Jenn Hyman Rent The Runway CEO's Lessons In Customer Service ...

Aimee Groth, Business Insider

Jenn Hyman at the Behance 99% conference in New York City

Customer service has been changing rapidly in the past few years. Companies have moved online, and immediacy is everything.

At the recent Behance 99% conference on creativity in New York City, Rent The Runway CEO Jenn Hyman shared what she's learned about dealing with people since launching her ecommerce site in 2009.

Here are the four key takeaways from her conversation with Behance Network CEO Scott Belsky and Warby Parker co-founder Neil Blumenthal, edited slightly for clarity:

You're selling an experience, not a product

The co-founder of Zappos says that when you sell a dream, you can sell it for a higher price ? because you are paying for culture and customer service.

And interesting corollary is what happened with Netflix. Executives there didn?t understand that people viewed Netflix as an experience.

Referrals drive business

Our community is the best marketing engine that we have. We already have tens of thousands of photos on our site.

When we mess up, it?s all over Facebook, all over Twitter. How honestly we react and apologize to those situations [is extremely important]. Too often companies try to make excuses, and people are smarter than that.

People don't listen

People don?t read. They don?t actually listen. Communicate your message as quickly and succinctly as possible. We put in 36-size font, "You get the second size for free," and only 50 percent of our customers know this.

It takes a while to build loyalty

When you track loyalty rates, after three to four times, it goes from this [small measure] to soaring. No one builds loyalty after the first time. You don?t build a lifelong relationship with someone after meeting for the first time.

Now read iPod Creator Tony Fadell's Advice On How To Build And Ship World-Class Products >

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