3 Lessons From Amazon's Jeff Bezos to Improve CX Strategy

As the online retail giant tops yet another customer satisfaction list, what can you learn from Amazon to improve your own customer experience strategy?

Over the years online retailer Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has topped many customer experience lists – from the Customers’ Choice Awards to the UK Customer Satisfaction Index – and the company has picked up another accolade for their growing assortment: top ranking of all US retailers in the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings.

Tied for the top retail spot with PetSmart, Amazon ranked 4th overall on the list of 293 companies across 20 industries, receiving a rating of 82 per cent, well above the industry average of 74 per cent.

The rating was created by an evaluation of recent experiences from 10,000 US consumers, where Temkin Group asked them to evaluate three dimensions:

• success (can you do what you want to do?)
• effort (how easy is it to work with the company?)
• emotion (how do you feel about the interactions?)

These scores were then averaged to produce each company's Temkin Experience Rating.

At the bottom of the 2015 experience list for the fifth year straight was RadioShack, receiving a rating of just 63 per cent.

So while you probably don’t want to look at RadioShack to improve your own customer experience strategy, here are three lessons from Amazon founder and CEO, Jess Bezos, which you can apply within your own company.

SEE ALSO: 30-Minute Customer Experience Remodel Webinar: Creating a Customer-Oriented Culture

1. Pioneer through customer-focus

In an interview with US News, Bezos explained the importance of pioneering not by looking at your competitors, but by focusing on your customers.

He said: "A different way to organize your energies that can be very effective is to be competitor-focused. If you're competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something.

"Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering. We have found that, on the Internet, ‘me too’ strategies seem not to work very well."

2. Treat your customers special

When you’re hosting a party you usually ensure that everything looks spick-and-span; cleaning the house until it gleams and picking up some extra special treats in store that you perhaps wouldn’t have otherwise.

You’re treating your party guests special and it will make them feel more welcome – it works the same way with your customers.

In an interview published in Bloomberg, Bezos said: "We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better."

3. The power of word of mouth

Especially in the age of the millennial, ensuring a smooth customer journey in the ever-growing digital landscape is more important than ever.

As Bezos famously put it: "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000."

Vice versa this works too, of course, Bezos told Wired that "word of mouth is becoming more powerful. If you offer a great service, people find out."