If you are an online business, your ability to deliver an overall experience that sets you apart in the eyes of your customers is absolutely fundamental if you are to increase the amount of consumer spending and, optimally, inspire loyalty to your brand. Given the degree of competition in pretty much every online business sector, it is not enough to have the cheapest product or the widest range. Loyalty is now driven primarily by a company’s overall interaction with its customers, both on and offline and how well it delivers on their wants and needs.

A recent survey, conducted by Econsultancy for digital customer experience management company Tealeaf, identified that US companies are losing around 23% of their revenues through delivering poor customer experiences to their customers.

At eCO2Greetings.com, we pride ourselves on delivering a customer experience that is the best in our market. We recognise the importance of our customer’s corporate ecards project – as typically it is sent to their entire customer list, from CEO’s downwards. From designing, personalising, approving and sending, to the 10 trees we plant with every purchase, toll free contact numbers and instant online chat, we try to ensure that the experience at every stage not only delivers, but surpasses expectations.

As advocates of excellence, we are happy to share examples of great customer experience delivered by other brands, so here is one that hopefully will inspire you to look afresh at your own business and make the experience it delivers as good as it can be.

Zappos is an online clothing retailer acquired by Amazon in 2009. It is one of the most focussed customer experience brands around and their commitment to creating a WOW factor with customers is legendary.

Joseph Michelli, author of The Zappos Experience, explains their unique dedication to customer experience. “Zappos asks about, watches, infers, and tracks customer behavior and input. They are restlessly looking for scalable ways to make the customer experience quicker, easier, and more emotionally engaging. They are not content with satisfaction and as such strive to find “personal emotional connections” with customers that produce a “wow” reaction and that form the basis for customer loyalty and advocacy. At the individual level, staff are charged with and empowered to do what it takes (even if it means sending a customer to a competitor) to secure engagement as opposed to just a sale.”

Here’s a great example of this approach in action from 11 of the best customer experience stories ever

A customer’s mother had recently had a problem that left her feet sensitive to pressure and numb. As a result, it also rendering most of her shoes totally unwearable. She ordered her mother six pairs of shoes from Zappos, hoping that at least one of them would work. After receiving the shoes, her mother called Zappos to get instructions on how to return the shoes that didn’t work, explaining why she was returning so many shoes. Two days later, she received a large bouquet of flowers from Zappos, wishing her well and hoping that she recovered from her treatments soon. Two days later, the customer, her mother and her sister were all upgraded to “Zappos VIP Members,” which gives them all free expedited shipping on all orders.

Right now at eCO2greetings.com we are updating our whole site in order to make our customer’s experience of our Business holiday e cards even stronger, so watch this space for more news.