A wow moment can be many things in life, but in this case, it is when companies go above and beyond to provide an exceptional customer experience. These moments are so special because they create a lasting impression and make people think ‘wow’ as they go about their day.
So how does a company create these moments? As competition continues to grow across numerous industries, the bar for customer care only gets higher. To compete with this, you must get comfortable thinking out of the box and putting customers first.
In this article, we will pick apart what a wow moment is and the elements they have so that you can improve customer loyalty, build long-lasting relationships, and increase sales.
Wow moment examples
What does a wow moment look like? Here are some examples to demonstrate what they can look like for each customer.
Exceptional service recovery: David returns his new pair of shoes to the shop as he discovers a hole in the sole. The employees are extremely apologetic and provide a free pair and 50% off on his next purchase.
David appreciated the quick solution, and the discount was a pleasant surprise, encouraging him to return to the store.
Surprise gift: Sarah orders flowers from an online florist. When the box arrives, she opens it to find a complimentary handmade bar of soap.
The free gift is a pleasant surprise and makes Sarah feel valued as a customer. She shares the story with her friends and makes her excited to order from them again.
Personalized experience: Arabella visits one of her new favorite clothing stores in the city; she has been a handful of times and enjoys the attentive staff. She opens the door and is greeted warmly by name; the stylist then recommends her products based on her past purchases.
This paired with personalized styling advice for each item, makes Arabella feel highly valued as a customer and appreciates the employees going above and beyond for her.
Key elements of the wow factor
The key elements of a wow factor differ depending on each company and the needs of its customers. But generally, some shared qualities will almost guarantee customers to say ‘Wow!’
Surprising
Giving pleasant surprises to customers makes your brand stand out as it creates a memorable experience by going beyond the status quo. There is added excitement when something unexpected happens (in a good way) and evokes positive emotions in customers that will be continuously associated with your company.
Here are some examples of how companies can pleasantly surprise their customers.
- Genuine acts of kindness: As unfortunate as it is, customers are used to companies prioritizing profit over compassion. But, this leaves an excellent opportunity to prove them wrong with genuine acts of kindness with free goodies, refunds, or exceptional service.
- Personalized perks: There is no better way to exceed customer expectations by really getting to know them. Proving that you listen and care about their preferences makes them feel valued. 76% of consumers get frustrated if they don’t get a personalized experience. The perks that you offer them should be unique to be most impactful.
- Unexpected rewards: ‘Congratulations! You have been loyal to us for 100 days; here is a fantastic reward to show our appreciation.’ This is an example of how you can surprise your shoppers by giving back.
Trained
Training your team members is essential when providing the wow factor to customers. Staff that knows how to get things done correctly are the best candidates for making people feel well looked after and leave a lasting impression.
There are two main things that your team should be pros in; expertise and problem-solving skills. This ensures that they fully understand how your company operates and its products and can conquer any issue that comes their way with ease. In fact, customers are 2.4x more likely to stay with a company if their problems are fixed promptly.
Your employees should be aware of your values as a company, including what wow moments to provide employees. With this in their arsenal, employees will be proactive, consistent, and knowledgeable, which is crucial for taking customer care to a new level.
Training programs, seminars, and courses will keep all staff on the same page and build meaningful relationships. Also, managers will see what moments aren’t quite wow yet and need more tweaking.
Seamless
The customer journey should be seamless, free of unnecessary hurdles and headaches. It paints your brand as capable and well-equipped, making for a wow moment if perfected. But it’s not easy; it takes time, hard work, and dedication.
To provide a seamless experience, companies must anticipate the needs and struggles of a customer’s journey. Remove unnecessary steps and stick to a simple, effective process that anyone can understand in moments.
Having a seamless company structure also benefits your employees; it is much easier to train them as there are no complex systems to know about, so it allows them to focus on polishing a simple approach and driving home that wow factor.
Innovative
To be truly innovative, you must strike a balance. Being a pioneer in the industry is a dream for many, but if it hasn’t been done before, it is worth digging into why. Essentially, innovation can be embracing new technology, switching up traditions, or unique experiences. Whatever it is, it must make sense and grow your company.
As well as this, staying innovative is a lot of work. Depending on the industry you are in, technology, customer expectations, and competitors are always changing, and staying a few steps ahead of them is no easy task.
Once research has been done by gathering insights and feedback, start experimenting with ideas before testing them through pilot programs or customer groups. This way, if an innovative change doesn’t have the desired positive effect, there are no repercussions.
However, if it works and brings positive things to the organization and its customers, you will achieve a wow factor.
Consistent
Being consistent is key to earning customer loyalty. If they know they can rely on you to deliver wow moments every time, competition will be a thing of the past. Loyal customers are to be treasured as they are 5x more likely to buy from you again and forgive mistakes. There are a few ways that you can be consistent:
- Harness technology: With the continuous advancements in AI technology, it is much easier to automate certain areas in your workflow to ensure that customers get the same, high-quality result each time.
- Establish clear standards: Have a clear idea of what level of service you want to deliver. Then, do whatever possible to stick to it with meetings, training, and programs.
- Monitor your performance: You don’t want to be consistently average or bad, so it is important to check if your hard work is paying off frequently. Pay attention to any concerns and suggestions to learn from mistakes.
In regards to consistency, customers can get used to your high-quality service as it becomes the norm for them, and thus wow moments can dwindle. This is not to say you are doing anything wrong, though, because once they come across competitors, they will be reminded of how much you’ve raised the bar.
Authentic
Finally, you can carry out the previous elements of a wow factor, but it won’t be as impactful if you are not authentic. Showing genuine empathy and transparency demonstrates to customers that you actually care – this in itself is a wow moment.
Talk to your customers with natural, conversational language free of jargon, which builds a connection and increases customer retention, increasing the company value by 30%. Don’t be afraid to let your personality and values be expressed in what you do; it creates more wow moments by being a friendly face among brands.
Identifying wow opportunities
So, how do you the best time to strike? If you keep throwing things out there, hoping to create wow moment after moment, it gets messy, and frankly, the whole wow factor is lost.
To make it count, properly identifying the best opportunity to show off your hard work is essential through research and feedback.
| Wow opportunity | How it’s achieved | Impact |
| Customer feedback | Feedback forms, surveys, and social media listening on LinkedIn or other platforms. | Identifies areas that need improvement and helps tailor to customer needs, showing the best time to wow. |
| Employee insights | Foster a collaborative environment where employees can share their observations and experiences with customers. | Gives first-hand insight into how customers interact with the company and show opportunities for improvement and innovation. |
| Market research | Gather information about competitors, customers, and market trends with focus groups and data analysis. | Unveils unmet market demand and customer needs. Opens the door for unique selling points and strategic decision-making. |
| Data analysis | Collect relevant data such as purchase history, customer feedback, and behavior patterns. | Discovers insights on customer behavior, enabling targeting marketing, personalized experiences, and service improvements. |
Measuring the wow impact
Ok, you’ve put in all this hard work; how do you know if it’s paying off? It doesn’t involve literally listening to customers say ‘wow,’ even though it could happen. You can take various approaches to measure your new path’s success thoroughly.
Customer feedback
A true tried and tested method of gathering customer opinions is through feedback. Be sure to prepare your surveys in advance with relevant, important questions. Were there any instances that wowed them? If not, what could be changed to achieve them?
Ask about particular interactions, their customer journey, and other questions that provide high-quality quantitative and qualitative data to be referred to later.
Net promoter score (NPS)
An NPS survey measures customer loyalty and whether they would recommend your company to others based on wow moments and overall experience.
The answers will be on a scale of 0 to 10, which are then used to segment customers into three categories on how likely they would recommend your company to others.
- Promoters: Scores between 9 and 10.
- Passives: Scores between 7 and 8.
- Detractors: Scores between 0 and 6.
Once all the scores are collated, a final NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the Promoters to reveal a score between 0 to 100. The higher the NPS score, the better.
Word-of-mouth
Wow moments get people talking, so measure the percentage of new customers that have heard from you through word-of-mouth. This will demonstrate how impactful your wows are and what particular moments were discussed most.
The wonderful thing about word-of-mouth marketing is that it’s free, and 60% of people trust referrals from their family and friends more than an advertisement.
Digital engagement
Digital engagement is essentially how users interact with your online presence. In a digital world, it has never been easier to gain insight into what people think about you; online platforms provide numbers and personal comments that let you see your brand through the customer’s eyes. Measuring the wow impact with digital engagement includes analyzing various metrics like:
- Website traffic: The number of visitors, the last time on the site, and the most visited pages can all be measured and indicates what aspect of your website users are most drawn to.
- Conversation rates: This is the number of visitors that complete the sales funnel and pay for the product or service. It shows the impact of wow moments on driving customer actions and seeing real results.
- Email open and click rates: You can track who opened your email and what actions they took afterward. This could be following a link, participating in a promotion, or completing their checkout. Customers who have felt your wow factor are likelier to interact with emails.
- Social media likes, shares, and comments: Positive engagement is a great way to see how your wow moments have affected customers. It provides an outlook on how they resonate with and spread the word within their social networks.
Sales and revenue
83% of companies say customer happiness is more important than growing revenue, but to keep doing what you love, revenue must be healthy. Comparing your sales before and after implementing wow moments is a surefire way to measure their success. Loyal customers providing repeat business, new customers, and increased products and services being purchased each time can be due to your brand instilling a feeling of trustworthiness and authenticity, all demonstrated through wowing.
To get more specific, you can use a Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to measure the impact of wow moments on company profit. It refers to the customer’s total revenue during their relationship with the organization. Successful wow moments are key to establishing long-term customer loyalty.
Making wow moments long-term
You’re riding high with more customers than ever, but how do you maintain this? It’s easier than you may think to get too comfortable with your loyal customer base, but one slip-up can bring it all down.
To ensure that your company continues to thrive and deliver the wow factor, you should know some important long-term tips.
Consistency
As we mentioned earlier, consistency is vital if you’re serious about great customer care. Wow, moments are not as impactful if they are one-offs every now and then when your revenue needs a boost.
To hold yourselves accountable for consistency, implement a process that everyone is thoroughly trained on; wow moments are always included no matter what.
Employee empowerment
As important as customers are, your employees are on the front line. Make them feel empowered to use their initiative and carry company values when providing wow moments.
Make use of webinars and an effective onboarding process to give employees the tools and confidence to go above and beyond in achieving customer satisfaction.
Continuous improvement
Even when you feel like you’re at the top of your game, don’t stop putting in the same hard work that got you there in the first place.
Regularly measure and improve your wow moments based on market trends, customer feedback, and new technology. This ensures you are aware of ways to evolve and innovate when implementing customer incentives for the first time.
Relationship building
This ties in with authenticity. Strive to have ongoing meaningful interactions with your customer to nurture a relationship and build trust. Continuously going above and beyond demonstrates that you stand by your message and will wow into the future.
Final thoughts
Wow moments have the amazing ability to make a lasting impact and make companies more successful than ever. By putting into place the elements of the wow factor, like surprising, trained, and authentic, companies in any industry can have their aha moment and learn how to make customers say ‘wow.’
Whether your company has multiple or just one wow moment up its sleeve, it will elevate your brand and create a lasting impression for all to see.
Stick to the values that got you there in the first place and use research strategies such as data analysis and customer feedback to personalize your own wow moment to stand out from the crowd and be the talk of the town (or the internet).
