Customer Experience
Article written by Mathew Maniyamkott
Regular contributor to various magazines. Passionate about entrepreneurship, startups, marketing, and productivity.
29 min read
31 May 2024
I bet every business guru you turned to advised you to create customer experience strategies to enhance customer experience, didn’t they? Yes, they sure did!! I am not about to tell you that they were wrong. They couldn’t be more right. It’s a universal truth, and everybody in the business stands by it. Then let me ask you, why is it that some companies are more successful than the rest? Why is it that some companies grow and grow?
Well, there is a trick involved. Want to know what that trick is? Get ready to be the most loved company in the whole wide world! Behold the secret tip: “It’s not about what you say; it is about how you say it!”
It’s such a simple thing but assiduous to implement. Companies with successfully implemented customer experience strategies are found to achieve higher customer satisfaction, increased revenues, and reduced customer churn. All the variables aligned in the right position with favorable statistics for the booming of your business.
A research run by American Express found that around 60% of the customers wouldn’t mind paying more for a better customer experience.
Customers demand every interaction to be the best experience they have with any company, so how can your organization enhance customer experience? Here, we discuss the most efficient customer experience strategies to help your firm reach the pinnacle of growth.
A “Customer Experience Strategy” is a comprehensive plan that businesses implement to optimize interactions and engagements at every touchpoint in the customer’s journey. Its primary aim is to enhance customer satisfaction, build loyalty, and drive long-term value.
By focusing on understanding the customers’ needs, expectations, and preferences, this strategy ensures a seamless, positive, and consistent experience across all channels – be it online, offline, or via customer support. When effectively executed, customer experience strategies can lead to higher customer retention rates, increased referrals, and overall business growth
A Customer Experience (CX) Strategy is pivotal for modern businesses, acting as a blueprint to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. In today’s competitive landscape, this strategy distinguishes brands, driving revenue via repeat patronage and favorable referrals. It cultivates trust, reinforces brand allegiance, and ensures a commendable online presence. In sum, a dedicated CX approach is a strategic linchpin, offering both enriched customer relations and tangible business growth
Before launching any initiative, it’s essential to have clear objectives and a guiding vision, especially when the focus is the customer – the heart of any business. For instance, Amazon, led by CEO Jeff Bezos, is renowned for its customer obsession. Every Amazon project begins with a customer-centric press release, reflecting Bezos’s belief that prioritizing customer experience is a sustainable competitive edge.
They even reserve a symbolic seat for the customer in meetings, emphasizing their central importance. With a clear vision, businesses can seamlessly drive operations and inspire teams to uphold top-notch customer standards, paving the way to industry leadership..
‘Working Backward’ is ‘the rule’ of today’s highly competitive business world. So, what exactly is this golden rule of ours?
‘Working Backward’ starts with your customer. You try to find his needs and requirements and then come up with a dedicated solution that could be a feature, product or services. Opposed to this, the conventional method starts with creating a product or service and then finding an audience for it.
The key motto is to make the customer feel ‘served’ rather than being a scapegoat to the new products brought in. With such a method in place, your customer service, marketing, and b2b sales strategies will be more of a solution addressing the needs of the customers.
To enhance customer experience, it’s essential to understand your customers. Instead of randomly applying strategies, invest in market research to identify their preferences and behaviors. An efficient market research platform will help you reach the right customers.
Create customer personas, like tech-savvy Anna or instruction-following Alex, to help your support team connect more effectively. Ensure you have an accessible cloud-based contact center for prompt query resolution. Regularly conducting customer feedback surveys is crucial to tailor your services based on their needs and insights. On top of that, consider having an easy-to-reach cloud-based contact center to be there for your customer and their queries.
Think about how often you conduct customer feedback surveys? If not often enough, it’s high time that you invest some thought in collecting customer thoughts and catering to your services accordingly.
Some of the greatest minds in the world have emphasized the importance of ‘asking’ when it comes to relationships, life, and business. The same applies to your relationship with your customers as well.
Let’s assume that you have been dealing with a client for quite some time now, but you have not taken any feedback from them. These are some of the things that you could be missing out on:
Utilize various feedback mechanisms at every customer touchpoint. Actively seek feedback during each interaction stage. Most customers provide positive ratings unless there’s a significant issue. Gather feedback through emails, cold calls, and surveys.
Surveys are an essential part of understanding the mind of your customers. Ask them to fill out engaging customer pulse surveys. Not only are they easy to send out, but they scale well and customers are inclined to respond better as well. After creating your survey, you can send the list out to your email list, or share it on multiple platforms.
Feedback can guide product enhancements. For standout surveys, SurveySparrow is one of the best online survey tools that comes with its own survey templates designed by industry experts, and a repository of survey questions that you can ask your customers
Humans often act on emotions rather than just facts. Most decisions, including shopping preferences, stem from emotional connections. Customers crave prioritization and acknowledgment, such as receiving special greetings or discounts. Emotionally connected customers are loyal and more receptive to new products. For instance, Zappos exemplifies this emotional bond. When a customer faced difficulty returning shoes due to her mother’s passing, Zappos not only facilitated a free return but also sent flowers with a condolence note, showcasing genuine care.
An experience hugely depends on the emotions, and these emotions shape the attitude that influences decision making. Customers become loyal because they are attached emotionally to the product or service. Emotionally attached customers are likely to recommend your product or service at least three times, says a Harvard business study.
Another aspect where a lot of businesses falter is when they assume that the customers know everything about their products, the accompanying features, and so on. You couldn’t be more wrong! Customers need to be educated about what you offer and how they can use your services, even after they purchase from you. Also, educating your customers makes them trust you, your brand, the services, and the products that you sell.
To make people aware of your business, one of the best ways to gain positive attention is to give knowledge away for free. This is one of the most popular methods that is used by marketers around the world, where they gain the trust of their target market by offering free knowledge, after which they offer their premium services at a cost. When you become a trusted source of information, most of the people who are searching for the service you offer will come towards you.
Customers make great brand ambassadors. Encourage them to share their positive experiences with peers. Alert loyal customers about discounts or new products to foster loyalty and ambassadorship. Leverage social media, encouraging customers to post their stories and photos.
Consider the success of cafes and salons on platforms like Instagram, where visually appealing products drive engagement. Incentivize sharing through rewards or gamified experiences to both engage existing customers and attract new ones.
Customers these days are highly empowered to discover information about your products, services and every single detail about the company. It is your duty to make sure that all windows of service are easily available as an option for all the customers. You must do this to be in a good relationship with the customers.
In this time and age when chatbots have almost replaced a layer of communication, you are missing out on a lot of goodwill if you still take two days to reply to a customer’s email. Provide your customers with the ability to get all the information without having to contact the company.
Introduce a user-friendly chatbot to your website without the need for coding.
Allow the ability for a customer to shop in a way they like; this could include the ability to find you through any platform, being able to make payments using a variety of options, and introducing any sort of convenience to them according to their whims and fancies. Reduce as much friction as possible when you allow customers to purchase any of your products.
It is defined as a multi-channel approach to marketing, sales, and serving customers in a way that the customer experience doesn’t change across different platforms. In short, it means that the customer experience should be the same across all channels. While you might want to innovate when it comes to different media, make sure that the experience is consistent across all platforms.
Use customer satisfaction tools to measure how your customers feel at each touchpoint. It is essential that you provide high-quality customer service at all channels, as a bad experience can make them seek greener pastures.
Suppose you want to have an Omnichannel approach as an essential part of your customer experience. In that case, you need to consult with all the stakeholders to discuss how you want the customer experience to be like across all channels.
The point is that the experience your customers have with you should make them come back to you again and again.
Many companies merely match competitors’ customer experience, which can result in a lackluster impression that fails to cultivate loyalty. True recognition belongs to innovators, not those riding coattails. A Forrester survey revealed 58% of customer experience professionals follow competitors, while 72% directly copy their strategies.
Offering the same experience won’t entice customers to switch. Instead, set yourself apart with genuine innovation. For instance, TD Bank’s “TD Thank You Account” campaign surprised customers with personalized messages and gifts. Similarly, AT&T celebrated 2 million Facebook followers with over 2000 personalized thank-you videos. Stand out, don’t blend in.
Few companies can survive a reputation for poor customer support, especially in our connected world.
For instance, during the Occupy Wall Street movement, Mark Hamilton chalked an anti-foreclosure message outside a Bank of America branch. After tweeting about his eviction by the police, the bank responded with seemingly automated messages about banking accounts, appearing out of touch and impersonal. Such mishaps underline the importance of treating customer support as an integral feature. By ensuring a delightful customer experience, businesses can cultivate invaluable loyalty.
Employee feedback shouldn’t just discuss how they fared in the previous year. Your employees know more than anybody on how your customers interact with your business since they are present at each customer interaction point.
Instead of having annual employee feedback, make sure you take continuous feedback for your employees, where you can also ask questions related to the customer experience. Use tools like SurveySparrow to collect employee feedback in an effortless manner.
Allow them a free hand where they can make executive decisions as well as offer ideas that will benefit the customer. Get the services of a project management software where you can track down all the activities that the employees do, this will not only help you to create processes but also look for any leaks in the way work is done.
Usually, when nothing happens or too much happens we turn our heads to the employees to listen to them. It would be too late by then. This is where continuous employee feedback comes in. It would help them to share their ideas and concerns about the company. Make sure that you are not making them feel invisible or ignored. Show them their opinions matter. There is nothing more than a confident and happy employee to impress the customers.
There is so much that the right influencer can do to your brand by helping you gain visibility in social media channels where they have a lot of influence. Not only can they make your brand known, but it also help drive engagement, which will, in turn, result in more sales. One advice we would give you is to be careful with finding the influencers, as not everyone is going to be perfect for you. With all that said, there is the case of fake influencers who also inflate the number of followers and fake engagement rates. You don’t want to get into that.
Find if the influencer is in the same niche as you and if they share value their followers genuinely care about. Do they have the same principles as you when it comes to sharing knowledge and in terms of business? If you don’t have the budget for big influencers, you can always hire micro-influencers who are usually part of a small niche but with commendable engagement and follower rates.
Improving customer experience begins from within your organization. While maximizing the benefits of technology is essential, it’s equally vital to ensure employees are well-trained in its application and in customer interactions. A robust training program not only clarifies roles for employees but also ensures they cater to customers effectively. It’s crucial to customize training, addressing any specific gaps in skills.
Additionally, your customer service team should collaborate closely with the sales department, ensuring promises made at purchase are honored. They should also be consistently available during working hours to respond to any customer queries. Ultimately, the depth and quality of training you provide to your employees have a direct and profound impact on the customer experience.
No one wants to work with a business that has complex steps to get things done. These days, everyone likes to accomplish tasks at the click of a button and it is a fair expectation as well. If they are looking for a product, they want to find it with a simple step and complete the purchase instantly without having to go through a myriad of instructions which only sucks their time and keeps things complicated.
The ability to keep things simple will be an advantage for both offline and online businesses. Make sure you create guidelines in the form of FAQs or use chatbots that will guide your users to follow the correct steps. If you can use technology to reduce complicated processes, as well as provide training to your employees to de-escalate any kind of situation, then you are gold.
You will never know if you have made improvements in the customer service front if you don’t measure it. One of the best customer service metrics that you can use is Net Promoter Score (NPS) where you can easily gauge what your customers have in mind with a simple question. The question that NPS uses is-“How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?’, it is measured on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest.
Not only is it easy to implement for the business, but it is extremely simple for the customer to respond as well. A lot of big companies take advantage of the benefits of NPS by using them regularly. If your NPS number gradually increases, it is a measure of the results that are being reaped thanks to your customer experience strategies, but if the number reduces, then you need to look for ways to satisfy your customers more.
Consumers have high expectations because they are aware that a lot of vendors are queuing up to help with their problems. If you fail to help out with their issues, they will not hesitate twice before leaving you for your competitor. And resolve the issue within a day if it is within your control or the fastest you can. Nothing is better than catering your product/service with market research surveys, rightly done. You are saving yourself cartloads of time and money with market research studies.
Provide a live chat system where your customers can get their questions resolved immediately instead of having to send an email, wait for a ticket to get created, and are then requested for a 24 or 48 hour period to get a reply. This can get really frustrating for a user. Definitely not how you can improve customer experience.
The best part about live chat support is that they don’t have to resort to an email or a different platform to solve their queries. This could also reduce the sales cycle as they might even be considering to make a purchase immediately and all they had was this nagging doubt which when solved, would leave them with no qualms about paying up. You might even lose out on such a prospective client when you don’t resolve their issue as soon as you possibly can.
And finally, after implementing all these strategies carefully, how would you know if all this investment is working and paying off?
Business results…!
It is nearly impossible to collect customer experience accurately, and that is the reason many companies rely on Net Promoter Scores to collect valuable information with simple and straightforward questions like “How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?”; it is measured on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest.
NPS, created by Rob Markey and Fred Reichheld at Bain and Company, is considered to be a highly suitable measure to customer experience metrics. And the fact that it is straightforward to deploy and measure makes it a favorite.
Not only is it easy to implement for the business, but it is straightforward for the customer to respond as well. Many big companies take advantage of the benefits of NPS by using them regularly. If your NPS number gradually increases, it is a measure of the results that are being reaped thanks to your customer experience strategies. Still, if the number reduces, then you need to look for ways to satisfy your customers more.
Let’s say you run an e-commerce store. Your system is probably such that each time a customer orders a product, you give yourself a leeway of 1-2 days as a kind of buffer for delivery in case of emergencies. But if you can surprise your customer in any way, please don’t hesitate to do that.
Always try to give earlier than you promised. In fact, a single experience with your company is enough for your customers to vow their loyalty towards you. Can you improve customer experience and save the day? That totally depends on your hands.
Do you realize that people would rather get all their answers through self-service rather than having to contact the customer service? Not only does it waste a lot of time for them to make the call or drafting that email, but can also be frustrating to know that their problem might not be resolved immediately.
How can you help yourself by improving your customer experience? Give them in-depth content, like a knowledge base which will guide them when they are stuck while using your product. Or, prepare an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) where the most often asked questions about your product/service are answered in detail. This way you can reduce the number of emails that you receive. Not only does it reduce your cost of hiring experienced customer service personnel, but it also reduces your customer’s anxiety. A big win-win for everybody!
Wouldn’t you agree that you are empowering the customers by making them the hero of your story? Connect your customers to a purpose that you are aiming to solve instead of ‘selling’ your products. In fact, isn’t that how all sales should happen in the first place?
A company shouldn’t be pushing hard at the wrong doors. It should be able to convey what solutions they are offering and how it solves a prospect’s problem. Earn their trust by learning about how you can resolve the particular problems that trouble them. The rule of thumb should be to prioritize your customer happiness, no matter what!
Most of us have encountered customer service personnel who have made us feel bad for calling them with a query. There are people who should never be allowed into the support team with a 10-inch pole. Well, some people are just not good enough with people (read customers).
Let’s say you have kickass features in your SaaS application. That alone is not enough for you to build or improve customer experience. Good customer service is a must-have to survive in the cut-throat competition. Spend quality time in hiring the right folks, as a wrong hire can break your business.
AI is being used in every possible section of businesses today. From marketing to the HR department, AI is being deployed extensively. Well, AI seems to be empowering customer experience too. Here’s how:
Well, I needn’t specify it. We all know that reaching out to the customers is very important. The more they reach, the more your chances will be to improve customer experience. You are probably doing your bit too, but is it getting you the desired results?
If the answer is no, then, have you considered the ‘how’ of reaching out?
Well, there are various channels to communicate with customers. But the point is to contact customers through their ‘go-to channel’ or the one where they are more likely to spend time. You have to find such channels ( be it live chat, surveys, social media, or email), make sure that you have a handle, and conduct conversations adapted to them. This way, you can keep in touch with your customers more frequently, find reliable information, know their opinions about your brand, understand the issues they face, and redress their problems.
Did you know 87% of the business today uses a cloud-based customer service management tool?
Every entrepreneur is fostering customer-centric tech in their organization. CEM tools are part of every business that desires growth. In fact, studies show that these tools are super-reliable. They reduce the workload by 67%!
Here’s how you benefit:
Want to know more about customer-centric technology? Well, then, this is the right time to educate yourself. Dreamforce is coming up. Register yourself, meet trailblazers, and see how it works wonders.
In today’s business, transparency is key. A non-transparent environment can be one of the factors that can leave employees frustrated, which definitely reflects on the work.
One thing leads to another, resulting in a significant blow to your customer experience.Be open with your employees. Conduct meetings and interactions where you can update the staff with the latest developments in the company.Issue newsletters, email updates, or e-magazines for customers. You could include details like the latest features in a product or service that you have introduced or plan to teach. The level of transparency you have with your customers and employees can affect your cx a great deal.
The idea is to stay ahead of the curve and provide the best customer experience. So, it’s best to keep track of the endeavors of your competitors. Researching and analyzing your competitors will also help you find the latest market trends. You get a clear idea as to where you are and where you should be.
Did you know that 33% of customers left business relationships in 2016 due to the absence of personalization? This is the era of empowered customers, and though not demanding, they do expect a personalized experience. Well, who doesn’t like to be pampered?! Customers love it when a brand caters to each of their individual needs and provides services and products accordingly.
Personalization has proved to be a blessing when it comes to customer experience. It has led to an increase in revenue and impulse purchases, and studies show that most customers come back for yet another purchase. That’s how significant personalization is.Companies leverage every customer touchpoint to gather insights to provide a more personalized experience.
Customer Interaction is a crucial part of the customer experience. and sadly, this is the part where most firms don’t make it. One of the main intentions is to create a connection with consumers. Connections can be made only when the two parties understand each other. You do not want to confuse your customers during interactions, so it is often advised to ‘speak the customer’s language.’
Here are some tips:
Customer journey mapping is a super strategy from which you can create more strategies. Why? Essentially, a customer journey map visually represents every customer experience at each touchpoint. Customer journey mapping helps you see things from the customer’s perspective. You come to know their requirements, needs, expectations, and pain points.
When that’s the case, you can optimize your customer experience in light of the insights gathered. This will aid in developing a long-term relationship with the customer.
The need to create a Customer Experience Strategy has never been this high. Customers are highly empowered these days. They only want the best for themselves, especially given that so many companies will do the bidding for them. Imagine your effort towards providing a great customer experience pays off. Then, you can find that customers will be more than happy to purchase from you, refer your business to their friends and family, and so on. Another point to note is that this is an ongoing process. You should ensure that there is a long-term plan associated with all the changes you intend to make happen as a part of this.
In conclusion, implementing the right customer experience strategies is the cornerstone of business success. As you navigate through the various approaches to elevate your customer journey, having the right tools can make all the difference. While there are numerous platforms out there, SurveySparrow has garnered attention for its distinct capabilities in the CX realm.
Consider exploring what SurveySparrow brings to the table. It might just be the asset you’ve been searching for.
Thousands of brands trust SurveySparrow to turn feedback into growth. Try it free today!
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