It is imperative in this fast changing environment to deliver a WOW experience to your Customers. As much this is important to us as a Technology Service Provider, it is as important and critical for our Customers to deliver a WOW experience to their customers and hence it becomes critical that the digital transformation should be undertaken in a way that uplifts the customer’s journey and brings an ease of getting things done.
The improvement of the customer experience involves the recognition that customers form their opinions of companies based on all their interactions with the company and brand. It’s logical to understand that a customer’s overall perception of their experience is vital to their view of the company. Although some parts of the customer experience may have a greater impact, every aspect holds the potential to negatively affect the customer’s overall experience.
Customer Experience (CX) encompasses all the interactions and experiences that your customers have with your business throughout their journey, starting from the initial point of contact to the point of becoming a satisfied and loyal customer. It is a crucial aspect of customer relationship management (CRM) because it has a significant impact on a customer’s likelihood of becoming a repeat and loyal customer. According to a global customer experience study conducted by Oracle, 74% of senior executives believe that customer experience affects a customer’s willingness to become an advocate. To retain customer loyalty, investing in their experience is a must.
Enhancing the Customer Experience involves examining each stage of the customer journey to find ways to improve the experience at every interaction point. It is also critical to assess the transitions between these touchpoints.
Although enhancing the customer experience is a comprehensive and continuous effort, taking a bird’s-eye view of the experience can lead to immediate, significant results. Try taking a quick 15-minute customer experience enhancement exercise to gain a broad perspective.
The success of a business depends on its customers, which is why companies are putting significant effort into acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones. According to a survey conducted by Bloomberg Businessweek, delivering a top-notch customer experience has become a top priority for companies.
Another survey by Customer Management IQ found that 75% of customer experience executives and leaders consider customer experience to be of the utmost importance, rated a “5” on a scale of 1 to 5. However, the challenge is that despite its high priority, many companies struggle to meet customer expectations and deliver an exceptional experience. With customers becoming more demanding, the gap between their expectations and the actual customer experience offered by companies is widening. Customers expect every interaction with a company to be seamless and exceptional, not just with your company
Gone are the days of a straightforward, single-customer journey. This means you can no longer just focus your resources, efforts, and budget on a select few channels. To succeed, you need to be prepared for all channels. Customers will interact with your website and download your content for various reasons and use different methods of communication. Their motivations for reaching out to you can be diverse, ranging from browsing your products, learning about your business, providing feedback, making a purchase, redeeming a deal, gaining knowledge, canceling an order, making changes to a purchase, and more.
Measuring customer experience can be a challenge as it is subjective in nature. Customer journey audits, testing, and feedback methods such as “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” can provide some insight into what works and what doesn’t, but they cannot fully capture the customer experience. To truly understand your customers’ feelings, it’s important to gather sentiment from multiple angles. Surveys are an effective tool, but they need to be structured appropriately. Open-ended questions provide the most freedom for customers to express their opinions, but they can also be time-consuming to analyze. Multiple-choice questions are easier to analyze and have higher response rates, but they limit customer expression. A compromise can be achieved by adding an open-ended choice at the end of the multiple-choice list
Many times, chat sessions commence with the clichéd message, “How may I help you?” “This fails to deliver a truly unforgettable customer experience. To achieve this, it’s crucial to have the digital assistant initiate the conversation with a personalized question that reflects the customer’s current situation, emotions, and preferences. For example, I observed that you picked both size 7.5 and size 8.0 of our red boots. Would you like some help in finding the right size for you?” Not only does this approach enhance the personal aspect of the interaction, but it also leverages readily available data to create a personalized and impactful customer experience.
Mastering data is crucial in understanding customers and providing them with the experiences they desire. However, simply having data is not enough. Most companies struggle with transforming data into meaningful information and utilizing it effectively.Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and Data Management Platforms (DMPs) can provide a complete understanding of customer behavior. When coupled with a strong data strategy, these solutions contextualize data and help companies reach, connect with, and engage customers, leading to higher conversion rates. CDPs and DMPs allow companies to: