Jacob Want to maximize the number of return customers? Want to create a positive brand impression on new customers? If so, you need a customer experience strategy. It’ll help your revenues soar. It’ll keep customers around for long. Plus, it’ll reduce your reliance on marketing to get new sales!
In fact, a customer experience strategy is one of the best business strategies to try, and for the following reasons:
- It turns your customers into marketers – their satisfaction spreads through word-of-mouth
- Return customers will pay more for services they’re satisfied with
So how do you go on developing a strategy? We’ll break that down below in 4 steps. But first…
What Makes for Excellent Customer Experience?
Customer experience comes down to interaction. It’s how customers relate to your brand. That’ll include factors such as product quality (compared to customer expectations), and how engaged they are with what your business offers. So customer experience isn’t something to be defined in a few lines. It includes multiple channels and assets. And this is where their problems begin…
Many businesses might ignore developing an experience strategy simply due to the number of details involved. After all, where do you start? Do you begin with your employees? Is it product development and user experience that has to change? Or maybe you’re accessing the wrong market?
This leads us to the first step…
#1 – Develop a Buyer Persona
Buyer personas are profiles that describe patterns in those seeking your services. It helps you outline who your customers are, the likely reasons they seek you, and what they expect.
Personas can be developed with a great level of depth. They also require a lot of research, where they include information such as age, sex, education levels, personality types, social media use, you name it.
To build a buyer persona, you’ll need to consult your customer service. They’ll provide information on the types of customers that they deal with every day. Over time, that’ll help you develop multiple profiles on the types of customers you get.
As you develop a profile, you’ll find yourself changing your business objectives. That is, customer expectations will change your business direction. Those profiles will tell you whether you need new customers, retention of old ones, or even the development of new products. In fact, the profiles may indicate that your customers are looking for improved technology and user experience!
That approach has been followed by many corporations in today’s world, such as Apple. Their strategy focuses first on customer experience. From there, they take their findings to adapt their products and technology, thus creating products that are impressionable at first glance (which is what Apple products are known for today).
Speaking of business objectives, don’t forget your competitors. You can rely on whom they market to for indications on what your buyer personas should look like!
#2 – Optimize the Technology for All Customer Channels
By now you should have a detailed buyer persona(s). It’s time to optimize your customer’s user experience.
Customers will seek your business from a multitude of channels. Those channels can be direct online purchases. They can be visits to a physical store. They may even be inquiries through email, social media, and customer service phone calls. You need to ensure that you’re using excellent technology on all those levels.
You’ll need a customer service management tool to get started (cloud-based). Such tools pool all online interaction channels into a single tool, which saves time. Additionally, you can rely on AI machines for your services. Those machines can provide automated services to customers, including quick self-service, and automated responses to common issues. This’ll free up your employees to focus on more complex customer calls.
On the topic of optimization, you need to improve your response time to customers. Quick response and resolution gives customers the confidence that they’re heard. You can increase response time through tools such as live chat rooms on both your website and social media. Also, if possible, try to ensure that customer support is active around the clock.
#3 – Pay Special Attention to Customer Service and Feedback
Back in the old days, marketing was as important (if not more important) than customer service. The situation’s different today, where customers can get info on your product instantaneously. So often, new customers will already know about your product without you having to market to them.
This makes customer service the differentiating factor. You should be investing more resources in better customer service, and you can do so by extensively by collecting feedback. Feedback is what’ll help you further optimize your tools. It’ll also help you tweak your brand personality to match your products.
The best way to do that is by asking for feedback. You can set up surveys for customers to rate their experience. Or, you can offer a section on your website for detailed reviews (maybe a blog with an extensive comments section). Not only will those help you get feedback, but also, they’re sources to collect information on how customers see your business.
When it comes to rating systems, you can look at the following:
- Customer Satisfaction Score. This can be a flexible rating system, designed on 5 point basis.
- Customer Effort Score. You can measure that through analytics, which indicates how long customers spend moving through your service pages.
#4 – Train Your Employees to Cater for Customers
Employees are at the forefront of customer experience. They’re often the source of impressions that clients receive about your business. Training them to be receptive and involved in customer issues is a huge step. Customers should specifically obsess over client personal details (without seeming intrusive), using those as opportunities to optimize their experiences!
Excellent Customer Experience: It’s the Best Way to Market
In fact, customer experience comes before marketing. That should be a philosophy following by your business. If you have an excellent brand reputation, your customers will be your marketers. They’ll usher others to try your services. You’ll have to churn less to keep your business afloat, so it keeps your business safe through rough times!
