Cupcakes and customers: our recipe for strong relationships
One of the benefits of having a smaller customer support team is that you get to know your customers quite well. You see the same names crop up often and can anticipate their issues with greater ease based on past conversations. If you can consistently deliver the right answers and build trust, you’ve got a happy customer.
Small (and sweet) gestures to build and sustain customer connection
The difference between a good customer support team and a great customer team isn’t how fast you can answer a question or how extensive your support hours are. It’s the ability to forge and nurture relationships with your customers. Keep your customers happy and they’ll become your best advocates, granting you invaluable access to potential customers through word of mouth that you wouldn’t have otherwise.
"OMG, you are the sweetest literally! You made all of our days, thank you so much.” – Chelsey Lawless, Workplace Solutions Team, FabFitFun
These customers are also the best resources to tap for feedback on product releases. Customers who feel supported and confident in your product are the people you want testing your beta features. They aren’t worried about something going wrong because they know your support team has them covered, and you’ll get more honest input as a result.
What it takes to deliver 2,049 boxes of cupcakes all over the world
To extend a sincere thank you to specific customers that teammates request cupcakes for, as well as paid accounts after 90 days, we implemented a gratitude initiative. This allows any employee to submit a request to send a batch of 12 personalized cupcakes to a customer.
There are a variety of reasons to request a cupcake delivery, including:
- To welcome a new customer
- Address a less than stellar experience with our team
- To seal the deal on a new sale
- Say ‘thank you’ for being a great partner and making our lives a little better
To source the cupcakes, we partner with local bakeries near the customer’s office locations. We do this to support local businesses and to surprise our customers with a familiar, tasty treat. Internally, we use a dedicated Slack channel, #cupcakes, to manage these orders. As cupcakes are shipped, it’s exciting to see them go out into the world and into the hands of our customers.
In the last year alone, we have sent over 2,000 batches of cupcakes around the globe. The results? Some pretty fantastic photos and delighted customers:
Thanks to @Envoy for the surprise delivery from @GTownCupcake! Our Kansas City office enjoyed the sweet treats. #kc #georgetowncupcake pic.twitter.com/Jyt4QWJM18 — K·Coe Isom (@kcoeisom) September 25, 2018
Wow, thanks to @envoy for the delish branded #cupcakes! What a nice way to "ring in" a Friday (haha). pic.twitter.com/Yyrsi930Pe — TEECOM (@TEECOM) August 31, 2018
You got us, @envoy. You got us good. 😂 (Sassycakes from Custom Created Cakes by Brandi) pic.twitter.com/oSVZiqtSyN — meltmedia (@meltmedia) August 23, 2018
Why creating great customer experiences matters
Customers are your company’s best asset. Creating customized, great experiences for them ensures that you foster a loyal, satisfied user base who will remain with you through the good and the bad.
This is especially relevant to SaaS companies because shipping new features at a fast pace inevitably leads to a few bugs along the way. Happy customers are more willing to ride out any storm because you’ve established trust and they’re confident in your team’s ability to fix any issue they have. For unhappy customers, the opposite is true—a bug and lack of adequate response can lead to them turning to a competitor.
We’ve found that the high-touch but simple act of sending a company cupcakes reminds them that every customer is important to us and that we appreciate that they chose to invest in Envoy. The positive feedback we’ve received is more than worth the effort involved and is just the icing on the (cup)cake for what will hopefully be a happy, loyal customer!