“As per research, close to 70 percent of all buying experiences depend on how the customer feels about treatment”
In this digital age, customers can share their brand interactions online and influence public opinion. And if it is a positive one, they tend to rave about it. This customer experience is an important factor that will make or break the deal. Harris Interactive quoted that almost 86 percent of consumers would stop interacting with, associating, and buying from businesses if they encountered even a single bad experience.
In a survey by eConsultancy, 89 percent of consumers with regard to brand royalty said that a great customer experience is a key factor.
What exactly is Customer Experience?
Customer experience is every interaction and engagement a customer has with an organization. It also factors in how they perceive those interactions. Whether the customer is reading a blog or an email from the company, engaging with social media, visiting a company website, speaking to a customer success manager or employee personally, or using and promoting your product or service, each and every touchpoint is an integral part of customer experience.
Shep Hyken once said “Customer Experience is the new brand.”
An interesting Accenture survey once found that only 23% of companies delivered great customer experiences. The other 77% failed to deliver and make an impression with users.
Business Success Key is Customer Experience and Why?
Every business should strive to create the best customer experience possible for their customers.
Differentiation of companies
Walker info has mentioned that Customer experience is expected to be the single most important differentiator for all companies in 2020. Gartner once reported that 89% of companies compete based on customer experience. This means you need to be unique, offer fast customer redressal to make an impact.
Loyalty and Customer Turnover
According to Forbes, those who loved the customer experience spend 140% more compared to those with the worst or bad experiences. They willingly pay a premium price up to 4.5x times. They are also potentially willing to purchase additional products to the tune of a 3.6x greater willingness from that company.
Attracts new Customers
Forbes noted that companies that provide excellent customer experience reduce costs by 33%. Attracting new customers via customer referrals happens at zero marketing acquisition costs increasing the reputation and goodwill of the company.
Customer retention
Top Studies have shown that attracting a new customer is 6-7 times more costly than it is to retain an existing customer.
And its strange companies do not spend much on customer retention. But, this is the gamechanger as a good customer experience can give you less customer attrition.
The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that more than 68% of customers don’t come back because they’re unsatisfied with the customer experience and treatment received.
It transforms organizations
With customer experience and customer success, companies can drive an edge with competitors and improve their chances of landing more clients and prospects. It goes without saying that brand value improves and customer retention increases. There is less churn and the overall value of the organisation improves.
How to deliver amazing customer experiences?
Delivering outstanding customer experiences could be sending them free samples, gifts, answering their queries, sharing valuable content and improving their experience of the products. Authentic human interaction is important to make an impact and deliver amazing customer experiences.
Use Customer Data to your advantage
The foremost thing is to use customer data you have across various levels for improving customer success and management. Based on the data, identify pain points and problems and address them effectively. Seek their feedback when you complete your job and listen to them for more queries.
Develop a Customer Experience Management Program
You can also chalk a defined customer experience management program to control, track, design and understand customer interactions at all possible touch points and meet customer demands.
Leverage the power of artificial intelligence
Gartner predicted that virtual chatbots will manage 85% of customer interactions and will be responsible for transforming customer experience. They are available 24/7, can seamlessly be integrated across devices and handle unlimited customers. While we cannot expect human emotion, a polite, precise and correct answer is what bots can manage.
Streamline communication
Communication is the lifeline of customer experience and the right language is important to send the right message across. Communication should be proactive, and the customer needs to be kept informed at all stages of the customer journey. Lack of cohesive communication can cause a negative impact on the brand. Using innovative tools and technology to improve process, reduce noise and be on the same page for product or service-related queries is important.
Omnichannel approach
Enhance communication by going omnichannel and allowing customers to interact, communicate and be serviced via any channel. It eliminates interaction silos and breaks in communication across various departments. Omnichannel communication also makes it easy to seamlessly integrate all forms of interactions and create a holistic blueprint of customer experience insights.
Bottomline: Engagement is Vital for Customer Experience
When it comes to customer experiences and customer success, it is important to realize that creating an emotional unique connection with your customers will prove to be the most effective, powerful way to improve customer experience.
Customers are powerful and realising that for companies it is important to scale operations in the direction of customer success and growth.
At the end, it’s about who stays loyally with your company for a longer period of time as a trustworthy client. If you want to ensure the long-term success of your company, this is where you should invest your time, effort and strategy-customer success and customer experience. If customer experience becomes the central hub of your activities, you will be long-standing in the specific industry. If not, the chances of being washed out by the dynamic forces of competition is remarkably high.
Quoting Tom Knighton,” Customer Experience is set to be the next competitive battlefield. It’s where every business is going to be won or lost”.
