Every organisation envisions to have a positive relationship with customers. Great customer experience underpins how customers perceive an organisation. Research indicates that customer experience is the number one priority for businesses in the next five years.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience (CX) is fundamentally how customers perceive an organisation based on the past interactions. These interactions include the multiple touchpoints the customers have interacted with on the buyer journey like talking to the organisation’s customer service team, navigating through the website, using the live chat feature, etc.
The importance of providing an excellent customer experience
Happy customers are loyal customers. When customers are pleased with organisations, they inspire customer advocacy. Providing an unparalleled customer experience can even transform negative perceptions to positive. Studies reveal that 71% of people recommend a brand when they receive a great experience. Customers can become the best brand ambassadors for businesses and will go out of their way to put in a good word.
Delivering satisfying customer experience can also get customers to spend more time interacting with brands, in turn increasing ROI. A Forbes report shows that 65% people are willing to become long-term customers if a brand can provide positive experiences throughout the customer journey. From attracting new customers to retaining returning customers, customer experience can do wonders in driving both top-line and bottom-line growth.
Outlining the difference: customer experience vs customer service
Many people confuse customer experience and customer service as the same concept. This is not entirely right. Customer experience covers the entire gamut of the customer journey with an organisation whereas customer service is limited to the support customers receives while interacting with an organisation.
Organisations will need to provide customer service usually when customers have queries, are dissatisfied with a product or basically need help. Whereas organisations that seek to deliver exceptional customer experience are usually proactive and implement strategies that establish a long-term relationship with customers.
Get the customer engagement strategy right
They key to creating an excellent customer experience is to initiate memorable interactions with customers. Many companies are realigning their customer engagement strategy from reactive to proactive. Nuance found that 85% of consumers are interested in receiving proactive notifications, and an astounding 90% are more likely to do business with a company that sends reminders. Organisations must take the first step to interact with customers, rather than waiting around for customers to make the move.
There are many ways organisations can initiate customer interaction. With the advent of emerging technology, it’s now easier than ever to leverage automation tools and send proactive messages. These tools can target the right audience and send personalised messages at the best time to drive customer engagement.
Organisations must take the following factors into consideration while creating a customer engagement strategy.
- Define customer behaviour: Customer behaviour is ever evolving, and brands must keep up with these trends. It’s essential to first understand customer behaviour in order to customise offerings accordingly. Research what internal/external factors influence their buying patterns, learn the underlying motives and predict future customer attitudes to win in the market.
- Customer journey mapping: Customer journey mapping is a process that helps businesses chalk out a visual story of customers' interactions with the brand. It’s pertinent to understand which touchpoints customers engage with and drop off at the most.
- Customer base: An organisation's customer base is simply a list of the most active and loyal customers. After defining the customer behaviour and completing the customer journey mapping exercise, organisations should be able to grow a highly-targeted customer base.
Streamline customer support through personalisation and efficiency
When customers have queries or problems, they expect fast responses. Hubspot reveals that 90% of customers expect an immediate response to support questions within 10 minutes. There’s very little room for delay. Even one bad experience with an organisation can make customers leave and join a competitor.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) integrated tools like next-gen live chatbots are a game changer in commercial communication. With these tools, organisations can respond to time-sensitive messages and support customers in real time. This is a fantastic chance for brands to understand what customers really want and offer empathetic solutions that can transform customer experience.
The secret to making a lasting impact on customers is personalisation. An Epsilon study reveals that 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that offer experiences personalised to them. Empathetic 1:1 conversations are always more effective than sending impersonal bulk messages.
Customers expect organisations to already have information regarding their previous interactions with the brand. When it comes to providing personalised support, it’s crucial to have this data handy to assist customers in the most efficient way possible.
Tips to improve customer experience
Customer behaviour and the way customers interact with companies has significantly changed in 2021. Customer experience now has a larger online focus, as most customers have been acclimatized to reaching out for online support. With the influx in digitalisation, maintaining customer satisfaction has become a major challenge and will continue to be a hurdle in the new normal. Here are a few tips to offer a better customer experience for the way forward.
Enable multi-channel servicing: With reduced telephonic support available, consumers no longer rely on just phone calls for support. Organisations must enable multi-channel servicing to help customers reach the support team over various communication platforms such as online chat, email and SMS.
Switch to omnichannel communication: Even with multi-channel servicing, many customers tend to switch their device or communication mode amidst an interaction. Organisations can leverage omnichannel communication to seamlessly integrate these distinct conversations. This reduces redundancy in the information being exchanged and saves ample time for the customer as well as the agent. In fact, a PwC study highlights that companies investing the omni-channel experiences has leapfrogged from 20% to more than 80%. Omnichannel communication helps organisations provide seamless customer experience across all touchpoints and reinforce brand preference
Use CPaaS-enabled solutions: With more personal data being shared online, there is a rise in fraudulent activity. Organisations require trusted solutions to ensure that customers’ data rights and privacy are not violated. Advanced CPaaS solutions can keep customer data secure from phishing, spam communication and DDoS attacks. CPaaS provides end-to-end encryption of messages and mitigates data leakage, ensuring the most stringent security.
Looking to enhance your organisation's customer experience? Tanla has a wide range of customer-centric communication solutions to help you build strong relationships with your customers in the long-haul. Visit www.tanla.com for more information.
