Customer experience should be the first consideration for your marketing efforts in 2016. As we’ve seen, economic situations are placing pressure on businesses to cut their budgets. Customers are also feeling the pressure and spending their rands and cents more wisely.
A particularly beneficial means to understanding what the customer wants is to simply listen to said customer. We are often presented with opportunities where we can learn from the very people who support our businesses. With the increasing range of options available to each customer, businesses have to be incredibly smart about how they treat their customers in order to maintain their loyalty and extend the longevity of their working relationship.
Converting customer feedback and data into insights, and using this information as the impetus behind customer experience improvements is how businesses will win the favour of their customers over the long term.
So how do you ensure that you’re doing it correctly?
Multi-channel Feedback
Customers are interacting with businesses on multiple channels and each of these interactions should combine to form consolidated insights for customer feedback. There are a number of areas where you can garner loads of information that will help you improve your customer experience. These include, but aren’t limited to:
- Social media mentions, comments and posts
- Social media reviews
- Product reviews
- Questions posed to your call centre
- Search queries made on your website
- Questions sent via feedback forms
- Surveys
Treating each channel separately will only double your workload and separate the customer experience as a whole. This holistic view of what your customer wants, appreciates and desires will help steer you away from everything that your customers don’t want, hate and have had enough of.
Measuring Tactical Behaviour
Setting up a range of tactical actions to elicit a response out of your customers is a good way to gauge exactly how they are feeling about your overall service. By presenting customers with a range of questions in the moment, the response will accurately reflect how service delivery is affecting each customer and perhaps even why. Did the store manager greet you? Were you asked if you needed assistance? These insights can be attributed to certain behaviours from the store owners and employees, which can then be improved upon should there be a need.
Businesses are now selling complete experiences and atmospheres that can completely sway the feelings of a customer when they walk through the door. By knowing how each customer responds to each integral part (layout, smells, interior décor, friendliness of staff, cleanliness etc) you can make the appropriate adjustments to ensure that everyone who walks through the door (even a virtual door in the virtual world) leaves feeling satisfied.
Does an improved customer experience make people spend more in your establishment? Perhaps. But even if it doesn’t, the amplified feeling of being treated well goes a long way towards creating repeat customers and extending loyalty.
What can you do within your business to improve your customer experience?