10 Things That Make A Great Customer Experience
The top business leaders know that CX isn’t just a business differentiator, it’s essential.
In an age where customers are constantly getting the quickest, most intuitive, and most convenient experience, it’s imperative for businesses to consider that a pre-requisite in their strategy if they’re looking to grow and garner customer loyalty.
But customer experience isn’t that straightforward. It isn’t just about offering an experience that seems to meet the standards set by industry giants. It’s about creating an experience that leaves an impression.
Here Are Ten Prime Things That Make A Great Customer Experience
Optimizing customer experience isn’t straightforward. So, even when businesses understand the importance, not many are able to truly leverage the power it offers – so we’ve put together this quick checklist to help you get started!
You may already have a CX program in place, but are you optimizing the following?
1. Prioritize your people
We’re talking about customers, so why are we starting off with the employees?
Your employees are the face of your company. They’re the ones interacting with your customers, helping them through their journey, and often problem-solving – so it’s important to ensure that you’re providing your employees with an environment that helps them put their best foot forward!
Nurture a positive and growth-oriented environment where employees feel comfortable voicing their concerns.
If they are comfortable coming to you with issues, you’ll be able to address these before they get out of hand. Be proactive in your employees’ well-being and help set work-life boundaries so your employees can be fully present when they clock in.
Little changes can have a big impact, and employees who see you advocating for them will be the happiest being proactive for you.
2. Look For employee insights
Like we said, your employees are the face of your company and the ones interacting with your customers – so it’s safe to say that they actually understand customer pain points extremely well!
Look for their input to better understand experience gaps so that you can develop a strategy that not only bridges but also elevates your customer experience.
3. Make it personal
Consumers today are used to the customer experience provided by industry giants like Amazon. They’re used to recommendations tailored just for them, personalized offerings, and more.
As a result, they expect the same from you. Try to personalize offers, share recommendations based on previous searches/purchases, and more.
The more personal it is, the more it will resonate with your customers, nudging them towards conversion!
4. Map the customer journey
Sure, it’s important to optimize the key touchpoints. But sometimes, no matter what you do, the CX metrics just don’t show an uptick. That’s because there might be other factors affecting a touchpoint that go a little beyond.
Mapping the customer journey allows you to see the big picture and spot possible experience disruptors that might be present beyond the touchpoint.
For example, people seem to be adding products to their cart but not checking out.
Maybe the problem isn’t with the checkout process, but with product browsing on the website, or even with the payment gateway!
If you don’t see where there’s a dip in convenience, you won’t know how to address it!
5. Leverage ease
This one seems obvious, doesn’t it?
Everyone wants things to be easy, so that ought to be a given. But it’s not always the case. You need to look at every customer journey critically to understand customer pain points as well as the path they take along the way.
Once you understand this, you can look to optimize the journey by eliminating unnecessary clicks and steps while also honing in on individual touchpoints.
Moreover, adding in interactive elements can further engage customers, while having the ease of customer support access (ex. Chatbot pop-ups) can add to the convenience of an online experience.
6. Think about User Experience
Don’t just optimize the process, make it intuitive.
In the online age, UX is a critical aspect of your customer experience.
You can engage customers with a dynamic design, intuitively lead them to the next step (sometimes, an inconspicuous arrow can do the trick!), and ensure they remain engaged throughout their journey.
Moreover, optimizing for UX also ensures that your website leverages the already established norms (for example, the cart on a website is always top right), the right colors, and more to truly immerse your customers in the experience and help them move to the next step without a thought!
7. Implement a Voice of the Customer Program
What are your customers saying
While you might have an idea of your key strengths and weaknesses, sometimes that’s not enough. In fact, sometimes you might not even realize that what you perceive as a key weakness might not be the same as what your customers seem to think!
So, a great exercise in getting on the same page and uncovering a wealth of information is by implementing and analyzing the Voice of the Customer.
Ask for feedback about customer experiences and expectations. Leverage open-text feedback to better identify drivers you might’ve missed, and use sentiment analysis to better grasp the overall emotions behind customer experiences – and identify just what needs to be done next!
8. Set up custom metrics
You understand the sentiment, but are you keeping track of the improvement?
A key aspect of implementing a CX program is being able to see how it’s improving customer experiences, and this is best done with numbers.
While the key CX metrics have become standard across industries, you might actually need a little bit more to get a better understanding of your audience.
After all, the NPS, CSAT, and CES can only tell you so much. If you’re a restaurant, you might be interested in what customers think about the taste, flavor, and ambiance as well.
If you’re a creative agency, you might want to know how customers rate your innovation and ideas, etc.
Setting up a custom metric allows you to track customer perceptions in areas that matter to your business specifically, even as you keep a track of the key metrics!
9. Quick responses
In the age of instant gratification, we’re no longer used to long wait times and queues. While sometimes this is inevitable, they tend to increase anxiety and frustration and can contribute to customer churn.
After all, there’s no dearth of options. And with competition being just a few clicks away, the slightest frustration can be the difference between customer loyalty and churn.
That’s why setting up instant notifications and follow-ups can actually put customers at ease. While you may not have the budget to have an on-call team 24×7, you can definitely set up instant replies and alerts to ensure your customers are updated about their concerns while also making it easy for queries to reach the concerned team member for the earliest resolution!
10. Be where your customers are
Customers today have an array of options, from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping, everything is easy and available. So, if you truly want to be within your audience’s line of sight, start with being present across the board.
But being online isn’t enough.
As customers are increasingly present across platforms and devices, you need to ensure that you offer the same experience everywhere – whether they access your website from their phone, tablet, or desktop, ensuring the same ease will make it easy for customers to engage with you a lot more.
Following that, be present on social media and look to engage and interact with your customers there! Strategic ads can leave an impression, making it easy for customers to remember your brand!
Final Words
Customer experience is an ever-evolving process, that’s why you need to create a constant cycle of feedback and action to ensure you always have the latest data. After all, the best experiences are agile, flexible, and always up to date.
You can use various customer experience solutions such as SogoCX to help you keep track of the changing trends and customer sentiments, ensuring that you’re always in the know and able to take rapid action!
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