Whether your business is large or small, new or established, exceptional customer experience (CX) is key for growth. Small businesses must often condense customer interactions to single touch points since they have smaller teams. This makes building relationships through great CX – and not just nurturing leads with a sales focus – crucial. Here are six tips for better, relationship-building CX:
1.Connect Emotionally For Loyalty-Building CX
In the digital age, people crave connection more than ever. Emotionally connected customers who feel passionate about your brand have higher brand loyalty. If your customer service team can satisfy customers’ emotional needs, you’ll be on your way to a loyal customer base.
2.Shift From Sale-Focused To Relationship-Focused CX
Old-style CX design made the sale “king”. Although revenue is obviously important, shifting to a relationship-based CX will pay off in the long-term. Smart customers know when they’re being corralled into a sale, and they will quickly seek out competitors who seem more focused on solving their challenges rather than requesting them to open their wallets.
3.Develop A Culture Of Service
To shift from being sales-oriented to service-oriented, it’s important to instil a culture of service in your company. This means ensuring you hire and promote staff who are passionate about building relationships with customers and adding value to the overall customer experience. Reward staff who value customer relationships over transactions. It’s a winning formula for great CX.
4.Develop Broad Staff Knowledge
When customers have questions, they want them answered. Service staff who don’t know answers weaken your overall CX. Make sure that staff know your products or services inside out. Ideally, your customer support staff should be able to make connections that customers can’t, anticipating and solving needs for the smoothest possible CX.
5.Foster Clear Expectations You Can Meet
Another area key to customer success is expectation management. Be upfront about the features (and limitations) of services or products you offer. Make sure customers understand what they’re getting and that it matches what your business provides. This will avoid frustration and customer disappointment, which results in poor CX.
6.Ensure Responsive Customer Communication
Responsive, frequent communication aligned to customers queries and needs will impress. Make sure that your communication is concise, so that customers do not waste their time. Keep it simple and don’t make the customer think if there’s a simpler way to explain something.
Need help eradicating weak points in your CX? Contact Interact RDT today.