Customers expect a lot for their support, and rightly so… they have options, so why should they spend money with your business if they can get better service elsewhere? They are the centre of everything and technology is evolving to support this. It might take a lot to win the hearts of your customers, but if it’s done by offering personalised, thought-out service, then you have a greater chance of winning them over forever.
According to ThinkJar, “55% of customers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience.” They are seeking out these experiences. Deloitte furthers enforces this by stating: “the consumer’s decision to buy a product or service is impacted by their overall enjoyment of their experience.”
So, what is the secret to exceptional customer experience? Is it something that can be adopted by any business, no matter how big, small or unique?
We unpack this a little bit further.
Getting Into The Shoes Of Your Customer
By optimising an end-to-end customer experience for each customer, you can remain as competitive as possible. But how do you measure the efficacy of this? Typical CX metrics, such as NPS, SUS or CSAT, can be used to ask the customer more about their experience of a particular feature. While they may have encountered and experienced this feature positively, it could very well have been a lengthy mission to get to that point.
By extracting data from various touchpoints in the customer journey, you can create a complete view of how the customer interacted with your business. Looking at the length of time between actions or how many times the customer clicked different points can reveal a whole story to you about how intuitive your interfaces are. With the full journey mapped out in front of you, you can put yourself in your customer’s shoes and understand what the entire experience is like for them.
Understand The Extent Of The Customer Journey
You might think that the customer journey begins when the customer arrives on your site and clicks through a certain process, but how long did it take them to arrive at your site? Customers might have already been on this journey for weeks before arriving at your proposed solution, clicking through different options, Googling solutions, contacting providers, perhaps even booking appointments or visiting locations.
In such a comprehensive journey, there are so many opportunities for the customer to bail out and choose another direction. By understanding these pain points and knowing full well that your new potential customer might already be fed up, you can nurture them into a space of comfort and trust. Opt for simplicity at every turn, cut out extra clicks, make the experience as human-friendly as possible. You might just be the light that your would-be customer has been seeking out.
Customer Experience Is About Helping, Not Selling
Through helping your customer, you can encourage them to buy from you, but this mustn’t be your sole goal. Understand what they want and need from you and help them by delivering this. Offering an end-to-end experience that covers all channels will not only impress your customers but keep them engaged.
If you are 100% committed to offering a seamless, omni-channel customer experience, your customers will become your brand advocates and they will stay with you for a long time to come.