Customer Experience (CX): The difference between customers loving or loathing a brand
by Mariana Lopez
What will define a company’s success in the new decade?
It’s not just a matter of state of the art technology, being the first to market, nor flawless teamwork. They all hold considerable sway, but they’re insufficient by themselves. There is a need for more and users are constantly asking for something that can make them feel special.
Today, no matter if you’re a B2C or B2B, your strategies need to be thrusted by the true game changer: the customer experience (CX).
This is so for various reasons. According to one research study by Dimension Data, 84% of companies that worked to improve their CX saw an improvement in their revenue. Yet according to that same study, only 1 out of 10 businesses offer an optimized CX strategy. It’s a missed opportunity!
We’re not reinventing the wheel with this topic. We can track this term back to 1999 when in an interview Jeff Bezzos spoke about making everything he envisioned for Amazon “obsessed” with an end-to-end customer experience.
It’s that “obsession” for the customer experience that will mark the difference between keeping your customers or watching them leave you for someone else.
Defining customer experience (CX)
The term gets thrown around a lot. But what does “customer experience” even mean?
Essentially, CX is the sum strategies your company develops to obtain the result of your customers loving (or loathing) your business because you met, exceeded, or underwhelmed their expectations. Moreover, CX encompasses everything. From your website, to your product or service itself, to email and phone interactions customers have with your staff.
For example, some coffee shops seek to offer a great customer experience through friendly baristas. They also invite their customers to personalize their order. And while someone waits for their beverage, they can check their email using the shop’s Wifi.
The final impression with which that person leaves the shop, coffee in hand, is the customer experience. And all those details from start to end of the process, to make the user happy whilst using your service or product will leverage the CX.
Where to start building a better CX: Customers are people
Ask yourself, is your company treating its customers as living, breathing and unique human beings? Or are they just another number in your accounting books?
Be honest, because what differentiates great CX from a lousy one starts with a human-centered approach.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a B2B and your customers are companies. Remember that behind every business there are people.
Here are just a few pointers to rekindle your relationship with your customers via CX.
Identify customer needs
Knowing who your customers are is a core part of the customer experience. When you understand them, you can start building better strategies as well as offer better products and services. But more importantly you can connect at an emotional level with them.
And you don’t necessarily need a degree in psychology to comprehend your customers.
Thankfully, it can be done through customer research, via feedback from your team, or, our favorite, hand in hand with the users themselves.
Surveys are a common approach to get a feel of what a customer or potential customer’s needs are. If you are asking others to voluntarily complete one, they should be brief and concise. Most of us don’t enjoy filling them out now do we?
Meanwhile, your customer service team is your frontline contact with your users. They are the primary recipients of praise and complaints. Talk to them often and make a note of their feedback. They may have insights on how to improve your product or other unexplored opportunity areas.
Then there’s direct contact and cooperation. Because like in any relationship, good communication is crucial.
Start by putting yourself in the user’s place and trying your own products and services. Talk to talk with your customers, you’d be surprised by what you might learn. If you’re a B2B, take it to the next level: roll up your sleeves and work side by side with them.
These are simple gestures, but they show you care and customers will more likely love you for it.
Staying human in an era of technology
Every day we’re spending more time using digital tools. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have more meaningful connections. Businesses and technologies with a human-centered approach can not only increase the customer experience, but the human experience as well.
Let’s look at just a few ways you can achieve this:
I feel you (empathize)
Identifying your market is just the tip of the iceberg.
The real work begins when you put yourself in the shoes of your customers and users. What makes them tick on the job and off it? Through empathy, you can identify their needs and build a real connection.
Even when you’re in B2B, you’ll find that the customers accounting team’s pain points aren’t the same as those of the operations team, for example. And by going further, you’ll find that the people working in each of these areas have even more specific needs.
This calls for a design and product development team that can empathize and entice each end-user to create solutions that satisfy those various needs.
Look for emotions
We fancy ourselves rational human beings. But studies have shown that emotions play a central role in decision-making processes.
As a result, you’re more likely to remember a brand that made you feel great by sending you a personalized birthday card when the date rolls around. Just the same, you’re more likely to cringe in disgust when you recall the time customer service had you waiting on the phone.
Highly positive and negative emotions are memorable. Consequently, we may recur to one brand, even if it’s pricier, because it makes us feel good. Or out of spite towards its competitor.
If you want your business to stay imprinted favorably in the memory of a user, you have to appeal to those positive emotions.
Customer experience-based culture
The members of your customer service team aren’t the only ones who have to be CX savvy. You must build a customer-centered culture throughout your entire business. From the production team, to marketing and accounting — they should all be focused on finding ways to make your customers feel special.
To do so, make the customer experience a part of your company values, and ensure they’re visible for everyone to see. It’s also a good to hold cross-team meetings to discuss recurring issues with customers or strategies on how to best approach them.
And of course leadership, from the C-suite to managers and supervisors, must be fully-on board with offering an enhanced customer experience. Especially since they’re the ones who set the tone for the rest of your staff.
Human experience starts at home
A must-have for customer satisfaction is ensuring your team also has a great work experience. Just as you need to understand what’s going on externally with your business, it’s just as important to know what’s going on at home.
First and foremost, grasp what motivates your staff. Anyone in a position of leadership should seek to connect with their team to comprehend what their personal and professional goals are. From there they should see how those goals can be meshed with the company’s.
Your team also wants a meaningful job experience. So it’s up to you to show them that what they do makes a real impact. Demonstrate that they’re a valued member of the team because of the talent they bring to your table.
If your team is happy through fair wages, benefits, perks, etc., they’re more likely to strive to make your customers happy.
UX the herald of CX
And of course, your product should offer a fantastic user experience (UX).
Not to be confused with the customer experience, mind you. CX is the customer’s perception of everything related to your business. While UX refers to how your users interact with your product. UX is a big part of CX, especially when it comes to digital solutions.
Question is, what makes for good UX? For now, we’ll briefly cover 2 fundamentals: first, making your product intuitive, and second, offering personalized, flexible options.
Intuitive and simple as possible
Shape your product based on a customer’s context and expectations. They will serve as your guide as to how they’ll perceive and naturally interact with your solution.
Yes, we have an option for you
The ruling principle here is, your product should adapt to your customer and not the other way around. Consequently, curate your product so that the user can save their settings or customize as they see fit. Likewise make it compatible with other software or programs.
In a nutshell…
Whew! You made it! Here’s a recap of what we covered:
● Customer experience (CX) refers to the final impression a person has after interacting at any point with your business.
● Deploy strategies like surveys or direct observation to understand your customer’s needs so you may tender to them.
● Empathize and connect emotionally with your customer.
● Nurture a company culture that values the customer experience.
● Offer a positive work experience for your internal staff. That will motivate them to be better ambassadors for your brand externally.
● Great CX is marked by an intuitive and flexible user experience (UX).
The customer experience will prove to play a key role in making your customers fall in love with your brand.
Question is, will you pull out all the stops to show them that you’re “the one”?
