HubSpot Blog Post- Week 8 (Cultivating Happy Customers)

For the last training session of the semester on http://www.hubspot.com, I learned more about how to successfully cultivate happy customers. Moreover, this involves building trust with customers to develop long-lasting relationships. In turn, more trust can translate into more promoters that can attract prospects to your business. Even more, trust is a crucial component to creating an inbound experience, which is one of the ultimate goals of a marketer. In addition, I found it interesting that customer delight can be viewed as a competitive advantage. Therefore, if you are able to consistently delight your customers and satisfy their wants and needs, then it will put you at an advantage over your competition.

Additionally, I believe it is important to discuss how to properly delight customers. Thus, any business should strive to make serving customers its number one priority. As a result, a foundation of trust can be built. Since the customer experience is such an integral piece of building trust, it is vital to make the most of every interaction to ensure incredible customer service is being offered. Furthermore, I have learned that customer delight should include both pre-sale and post-sale activities   to fully assist customers through the buyer's journey.

Most importantly, there are three major pillars of customer delight to abide by. The following list explains the three pillars:

1. Innovation: "Change is better than the Status-Quo"
2. Communication: "Personal is better than Impersonal" 
3. Education: "Empowering is better than Ignoring"

Overall, to successfully delight customers it is important to make customers feel like the focal point of your business. Also, recognizing that customers and employees are a business's greatest asset can contribute to success as well. Finally, developing and establishing trust is critical to creating a rewarding inbound experience. 

Consider the "Seven Customer Delight Guidelines" for additional ways to ensure customer satisfaction and a polished overall inbound experience: