2 MAY 2019 | BY INTERACT RDT
Customers expect quite a lot these days, and that’s because it is being offered to them by other businesses. They are well-connected and they know what’s out there. If you’re not one of those businesses going the extra mile for your customers, you will probably find that they’re not spending their money with you.
Customers want to be romanced and blown away. They want to experience the memorable and the divine. They want to know that you’re in their corner and that you’ll stay there with them to support their needs, no matter what it takes.
The fact that customers want options opens up so many opportunities for any kind of business. If you’re selling clothing online, having one view of each garment is not going to cut the mustard. Customers want to inspect their future purchase from every angle and even zoom in as far as the stitching to see if it’s precise.
They want detail and descriptions. They want to know what they’re getting into. This could be a metaphor for each and every business… how can you go above and beyond to ensure that your customer gets this kind of experience related to your products or services?
Negative feedback about your business can often be the opportunity you’re waiting for to show that you really do value each and every customer as an individual.
Perhaps that customer who zoomed in on that garment actually found a flaw in the stitching after receiving the product. Instead of taking drastic measures such as discontinuing the line, deleting the customer comment, or worse… ignoring them; you could send them a freebie or a gift card to apologise.
The tricky part comes into play when you try and balance the growth of revenue and the satisfaction of your customer. You don’t want to be spending all your profits on ensuring you are offering the customer experience of dreams. It all comes down to effective strategy.
Designing the customer experience of dreams
Precision and planning are paramount in the designing of the ultimate customer experience, and it all begins with data. Extracting, analysing and learning from your customer data is a smart approach to customer experience as it’s based on actual evidence. Maintaining a bank of data that is properly managed and in compliance with privacy laws, is the key to personalising your experiences for your customers.
Using this data, teams can rally together to decide what is going to be the best approach for your customer experience strategy, based on insight and ideas from all stakeholders. Having total team buy-in is an integral aspect that contributes to success. Team buy-in enables the CX process to become a part of your business, eventually becoming how you do business: customer-centrically.
Ensuring that customers are being engaged through all stages of the sales funnel is made easier with the use of this data. It can be used to determine when to reach out, when to send an email update, if the use of promotional content is worthwhile etc. It’s all a process of trial and error too, because everything is monitored and sometimes the results won’t be what you anticipated. But that’s okay. You simply readjust and try again.
Showing return on investment
Return on investment might not come in the form of currency but could rear its head in other ways. Some of the metrics that businesses can look at in order to validate the success of customer experience are as follows:
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Positive customer feedback
- Repeat visits
- Social sentiment
- Net promoter score
- Referrals
- Customer loyalty
- Brand engagement frequency
But then there are also the more tangible value-add metrics such as:
- Campaign ROI
- Referrals
- Repeat visits
- Average revenue per visit
Even if you’re only getting a few of those down, you’re on the right track. Your focus is shifting, and your thinking is aligning with the customer and how you can help and serve them. After all, that’s all they want from you!
This article has been repurposed from Bizcomunity on 09 May 2019.