Customer Experience is Genuine Caring and Trust-building
Keeping promises, exceeding expectations, and open communication are key factors in successful customer experience. Achieving excellent customer experience boils down to one thing: keeping promises. Customers should also feel that they are cared about and that their business matters. This is how trust is built, which is the most crucial part of a customer relationship.
From a customer experience perspective, it is important to create not only a sense of confidence in the project’s success but also a positive feeling that the work is being done collaboratively with Samlink. Especially, when suppliers are on a similar technical level, strengths based on human actions come to the forefront, such as communication, quick responsiveness, and, above all, genuine care.
Samlink’s Partner & COO, Miikka Laiho, believes in the power of genuine care in creating a customer experience.
– At Samlink, projects are technically complex endeavors. However, technical details and meeting them are only prerequisites for a successful project. Customer experience is built by people and the trust between them. Every point of contact that the customer interacts with during the project is responsible for ensuring that communication and the original promise remain consistent across the board.
– In practice, this means always listening to the customer, addressing any problems that arise, and striving to resolve them. Open and smooth communication is also crucial in cases where the problem cannot be resolved.
Proactive Solution Envisioning as Part of Projects
One of Samlink’s strengths also includes a proactive solution-oriented approach in customer projects. Changes are constantly happening in customers’ technical environments and legislation.
– It is important to highlight, already in the early stages of the project, those things that the customer should consider and keep an eye on the next stages of the project. Samlink’s experts have a wealth of insight into how to anticipate the customer’s future and outline projects accordingly. This makes it easier for the customer to plan and budget their own activities.
Kyndryl, Samlink’s parent company, also has extensive global experience and major clients. Sharing industry insights and experiences from around the world proactively, in a ‘best practices’ manner, benefits Samlink’s customers in their business.
Customer experience is formed at many stages, and people are an important part of conveying this knowledge.
– Communication is also part of the customer experience. At Samlink, communication is aiming to convey expertise at all levels. Visibility on social media, at trade shows, and through other channels fosters trust among existing customers. Potential new customers are also interested based on the experiences and stories of previous customers in understanding what kind of supplier Samlink is.
Measuring and Improving Customer Experience is an Ongoing Effort
At Samlink, customer experience is measured using, among other methods, NPS (Net Promoter Score). Samlink uses NPS in project business, ongoing services, and customer relationships. The results are reviewed in the executive team meetings on regular basis, and swift action is taken in response.
In addition to measuring, it is important to continually develop the customer experience and its components. Laiho summarizes the recent areas of improvement as follows:
– Creating a positive image through communication and messaging is progressing well for us. It’s important to be able to share our successes with external parties in the form of positive customer experiences and customer stories. Furthermore, we have recently made our proposal process faster and clarified its documentation.
Customer experience is built through all the contacts and touchpoints the customer encounters. The most important part of the experience is people and their actions. When the customer is genuinely listened to, their concerns are addressed and responded to, we are already halfway towards the trust that will eventually emerge, but it requires that one crucial element – keeping a promise.