
According to a Salesforce study, 80 percent of customers value experiences as much as a company’s products or services. Therefore, the relationship between a company and its customers is essential. And how a company handles customer experience is extremely important, whether it is new or established.
First and foremost, you must define what a “great customer experience” means for your specific business. Using a feedback tool to collect information from them will help you determine how they rate your company and create an overview of the experience you’re currently providing.
When defining a great customer experience, many factors are taken into account. They want things to be seamless from purchase to delivery, the information they need to be easily accessible, and, more often than not, they want something extra to help differentiate their business from the competition.
The advantage of providing excellent customer service is that most customers are willing to pay more for a better experience. They are also more likely to remain loyal to your company and recommend it to their friends and family. Understanding what your customers think and want is therefore a worthwhile investment.
Companies are focusing on how to win new business and, perhaps more importantly, how to retain existing customers because a business cannot exist without its customers. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek poll, “delivering a great customer experience” has risen to the top of the priority list.
According to a survey conducted by Customer Management IQ, 75% of customer experience management executives and leaders rated customer experience as a ‘5’ on a scale of 1-5. (5 being of the highest importance).
Let’s look at some innovative ideas on how to improve customer experience, reduce churn, and increase revenue.
The first step in developing a cx strategy is to develop a clear customer-centric vision that you can share with your team. Creating a set of statements that serve as guiding principles is the simplest way to define this vision.
Once these principles are in place, they will guide your company’s behavior. These principles should be known by heart by every member of your team, and they should be incorporated into all aspects of training and development.
To truly understand your customers’ needs and ensure they have a positive customer experience, you must first learn about them. You can accomplish this by developing personas for your typical client or clients, if you serve different market segments.
A women’s shoe store may appeal to busy mothers with school-aged children, young women starting out in the workforce, and older women looking for comfortable everyday shoes. Once you understand your customers’ various profiles, you can better understand their needs, empathize with their difficulties, and serve them.
Customer experience management recognizes that it is not only important to provide excellent customer service at the point of sale. Your customers’ needs change and evolve in the same way that your business does. As they progress through the customer lifecycle, they will require varying levels of assistance from your company, such as pre-purchase research, payment processing, and ongoing maintenance.
Maintaining regular contact with your customers allows you to detect changes in their needs. You can predict the needs of various groups by observing trends within your various customer profiles. Being able to detect these changes allows you to offer solutions, increased customer communications, or new products in a proactive manner.
Although hearing from customers is wonderful, you should also hear from ex-customers. Their feedback will include reasons for leaving, areas where you can improve, and possibly new products or services you can offer.
Understanding why your customers are leaving and resolving these issues will hopefully lower your customer churn rate. According to some estimates, the cost of customers switching due to poor service is $1.6 trillion in the United States alone. Keeping your customers satisfied and engaged with your company can help you keep revenue flowing and reduce the amount you spend on acquiring new customers.
Customer experience is not something that can be improved with a single change. It is an area of your business that requires ongoing attention as customer expectations change, new customers are acquired, and your team or technology evolves.
This is why it is critical to actively track and measure customer experience across the organization. You’ll be constantly looking for ways to improve your products or services, which will lead to business growth. You’ll also keep your customers for a longer period of time, lowering costs that can be reinvested back into the business. There are tools like Hotjar, Advertising and Customer Experience (CX) from Oracle, Qualtrics XM, etc. to monitor customer interactions on your platform, identify roadblocks and help remove any blocks in the customer journey.
So, how can you ensure that your customers have the best customer service experience possible?
Make use of Xoopah’s all-in-one platform. It is an excellent way to ensure that you provide the best possible customer experience at every stage of the customer journey. From reputation management to triggering marketing campaigns, we’ve got what you need. Contact us today to learn more!