Win customers — Gain market share through superior Customer Experience (CX)
We all like to believe that what we offer to customers is superior in comparison to the competition. However, from the customers’ viewpoint, most customers do not see much of a difference between various service and product offerings. Competing on price alone no longer works. Customers demand brands to be more responsive, agile and understand their needs better.
Does Brand Loyalty exist?
One bad experience with you could ring the death knell for that customer relationship with your brand. The damage is even more, considering a whopping 70% of consumers — as per a recent BrandSmacker study — also indicated that they have actively advised their friends and family to avoid the company that delivers a poor experience.
In a very social world we live in, aided by social media, the word spreads fast. Opinions of friends and family go a long way and also endorsements. Retaining customers is therefore should be given a high priority through a cohesive strategy.
The ultimate objective of a good customer experience management strategy is to optimise every interaction from the customer’s perspective — ideally from a customer journey perspective — to build trust, customer retention and true brand loyalty.
Differentiate through superior Customer Experience
Your customer experience vision
In order to develop an effective customer experience that delivers, it is important to start off by defining your vision for customer experience. This ideally should be integrated with your company culture. Gaining strong insights into what the customers think of your brand, their experience and how they feel is a good starting point.
An integral step of the process is to analyse the customer process from specific customer journey perspective and see whether you are hitting the mark and where you can improve based on Moments-of-Truth (MOT).
Know your customer and their needs
However good your service or product is, the reality is that nobody will buy it if they don’t want it or believe they don’t need it. It is imperative that you clearly understand what is it that your customers really want. Knowing and understanding customer needs is at the centre of every successful business, whether it sells directly to individuals or other businesses. Using an effective, user-friendly survey is very useful in this regard.
Communicate your vision across all levels
Gone are the days that best products or services sell themselves. A customer-centric approach has to sit on top of your organisation, supported by an effective customer experience strategy. This alignment is key.
Measuring customer experience is therefore very critical. End of the day, “What gets measured, gets done’’. Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort, CSAT are some of the key metrics in this regard.
Customer Sentiment
If companies want to find out how their customers truly feel about the customer experience they offer and what customers think about services and product offerings, they need to be able to measure customer sentiment. After all, we know sentiments and emotions play a significant role and influences decision-making.
Customer experience can be the most critical and key differentiator in wining new customer bases, retaining them and building true brand loyalty.
Please share your views. What was your experience like, with some of your service providers or brands? Do share your thoughts on improving CX.