In this highly competitive time, Customer Experience or CX has gained a lot of attention from businesses all over the world. Businesses struggle to ace their customer experience and are always looking for ways to improves customer experience. CX has become the brand differentiator and a good CX journey can take your brand to new heights. While we all look for ideas to improve customer experience, it is important to understand what qualifies as good CX and why are businesses so focused on improving their CX.
Customer Experience or CX is the cognitive, sensory and behavioural response of the consumer during the entire process of interacting with your brand or business. In layman terms, it is the overall experience of the customer interacting with your brand before, during and after shopping. The reason CX is so important in 2021 is because of the ever-changing shopping trends in this last decade. Gone are the days when an amazing product and quirky marketing were what it took to make your brand stand out. Today, consumers focus more on ensuring a smooth shopping experience and after-sale service that ensures that customers are looked after once they shop. A good customer experience in itself can be your most successful marketing strategy.
It is more often than not mistaken as good customer service but customer experience is altogether a different ball game. Customer Experience encompasses the entire customer journey i.e. From walking into the store or website to aftersale service. Imagine your favourite clothing brand. What makes them your favourite? Is it just their product catalogue or is it because of the experience they provide while you shop from them? It might be because of one sales executive who always helps you in picking the product that suits you best or it might be the ambience of the store. All of this combined together makes a good customer experience that makes you always come back to the same store. A good customer experience for the customer can match your best social media marketing adverts. Yet, if it is so glorious why aren’t brands honing their skills yet? While we figure that out, we can tell you that a good CX can bring in more leads, a higher conversion rate, a higher retention rate and ensure a loyal customer base.
Now that we know the need for customer experience in 2021, we can go on deciphering the ways we can improve CX. This would provide you with a holistic approach to improving your CX with the resources available to you.
Customer Journey Mapping allows you to visualize the journey of the customers and important touchpoints. Through this, you can anticipate customer needs and their perception. Once you have set up a customer journey map, you can cross-reference it with the data you have to figure out the areas in your customer journey that needs your immediate attention. If you have a map, it would be easier for you to figure out the various stages at which customers interact before they make a purchase. You can figure out the stage at which the drop ratio is highest. With your core data and map available, you can reshape your strategy to ensure that your weakest link in the journey is well protected with new strategies.
A brand with good CX always empowers its employees. They are your first line of support to the customers and while they are not the ones making strategies, they are the ones implementing in real-time. The inputs they gain from the customers are quite literally a gold mine for business looking to make changes to grow. A tech brand opening physical stores can interact with its sales executives to understand why and how consumers step into the stores. You can gain insights into the changes you need to make in your stores to ensure higher footfall. Empower your employees to make meaningful contributions. Organize regular surveys asking them for their feedback. Involve your employees in your decision making and see actual improvement in your CX.
Having an omnichannel approach is one of the most important things you need to do in 2021. With the Omnichannel method, you get crucial insights and feedback into the way your customers interact with your brand and it also allows you to track their entire journey with your brand. In 2021 when we have our phones with hundreds of apps, 9 out of 10 expect brands to have an omnichannel system in place. With customers averagely using 5-6 touchpoints throughout their shopping journey, it is very important for your business to gain insights not just only from one or two touchpoints but have a holistic view
AI has become the biggest ally in delivering an excellent customer experience. Integrating chatboxes, processing your data through Sentiment Analysis and AI has helped brands develop and shape their CX strategies. A 24-hour service via chatbox not only helps you save cost in customer service but also helps you improve your response time. A brand that seems available 24/7 induces a feeling of trust with its customers. With advanced AI, you can also get insights into customer perception of your brand. With Data Silos, it can sometimes get tricky to filter the relevant data but with the help of technology, you can process all the data and fill the gaps in your CX.
Customers today seek personalized experiences. In a survey conducted by Epsilon, 80% of the customers were more likely to make a purchase if the brand they are shopping from offered CX and 81% of the customers expected the brands to understand them better. Today, even a simple text message from brands need to have your message and an offer that is tailored for you. Knowing when and how to cater to their customer is very important in this decade and personalized service based on what a customer wants and what you know about him/her forges a bond between the customer and the brand.
While gaining new customers is what every brand hopes for, it is also important to make sure that your existing customers feel appreciated and rewarded. With loyalty programmes and a referral system, you can ensure that your most loyal customers also act as your brand ambassadors. You can provide them early access, offer discounts and make sure that they feel valued. Many brands today give their most valued and loyal customers early bird access to new sales and inventory. Many tech brands today practice community building with their most loyal and vocal customers. OnePlus is one such example that constantly interacts with its customers for valuable feedback for their upcoming products. Strategies like this make customers feel valued, resulting in the retention of customers and active and organic promotion.
Customers today wish to be self-dependent. If your product happens to be one where customers need help accessing the product, having a product manual will come in handy. Today, the majority of customers hope to get onto the web and find the solution to their problem with the product. Make sure your product is designed and marketed in such a way that your customers feel self-sufficient in accessing and navigating through the product.
In order to improve your customer experience, make sure your customer service is the best in the industry. While you spend hours devising the best marketing strategies, it is equally important to ensure that your loyalty with your customers lasts even after they have made a purchase. Many dub this as the second innings for the brand. If you wish to win the test match, you have to ensure that you play your best game in your second innings too. A centralized CRM keeping track of all the tickets generated by user helps brands and business track the issue their customers are facing. With AI and chatbots, make your brand available 24/7 and use this touchpoint to gain more insights for your future product development and marketing, thus improving your CX.
If you are looking for ways to enhance your customer experience, you have to ensure that the belief trickles from top to bottom. Your top management needs to be the biggest advocate of the changes in your customer services strategies. Once the belief trickles from the top, it is very easy for the other employees to actively incorporate the new practices. Walt Disney, OnePlus, Apple, Bumble are some brands that take pride in their CX and with their CEOs focussing on improving it further, other employees are equally possessive of the changes they need to implement to stand out from the rest.
While we make strategies on paper with the best research insights, it is very important to interact with your customers if you wish to improve CX for your business. Organizing regular customer feedback surveys about your products and future lineups can give you actual meaningful insights into customer expectations. A well-planned customer feedback survey can give you insights that no other tool can offer. Survey2Connect helps you create such customer experience feedback forms with more than 20+ question types and logics that make your survey more intuitive and interactive with your customer.
