know they’re getting or something people are surprised to get. Like when you check into a DoubleTree and you get the warm cookie. Right? You know you’re getting it, but it’s still nice every time you have that moment.

I was speaking in an event for the International Car Wash Show a couple of months ago, and I was telling a story, about, an experience that I had had, and somebody, like, legit interrupted me. Like, that doesn’t always happen in keynotes. Like, usually, you kind of are addressing the audience and you can invite feedback, but Homeboy, like, literally was like, hey. I got a question. And I was like, alright. What’s your question? And he stood up, and he said, you’re talking about something where you’re spending 100 of dollars with this company. My, my users either come and buy a $15 car wash or they subscribe and they spend $20 a month for a recurring plan. And I said, okay.

Well, fair enough. How much does it cost to give away a Hot Wheels car to the child of those subscribers or members as they come through your car wash? And he was like, I have no idea. And I said, well, I have 2 little boys. I can tell you. Hot Wheels cars cost about a dollar, and they cost even less if you buy them online in bulk. So what do you think are the odds that if every time somebody went through your car wash and had a child in the back at the end when you’re saying bye, if you, you know, motion for them to roll down the window and say, hey, mom and dad are doing a great job of keeping their car clean. I’ve got one for you to keep clean. Do you think you could do that for me? How many of those parents do you think are gonna remember? So it doesn’t have to be about spending a lot of money.

It’s about the thought that counts. My oldest son, Cato, just finished a week of rock star camp which was really fun. I’m gonna try to get him to come on the podcast and talk about all the crazy amazing stuff that he’s done this summer because camps are not like what they were when I was kids anymore. And one of the coolest moments was when they gave them guitar picks, which again cost almost nothing. But he was so excited because he had earned it. So look for small moments along your customer’s journey where you can give them low cost or no cost items that are going to remind them, of of something about the experience they had. Alright. Number 6.

This is one that as a woman, I notice a lot. Add amenities to your restrooms. I’m not just talking about the quality of the toilet paper or the paper towels or the soap, but looking at things like, are you providing hand sanitizer? Are you providing feminine products? Are you providing mouthwash or letting people know that if they need something like Tylenol, they can get it? Now obviously, this is one that exists on a spectrum. If you are servicing 100 or thousands of customers in a location a day, the way that you implement this is gonna look different than if you’ve got a location where you only have a handful of people. But ask yourself, how can you make that experience better? How can you elevate it? How can you make someone feel more like they’re a guest in your location than a customer? How can you elevate it from transactional to experiential? And there are oftentimes a lot of ways that you can do that. One one of them my favorite things that I’ve ever seen at the headquarters of one of my clients, I was this is it was actually Advisors Excel in Topeka, Kansas. I was there for for one of a number of engagements I’ve had the honor of doing with their team. And one of their core values is do the right thing even when nobody is looking.

And they had that, like, pasted on the inside of the stall doors in the bathroom, which made me laugh out loud. It was really, really funny, but also really clever. Right? Because how many times do you see the signs that are like, don’t flush anything, and you’re like, yeah. I know. I wasn’t born yesterday. You know? Like, all the the signs that are not necessarily worded in the most customer centric way that you sometimes see in not just public restrooms, but, like, you know, company restrooms, corporate restrooms too. So if you have something funny or clever that you can put up in lieu of some of the things that you see more generically and, more routinely, then absolutely you should do that. Alright.

Number 7, do a full audit of your online presence. This is a really important one that you will really benefit from doing at least a handful of times a year. I would say even more often than quarterly because as things change, whether it’s the hours that you’re operating, whether it’s how Google has decided to show where the front of your business is, whether it’s like road closures or things that are happening. If you have a physical business especially, it is imperative that you’re on Google Business all the time, making sure that things are accurate so that people have the most up to date information about your business. Beatty, even if you don’t have a physical location, it’s really helpful to audit your online presence. Going back to number 2, the walking an aisle in your customer’s shoes, think about what they may see before they ever interact with somebody on your team personally. Can you see the phone number to reach you really big and prominently on your website, or people having to search around for it a 1000000 times? If people are looking for information on something like your return policy or, you know, a contingency plan for an event that’s happening, whatever it is, make sure that you’ve got those things very easy to find so that you’re not frustrating your customer. The only thing worse than making somebody call you to get an answer that you could have answered online is, like, making it so hard for them to find their phone number that by the time they actually do call you, they’re furious.

So do a full audit of your website, of your social sites, of the most prominent places that you’re listed if you have things that you’re sharing that are syndicated, that aren’t on your website, or your socials, or your app, look at all of those places and don’t forget to check your Google Business several times a year. Number 8, here’s another one that doesn’t cost anything at all. When you can, refer to your customers by their names. If somebody is paying with a credit card, if they’ve called you on a phone and you have a system in your call center to know who they are, if you’re pulling up their account, if they’ve got a receipt, whatever it is. If you’re in a situation where you have someone’s name, use that name. We’ve all heard the studies when we hear our names, our brains activate and light up in a totally different way. We pay attention. It makes us more attuned to what’s happening.

And on some level, it also makes us feel important because we’re not just being addressed as random, faceless, nameless customer. Somebody is saying, thank you, . I appreciate you, . So when you can’t, have your team use your customers’ names even if you’re doing it multiple times throughout conversation. It’s a really great way, to to make that customer feel like you’re paying attention to them. Number 9, on those same notes, record the preferences of your customers when you can. So for example, if somebody comes to your physical location and you notice they always get a LaCroix out of the cooler in the lobby or you notice they always make a black coffee, write that down so that the next time they come, you can ask them if they would like that coffee or if they’d like that LaCroix. Now for other, what I like to call hello and goodbye moments, meaning the things that you can do to really nail the first interaction and the last interaction that somebody has, check out episode number 213 of this podcast, 10 overlooked opportunities hiding in plain sight.

In that episode, you’re gonna get 10 c x things that very much like this episode are low cost and no cost that you can do to improve those moments. Alright. Number 10, add a strategic getting to know you question somewhere into your customer’s journey. When I was in Hawaii a few months ago for an event, I noticed while I was waiting in line at the Maui cookie company, that the gentleman at the register was asking the exact same question to everybody who checked out, and that was, where are you visiting from today? And I thought that was really great because it was a wonderful conversation starter. He was saying, oh, wow. It’s been years since I went to Japan, or, oh, I’ve never been to to wherever. Is it nice this time of year? Just, you know, a really great jumping off point. And so I I watched him do this for the 3 people in front of me, and when I got there, you know, he asked me and I said, oh, I’m visiting from Nashville.

I’m going back tomorrow. These cookies are for my sons. And I said to him, were you guys trained to ask that question? What a great question. And he said, no. I actually was told to do this at a former job that I had, but I just really enjoy hearing where people are from. Like, it’s such a great way to to get a glimpse into where these cookies are getting delivered all over the world. So I asked the question, and he told me that most of his coworkers will ask that question now too. Not because they were told to, but because he brought it from another place of employment and everybody saw the benefit.

So think about the interactions that you’re having. Is there a way to strategically work in a get to know you question that’s relevant to what you’re doing? And if there is, can you record the responses somewhere? Can you put it in your CRM? Can you have that written down so that the next time you see that person, you’re able to use that contextually important information to ask a follow-up question. Right? So recording those questions. And if you have a large team, you might look at putting a few strategic get to know you questions in place so that you’re either building up a profile with more information over time or so that you’re always able to call back to what you ask before. Alright. The number 11, low cost, no cost way to elevate your customer experience. This one’s all about going old school, sending that thank you note, sending that thank you postcard, or maybe just a note to let somebody know you’re thinking about them or appreciate them. If you haven’t done this in a while, I highly recommend ordering some stationery online or going into a local stationery store or even like a Barnes and Noble or a Target and picking up some cards that you can send out.

Let’s be honest, everybody loves getting something in the mailbox that isn’t a bill or junk mail, so go old school. This is a really great way to let your customers, your colleagues, even your employees know how much you appreciate them. You don’t always need an occasion like a birthday or a half birthday, although those are nice too. You can certainly acknowledge those life events, But sometimes, just an unexpected note saying that you’re thinking of someone or thanking them for something that you saw them do or something that you appreciate, whether that’s them being loyal to your business or whatever, those can go a long way. Number 12, if you don’t wanna go quite so old school, fine. Do it new school. Engage with your users on social media in unexpected ways. This could be as simple as thanking them for being a customer or it could mean making them feel like they are the most important customer you have.

Even if you don’t have an official loyalty program, you can make them feel like they’re in the top tier. Maybe that’s sending them some sort of merch or digital marking that they can can put, like, a badge on their profile, or it could, again, just be liking and responding to their comment. It’s amazing how much it does. I like, I’m even guilty of this. You know, when we go out to an event and I see that a company or a brand has, like, shared my social post in their stories, I’m like, oh, look. They put me in their stories, and, you know, it’s like you get that little dopamine hit. So look for ways that you can engage with, respond to, listen to your customers on social media. Alright.

Number 13. Look for a low cost or no cost way to do something for kids or pets. Your customers love their pets and love their kids. I can make a joke about childless cat ladies but I’m not going to. Look for opportunities where you can, where it’s obvious that somebody has a pet or a kid with them to do something that doesn’t cost that much. It could be dog bones in your drive through. It could be, you know, your version of the Starbucks pop cup. It could be stickers or lollipops for the kids.

It could be activities. Right? If you have, a business where people are waiting, whether it’s in a lobby or at a table or even online or on the phone, Do you have something that they can do to stay busy? Right? Could be could be games. Could be could be trivia. Could be anything fun. But look for a low cost or no cost way to improve the situation for your customers who are waiting with kids and dogs, specifically dogs because it’s usually dogs. But, I mean, if you wanna go out there and, come up with a way to improve the experiences for people with, like, bearded dragons or, you know, any kind of little animal, please let me know because it sounds like you would be an amazing guest on this podcast. But look for those low and no cost ways to improve the the lives of the people who are coming in with those kids and pets because they’re probably dealing with a lot right now, taking care of all of those, other ancillary customers. Alright.

Number 14. If you wanna elevate your customer experience, look for one thing that you can make 10% faster. Responsiveness is so important because in an experience driven economy, you’re not being compared to just your direct competitors. You’re being compared to everyone. As technology allows people to get better and faster, we expect it from everyone across the board, not just what we, you know, 10 years ago would say, like, oh, that’s an anomaly because they’re a market leader. So what’s one interaction along your customer’s journey that you can speed up? Can you automate something? Can you remove a couple of steps? Can you introduce a template where you can save a few clicks or make something just a little bit simpler? Right? This could be as easy as using autofill to make things easier. Like, remember before we had autofills on our phone? That was no fun. What can you make 10% faster to give that time back to your customers? And then finally, number 15, ask for feedback.

This is probably the very best way that you can improve your customers’ experiences because you’re listening to them and making changes in real time. So whether it’s structured or unstructured feedback, for unstructured feedback, there’s really no wrong way to ask. For structured feedback, oftentimes people do try to take advantage of this. I went on a rant a couple of months ago after I hosted my son’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, and I got this crazy email a few days later that was like, go give us 10 out of 10. Say that you would recommend us, and we’ll give you, like, eticket the next time you come in. And and I highlighted sort of all the things that were wrong with making the ask that way. But ask your customers for honest feedback.

Check-in with them and make sure they’re satisfied, not just in the moment that they buy something from you, but in the days, weeks, and months that follow. You wanna make sure that you’re being proactive, that you’re showing them that you do truly wanna hear their feedback, and that if something isn’t a 100% right, that you’re there to help. And that’s it. Those are the 15 ways that you can elevate your customer experience for nothing or next to nothing. I wanna know which chip are you gonna go implement today? Maybe there’s something that you heard that you haven’t done yet but you wanna try. Please let me know. Hit me up on social media. I’m at @BrittanyHodak on all the major socials.

If you’re on Instagram, don’t forget you can go follow me and DM me the word swap, and I’ll send you the list of 25 simple swaps that you can make so that you’re being even more customer centric in your communication with your employees and your customers. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, you should check out the super amazing show, which is a weekly series that I do with my buddy Shep Haikin. Every single Monday, we put out the show called the Super Amazing Show where we give you one tip of how you can be super amazing. You can find those every Monday on all of my social media accounts. That does it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed the show, and I invite you to leave an honest review or rating to let me know exactly what you think. If you’ve got a show idea or something that you wanna send to me, please reach out. Hello@brittanyhodak.com

Until next time, don’t forget, it’s not just about closing sales, it’s about creating super fans.