While an online presence is an important factor that determines the overall success of even the best UX agencies, customer experience is even more significant for business development.
For that reason, investing in custom web design in Miami, where all the best web design companies are, will inevitably lead to a better customer experience. That is especially the case when most of the communication is done online, instead of over the phone or in person.
However, there is so much more to customer experience than a good website. But, before we dive deep into this, you should know what customer experience is and what it is not.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience or CX refers to the overall feeling customers have when they interact with the business, from the first contact to the moment they become a customer. It is built upon every single interaction a brand has with a customer.
Some people mix up customer service with customer experience, thinking those two are the same, but they’re not.
Unlike customer experience, customer service is about the support your business provides to the customer. It comes down to all interactions between a business and a customer where the customer gets the needed assistance.
Basically, customer experience is a broader term than customer service.
Imagine a situation where you’re booking a hotel and you manage to do it easily with the help of that great lady that picked up the phone. That would be good customer service. Now imagine getting upgraded to a better hotel room without direct assistance from the hotel. Do you notice the difference?
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How does customer experience affect my business?
Customer experience will either upgrade or downgrade your business, depending on how well you’re doing. There are a couple of ways good customer experience can help you:
- Increase sales conversions
- Improve customer loyalty
- Retain your clients
Just like good customer experience can help, bad customer experience can damage your business in the long run.
Customers that aren’t satisfied with their experience will leave your brand and never come back.
They will also tell their friends and family about the experience they had, which means those people may never reach out to you.
Bad customer experience typically happens due to:
- Complicated buying processes
- Negative experience with customer support
- Not answering promptly
- Ignoring the existing customer feedback.
Now that you’re familiar with this topic, let’s explore how you can improve it to achieve the best results.
1. Come up with business core values.
If you want to grow your business and improve your customer experience, you should know what your core values are. These core values should guide every single thing you do in customer relations.
If you’re struggling to come up with them, don’t worry, it might take some time. Think about your goals and what you want your company to be like in the future. Then try summarizing that into short instructions everyone should stick to.
Naturally, since your employees are usually those who communicate with customers, make sure they know what your business core values are by heart. Explain why it’s important that they follow these guidelines if you want true progress.
2. Build an omnichannel strategy.
An omnichannel strategy is used to provide a unilateral customer experience across all channels. People expect to be treated the same in all interactions, regardless of the channel they’re using.
There are four pillars of the omnichannel strategy:
- Sales channels can help you determine and prioritize the channels that make the most sense to your target audience.
- Marketing and advertising should be cohesive across different channels. Your customers should feel connected to your brand regardless of the channel.
- Operations include everything in your back-office – a product, order, and inventory management, as well as logistics and fulfillment.
- Shipping is also a part of the customer experience and therefore should not be neglected. There are so many things that could go wrong here, so make sure you team up with a delivery company you can trust.
An omnichannel strategy will encourage your customers to connect with you through the channels of their choice because regardless of which one they choose, they’ll be satisfied with the CX you provide.
3. Know your customers and develop a relationship with them.
Satisfying a large number of people can be very hard when you’re always delivering the same CX. What works for one person may not work for others. However, there is a way to overcome that.
Our best advice is to recognize similar types of people that approach you and group them by creating customer personas (customer profiles).
Once you do that, you can think about what can be done to deliver the best customer experience to each and every customer persona. Your employees should be familiar with this as well. Moreover, they should be able to distinguish different personas so they can tackle their needs better.
Naturally, customers will establish a much better relationship with your brand, which is something you should aim for.
Don’t forget that emotions are very important in the decision-making process and take up a big part of building brand loyalty.
People don’t decide to stick around for no reason, but because they feel valued and heard.
4. Enable a self-service option.
Hiring great people in the customer service department is important, but allowing your customers to become proactive also has its perks. In fact, people are not always willing to spend their time reaching out to customer service. More often than not, they want to find the solution themselves.
Here are a couple of ways you can offer a self-service option:
- FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page
- Community forum
- Mobile app
- AI-powered chat and messaging
It’s up to you to pick one or more that fits your and your customers’ needs.
5. Train your customer-facing team.
Your customer-facing team is the one customers first interact with. The first impression is crucial if you want customers to stick around. For that reason, your customer-facing team should be well-trained.
Training should include two things: product knowledge and soft skills.
Product knowledge
Your employees should know as much information as possible about the product you’re offering and this is why:
- They will be able to better understand the customer’s needs and quickly offer a solution
- You’ll come off as more professional to your customers
Soft skills
Of course, some people are just born with it, which is why you should be careful when hiring people for the customer-facing team. However, you should also train the team with customer service etiquette. Teach them to:
- Listen carefully to each word
- Think before speaking
- Provide customers with a personalized touch
- Give mock lessons about identifying different customer personas
- Know how to say “no”
- Ask for feedback.
All that will help your customers feel appreciated as you’ll be able to deliver high-quality support.
6. Listen to your staff.
Your employees, especially your customer-facing team, are the ones that communicate with your customers directly. Often, they have the knowledge that you don’t.
Listening to what they have to say will not only improve your customer experience, but it’s also good for employee morale. Remember – only satisfied employees are guaranteed to provide a good service to the customers.
7. Take customer feedback into account.
Customer feedback is extremely when it comes to improving your customer experience. There are numerous ways to gather customer feedback, depending on the channel you’re using. Read more about CRM management here.
If your employees are having a phone call with the customer, they can simply ask them to rate the experience from 1 to 10 at the end of the conversation. You can put use live chat, in-app chat, or chatbots if you notice your customers are often using your website to find a solution or order your product.
Aside from improving customer experience, customer feedback will also let customers know that their opinion is valuable and that you’re making an effort to meet their needs and handle their problems.
8. Track your business results.
If you want to know if you’re making any progress, we highly suggest that you not only measure customer experience but also measure your business results.
Do the math and see if your customer base is expanding. Do you notice more people making repeat purchases? What do people say about your brand on forums and social media?
All that will help you evaluate your results and those results will show if there’s any room for improvement.
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