Empires were built on the ability to squeeze savings out of production and efficiency out of employees. Companies like Walmart became synonymous with “low cost,” while offering minimal (sometimes sub-optimal) service, and similar concepts began to crop up in other consumer-facing industries.
What is Customer Experience?
Customer experience is the combined interactions a customer has with your brand. It looks at the lifecycle of the customer, mapping each and every touch point the customer has with you. It highlights where you’re delivering an exceptional experience, building loyalty and advocacy. And where you’re delivering a poor experience, driving your customers to competitors.
Customer experience, meanwhile, is about showing up for the customer when and where they need you, with ease and consistency on their part. And it’s about making sure every interaction with the company is memorable and meaningful. It’s not transnational, it’s relational.
How to create a great customer experience?
There are two distinct sets of characteristics that should be considered for a great customer experience strategy.
Technology
- Do you offer self-service or chat bot options for the customer?
- Does the experience integrate cross-platform?
Data
- Are you collecting data accurately and using that data effectively to improve their experiences?
- Do you have all the data you need to optimize your strategy?
Design
- Is the layout and functionality designed to be customer-centric?
Customer Service
- Are there holes in your customer service model and execution?
- Do you foster a service culture that proactively anticipates and fills the needs of your customers?
Relevance
- Are you delivering value to your customers?
- Are you answering your customers’ questions ?
Authenticity
- Do your customers trust you?
Culture
- Does your company operate in silos or have a “that’s not my job” mentality?
- Do you have buy-in and input on the strategy from all departments?
Consistency
- Are you delivering the same level of experience (or better) every time?
Convenience
- Is your experience convenient for the customer?
- Is it more convenient than your competitor’s?
Speed
- Is your website fast (enough)?
- Is the speed meeting or exceeding expectations?
- How does your speed compare to your competitors?
- Personalization
- Are you personalizing content to enhance their experience?
- Do you know their preferences?
- Omnichannel access
- Can they move seamlessly from platform to platform with your brand?
- Clear paths to resolution
- Are you removing friction for the customer?
- Do they have access to the right resources to resolve their issues?
How to Improve Your Customer Experience?
- Check the pulse of your current customer experience strategy by sending surveying your customers.
- Take advantage of social listening to hear what’s working and what isn’t from your customers’ perspectives.
- Use the insights obtained from the data to ensure you truly know your customer–their pain points, their values, their priorities.
- Take advantage of social listening to hear what’s working and what isn’t from your customers’ perspectives.
- Use the power of customer reviews. Ask for them and acknowledge those who take the time to write them.
