▪Why does customer experience matter? 74% of senior executives said customer experience impacted customers enthusiasm for being YOUR brand advocates

▪60% of participants were willing to pay more for better customer experience

▪80% of companies participating in research believe their customer experience was great. Only 8% of their customers agreed

▪What is a great customer experience?

▪Is it all about interaction? It seems there is more to it – interaction yes, but  also availability ( the customer touch points) and the depth of interaction and impression (engagement) too.

▪Here are some suggested ways to create a great customer experience:

1. Understand your audience & create buyer personas – Understand your customers. Who are they? What are their motivations? This access to in-depth intelligence will allow you to gain the depth of knowledge required. There are two ways to do it:

▪ Profile the types of customers your team deals with every day – this is a great way to understand the customer’s needs and buying behaviour.

▪Once you have enough information, create buyer personas – Maximize the effectiveness by representing real people. Human beings mean emotion which is vital to customer experience.

2. Analyze the business mission, vision & processes: You need a proper understanding of your business objectives – know where your business is NOW, where it’s going & how to know when it reaches it’s objectives.

4. Attend to all your customer’s needs & use feedback correctly: That’s why it’s essential to create feedback loops, use post-interaction and real-time feedback surveys, follow up with customers over the phone for more details.

▪ Pay attention to what is being said about you on all channels including social media- this is where customers are usually the most honest. If you keep your ear to the ground, you’ll hear customers telling you exactly what they want

5. Research your competitors and create goals and objectives – Competition is a good thing, it forces us to do our best. Analyze your competitors and market trends to build a clear picture. Use both internal and external tools- when you know where improvement is needed, you can then use this to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be

6. Build systems for quick & effective resolutions- Having digested the customer feedback, it’s time to respond. Every stage in the customer lifecycle should have an unobtrusive support system in place. Place control in the customers’ hands, don’t force your support on them, but show them it is there and how to access it

7. Replace marketing with customer service – Marketing means educating customers on what’s great about your products and services, pushing them towards purchase. Digitization has drastically shifted the customer decision making processes. Customers are usually already aware of the pros and cons of your product/service which makes customer service a key differentiator for your business

8. Understand your customer experience metrics –  Failing to measure your customer experience means missing out on valuable information. Remember, if it can’t be measured, it can’t be improved. There’s plenty of data out there – average response and resolution time for example. It’s not all about the front line though, just tracking and measuring customer facing team performance won’t provide the whole picture. The teams behind the scenes can have a big impact on customer experience

9. Make use of technology & tools – In 2008, only 12% of businesses had cloud-based Customer Service Management Tools. *Now it’s 87%!*. Companies are chomping at the bit to adopt specialized customer-centric tech. These tools reduce the workload of an organization by 67%. It would be bad to ignore this kind of increase in efficiency and reliability

10. Optimize your customer experience strategy – A customer experience strategy is an ongoing process that requires you to adopt a continuous improvement approach – Measure, optimize &  repeat. Be prepared to continuously improve.

• Don’t forget the little details – Leverage customers to gather information on brand experience, design, product usage.

• Know your target audience

• Train staff about your products, how to deal with customers queries and create a customer-centric mindset.

• Reward employees who put a smile on the customers’ faces.

• Customer experience provides a massive opportunity to create loyal customers. With the right strategy in place, the sky’s the limit.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE is the grease for CUSTOMER LOYALTY & it’s not something to ignore!