If you want to have success in business, there are two things you need to turn individual customers into loyal clients who advocate your brand. Having an excellent product is essential, of course, but you can’t forget the importance of a fantastic customer experience!
The thing about the customer service experience is that it is not static. As the world changes and other businesses adapt, you must change as well in order to provide the best service possible every time.
Happy customers mean better sales, and less positively, the reverse is also true. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brick-and-mortar, online, or hybrid business: if the customer isn’t happy, there will be no success.
What do we mean by “customer experience”?
Every point of contact between your business and your customers is part of this experience. It all has an impact on profits: in fact, CEOs often rate customer experience as higher than any other factor in gaining a competitive lead.
It not only gets customers in the door – it makes sure they keep coming back over again.
What can a negative experience do to a business?
Many customers who experience poor customer service are known to avoid businesses for an average of two years. Unfortunately, our brains are also more likely to remember our bad experiences than we are our good ones!
It isn’t just the one customer, either; each customer has a network effect of nine to fifteen people on average. Even more, if they are prolific on social media! A single bad experience can damage your customer base substantially.
Four tips to improve the customer experience
Feedback is gold
- If you want to know what your customers are thinking, all you need to do is ask!
- Use feedback surveys to keep your finger on your customer experience pulse.
- Technology means you can get survey results within minutes, especially if your business is online.
- All this data can help you organize the best possible experience for your customers.
- Know your scores:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): Whether or not customers are likely to promote you to friends.
- Overall Satisfaction Metric (OSAT): How customers feel about your business
- Keep questions short and relevant.
- Upgrade from paper to digital to save hours for both you and your customers.
24Stack’s survey tool can save both enterprises and surveyors time. Advanced features make it easy to build and distribute surveys in just minutes.
Make sure to use your branding when making feedback forms both in-store and online.
- Communication is vital
- Know the whole scope of your customer service experience – online, in-store, over the phone, through an app, and more.
- Make sure customers can always get help or answers to questions when they need them.
- Remember: 51% of customers want to connect on the first try – if they can’t, they are likely not to make the purchase at all!
- Make sure you have some form of 24-hour communication (usually digital).
- Thank customers by e-mail for purchases and list your contact details.
- Use feedback forms to find out how your customers wish to communicate.
- Utilize chatbots, social media, and apps for instant communication.
- The future is mobile
- Technology is more and more centered on mobile technology, and so are customers.
- 78% of customers use mobile devices to contact businesses – this rises to 90% of millennials and younger.
- Make sure to use as much mobile tech as possible:
- Websites
- Apps
- SMS
- Chatbots
- Social media
- And more!
- Keep auditing so you know when changes occur and how you can improve continuously.
- Use feedback to find out how they want to communicate.
- Make sure your surveys are mobile-friendly.
- Personalize your service
- Customers enjoy and expect personalized service more and more.
- Customer data is more simple to gather and sort than ever before.
- 52% of customers absolutely require personalized communication from businesses.
- Use names in your e-mails, from the subject line to the preview, and throughout the body text.
- Tailor content based on interest and patterns – the tech exists to help you with this!
- Personalize your e-mail campaigns to the right group of customers.
- Give birthday/anniversary/other important date discounts
Overall, your goal is to place your customers at the forefront and make sure
you’re thinking of them first and foremost. Use communication and technology to
get the best service and sales possible – for your customers and for your
business.
