Customer experience as a sales channel: a brand people love buying from

A brand people love buying from is a company where customers feel helped in an honest and relaxed way at every contact. That is why they come back and tell others. You build a brand like that with what you do every day, far more than with advertising.

Where do you love buying?

Think of a company you love buying from. You do not have to, you do it because it feels good. You know you will be helped well. There are no hidden catches. They will not push something on you that you do not need.

With a company like that, you are happy to give them the deal. You pay less attention to the price. And when a friend asks where to go, you mention their name.

Why is that? With my research agency I spent fifteen years watching hundreds of thousands of customers go through a real customer journey. Two things weighed most every time: trust, and the feeling of being taken by the hand. A brand people love buying from does both, at every contact.

My first car of my own was a Lexus. What I remember best is not the car. It is what happened when something was wrong with it. They came to collect it, left a replacement car and brought it back washed. They called it red carpet service. Fifteen years later I still talk about it.

Advertising you buy, fans you earn

A campaign can do a lot. It can make people know who you are. But it cannot make them trust you. That trust only comes when someone experiences for themselves how you treat them.

That is why word of mouth is so strong. When a customer recommends you, they carry their own trust over to the next customer. That person arrives warm. You no longer have to prove yourself, you only have to live up to what they have been told. Read more in my piece on word of mouth.

What is customer experience, really?

Customer experience is the sum of every touchpoint. The sales conversation counts, and so does everything before and after it. Your customer does not remember your organisation chart. They remember how it felt.

Touchpoint	What the customer remembers
The first phone call	Was I helped quickly and kindly?
The proposal	Do I understand what I get, and for what price?
The delivery or project	Did what was agreed actually happen?
The invoice	Is it correct, and is it clear?
A question afterwards	Did anyone know who I was?
A problem	How did they react when it mattered?

Each of those moments can make your brand stronger or weaker. And most of them sit outside sales.

I am a fan of Apple, and not because of one thing. It is because nothing anywhere feels off. The box, the way the phone switches on, how it works with your laptop, the person in the shop who comes and stands next to you. Even the head office is a perfect circle of glass. You make a fan with everything fitting together.

Everyone helps build the brand

Here is the key many companies miss. The feeling of a brand is created by everyone with customer contact. The service colleague who takes a complaint seriously. The project lead who keeps their word. The office team that calls once more after a delivery to ask if everything is all right.

They are all selling too, every day. Often without seeing it that way themselves.

One of the chapters in my new book is called "Alles klopt, en toch een 6", Dutch for "Everything is right, and still a 6". That title says a lot. You can have every process in order, deliver everything on time and make no mistakes, and a customer still gives you a 6. Because it did not feel as if anyone genuinely cared about them.

What does a complaint do to your brand?

Every company makes mistakes. Customers know that. What they remember is how you respond.

A complaint is a moment when a customer pays extra close attention. Get defensive, and you confirm their doubts. Respond quickly, take them seriously and fix it, and you show who you are when things get difficult. They will pass that on, often with more enthusiasm than an ordinary good experience.

My tip: give everyone with customer contact the room to solve a complaint themselves, without asking permission three times first. In a moment like that, speed is half the job.

Dutch insurer Centraal Beheer shows how this works. They steer on loyalty, not on call handling time. So an employee may take the time to really solve something. And with their Blije Klanten Boxxx (happy customers box), an employee can send a card with a small gift at the push of a button after a call. They choose who to surprise. Customers react with surprise that something so personal is possible at a big company.

How to become a brand people love buying from

Want to sell more? Then this is the strongest lever I know: make sure every customer and every potential customer is helped in an honest and relaxed way at every contact.

Honest means it is genuinely about the customer. You think along with them, even when it does not bring in revenue straight away.

Relaxed means no pressure, no rush and no hidden agenda. The customer is free to choose in their own time.

Do that consistently, right across the company. Then something emerges that no campaign can buy: a company people enjoy dealing with, because they know they will be helped honestly.

What does it bring you?

It pays off in three places. Customers stay longer and expand more easily, as I describe in from one euro to three. New customers arrive warmer, because your reputation does the groundwork. And your own people enjoy their work more. Helping honestly simply gives more energy than pushing.

Customers who actively recommend you are what I call ambassadors. What they are exactly and how to recognise them, you can read in what is a customer ambassador.

Look through your customer's eyes

A simple test I often recommend: be your own customer for a week.

1. Call your own main number and notice how you are helped.
2. Request a quote through your website and see how long it takes.
3. Read the last three invoices and emails that went out to customers.

Would you love buying from this company yourself? Be honest. What you see is exactly what your customers see.

In my new Dutch book Van klant naar fan (From customer to fan), I work out how to tackle this with the whole team, from the owner to the people behind the scenes.

Which touchpoint in your company would you, as a customer, enjoy least? That is where you start.