Global economies will continue to face multiple macroeconomic challenges this 2023, like political uncertainties, inflation, and tightening financial conditions. Some businesses will have their come-back from the pandemic years’ losses, while some will need business to revamp to cope with the new and evolving demands of the customers. The business landscape will become more challenging this 2023. Customer satisfaction through excellent customer experience (CX) is an integral element that should be treated as an important driving force for business survival, growth, and development.
We are in an era where customers like personalization, primarily through dialogues. Customers want to feel special one way or another. Walt Disney once said, “Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.” Disneyland employees are trained to make you feel happy, comfortable, and at home like VIPs.
Good CX strategies are easy to implement. At Zappos (an American online shoe and clothing retailer based in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States), simple ways like replying personally to all emails is a simple act yet a significant contribution to having loyal customers. Happy and contented customers can lead to having them spend more and eventually lead to referrals.
Assess Your Current Strategy
For your business to improve its CX strategy, it is best to know how to assess your current strategy and how it works or doesn’t. Here are a few things that can help you evaluate your current strategy.
Gather feedback from your customers on their personal experiences. Ask for comments and suggestions. You may also create a short survey.
For a more authentic experience, you can do it yourself and be your customer and engage in customer inquiries and other customer-related services. This way, you can note your personal experience and see where changes are to be made to the organization.
Ask these questions: How many minutes does it take before someone attends to you? How long does it take for a request or service issue to be resolved? Do you have your Phygital CX in place (physical and digital)?
Do you feel the personal touch and genuine concern in the CX journey?
After you evaluate your current CX strategy, the goal is to learn and positively impact your business by performing better for customers. Ultimately, this will give the company a competitive advantage that is difficult to match.
CX Transformation Steps
Develop a CX transformation plan that embodies your organization’s values, structure, operations, technology, and culture. The environment should be customer-centric, delivers quality, and is flexible. Capacities should ideally be scalable depending on the demand. Focus your plan on these essential steps:
- Define the foundation of your CX framework
Vision and Strategy of the Business – Keep in mind that it should be customer-centric
Employees- Have a cooperative environment across teams and departments. Create a culture that is aligned with your vision
Operations – Well-defined processes that connect teams for better collaboration and efficiency
Technology – Have a technology in place that will not hinder the process but will serve as a catalyst for growth and improvement for the organization.
- Create an environment where people can collaborate and coordinate freely and easily. Use collaboration programs, apps, and online collaboration software like Basecamp or Slack that are safe and easy for the company and its employees.
Use messaging apps like Whatsapp, Line, or others for internal team coordination and updates.
Create an avenue where employees and customers can freely speak up regarding their suggestions or new ideas for the business.
Offer training and support so your employees will be more knowledgeable in their field. - Evaluate and improve your company’s digital infrastructure
Have an omnichannel experience- consistent service and support through multiple channels, the top five being voice, social media, email, chat, and SMS.
Use technology to your advantage for the business and keep improving when and if needed.
Customers use technology to ask for and give feedback. Customers use whatever is convenient for them. Make sure all channels are consistent in their responses and have a quick turn-around time for the response to a concern. - Adjust strategy and plans in accordance with the data gathered
Process and analyze the data gathered from surveys and customer satisfaction ratings, comments, and suggestions. Sometimes companies need to change their approach to common concerns.
Based on the data gathered, common concerns will be quickly addressed to save time if you have an FAQ page that will capture the usual queries of your customers.
Some businesses will need to improve response time, change communication tone, and personalize the responses.
How to utilize technology and data to enhance the customer experience?
Technology plays an integral role in keeping those customers and clients satisfied and happy, especially now that businesses are going through the digital transformation age. Data gathering is more accessible now for companies to better profile and communicate with their customers according to how they prefer to be informed. Like Ikea, it ensured customers were always in the loop through their newsletters. Also, Ikea’s comprehensive online store and AR (Augmented Reality) are ways they maximize technology to the company’s advantage and goal to increase sales. Customer service and exchange of products are excellent as well in Ikea.
The advantages of technology use in business are notable and must not be ignored by companies.
a. Improves communication – The pandemic forced numerous companies to depend on technology for sales, thus survival. Communication between teams for efficient operations is possible even when employees work from home. Real-time communication saves many resources and enables companies to adjust or address issues for a better CX experience.
b. Keep Customers in the Loop – Personalized Newsletter subscriptions and e-coupons, for example, make customers feel special and keep them updated on what’s new and hot. You can now keep the interest alive through regular updates. Proper strategy on when the ideal period to contact and send out updates and promos should be in place when you profile your customers. Keep in mind that timing is also crucial.
c. Gather data and use analytics that is Crucial for your Company- Business performance through various channels may be tracked and monitored in real-time- How much traffic you have in your online store, how much customers read your newsletter, how your call-to-action strategy online and in-store worked, surveys on customer satisfaction, and other key metrics you’d like to measure for improvement. With technology, tracking, recording, forecasting trends, and capacity management will be easier for the whole business.
d. Understand and Know your Customers Better – Knowing your customers means you can communicate with them with the right tone and words to keep them interested. Knowing the customers means adjusting and improving your CX according to the demand. Customer behaviors change over time, but regular profiling is necessary with technology. Behaviors, preferences, and interests are customer profiles that, if used well, will reap great benefits and growth for the business. Happy customers can ignite word-of-mouth marketing, one of the most effective marketing methods.
CX (customer experience) is essential to a business’s success. You should be able to gather and analyze information properly to maneuver the company in the right direction properly. Gathering data and analytics are essential to developing a good CX, and here are some ways you can do it:
- Gather customer feedback through surveys, but 5-10 questions are good enough for customers to accurately fill-up. Refrain from burning them out to gather as much information as possible.
- Ask for customer satisfaction grades from their experience. For example, “On a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest), how would you rate your experience from pre-purchase to after-sales?”
- Interviews- Ask your most loyal and long-time customers. This may be time-consuming and requires more effort, but for both parties will yield quality results.
- Forum- Create an avenue where your customer feels belonging to a community with a common interest. By doing this, you will get suggestions and organic discussion where you can improve your CX.
- Online pop-ups or widgets come out when a customer visits your website. This is another way to collect customer experience feedback and get more suggestions.
To implement superior CX strategies, choose a partner company, like outsourcing CX specialist Inspiro, with experience and strategy that can help you keep up and retain your competitive advantage while keeping up with trends and changes around us. Get in touch with us to learn more about our services.
Inspiro, being in the business industry for quite some time, has developed proven strategies to improve customer experience (CX) across different businesses.
Customer service is about more than just solving complaints or addressing concerns. It is an omnichannel experience- consistent service and support through multiple channels- voice, social media, email, chat, and SMS.
Remember that effective CX management will give your business a competitive edge that will make it stand out from the rest. You will have loyal customers and eventually increase your revenue with a repeat purchases. Also, since purchasing these days is highly influenced by how customers have a positive or negative experience with the brand and its services, it is essential to give them a positive experience to get positive feedback and, eventually, brand loyalty.
