How To Improve Customer Experience

By Hazel Burgess on 01.12.19   /   Small Business   /   Leave a comment

You have probably heard the term “customer experience”, but do you really know what that experience is? Well, customer experience is the perception that a customer has about your brand, product or service. You may think your brand or customer experience is one thing. But, if the customer perceives it to be different, then that is what customer experience is.

For example: you think your products and services are the best in the world. Unfortunately, if a customer receives a faulty product or service, then their perception towards you and your organization changes. This becomes a real thing.

Thus, creating a good customer experience strategy is one of the most important things to do for your company. By improving the customer experience (CX), you are improving your company’s revenues. The CX index can be used as a measurement to qualify things such as sales, loyalty, and service quality.

Improving Customer Experience

Consider a scenario where a company’s store and call center employees are least interested in the job at hand. The obvious result would be poor customer interactions which leads to a misconception among the customers. Your company would be perceived as not caring about its customers.

Conversely, suppose a company hires passionate people who are enthusiastic about the organization, it’s products and services. There will be smoother and better quality customer engagements. Customers will be highly satisfied and have a better perception of the company.

The customer is king. Oftentimes brands forget that a king must be treated with the utmost reverence. A company trying to reduce expenses is not a bad thing. However, when that reduction has a negative impacts on CX, you may want to revisit your goals.

Why Should An Organization Improve Its Customer Experience?

It’s quite simple actually. Businesses have identified that a good customer experience strategy has 3 short-term and long-term benefits:

  Improves customer retention
  Enhances customer satisfaction
  Increases cross-selling as well as up-selling

Catering to these reasons has a great impact on your company’s overall revenues. Implementing the best digital marketing strategies is great. But, directing the customers through your website, social media, and mail marketing still leaves room for improvements. Once people start recognizing your brand, their journey from then on determines how much monty they’re willing to spend with your company. And ultimately, contribute to your revenues.

How Revenue Can Be Increased by Focusing On Customer Experience

  Provide numerous customer support options

When does a customer approach a support representative? It happens when they have a problem, an issue, a complaint, or a problem. This indicates that the customer is not having a positive experience. They may have tried to solve it on their before contacting customer support. So, at this point, they are already frustrated.

Your company should be poised to address these issues. Setting support hours and days would be a start. But, this method isn’t workable for all customers. Some customers prefer a phone call or live chat. Some would like an email, and there are others who would want an automated response. Whatever your process is, it should be quick, effective, and user friendly.

Nobody wants to explain the situation to one representative, only to be put on hold and transferred to another department. And then, explain the whole situation for the second or third time.

It is wise to offer multiple support methods in an effort to accommodate as many customers as possible.

  Root out the problem areas

While customer complaints are not encouraging, they can be valuable. When a problem arise, try to investigate why it happened. And, instead of just solving it, correct it and prevent it from happening again. This approach will reduce the number of complaints as well as the cost to the company.

  Keep your website clean and simple

An efficient and smooth navigating website has higher conversation rates. Don’t clutter your website with too many buttons, colors, buttons, etc. Use medium to large size font to make it easy to read for the customers. Use good quality visuals and graphics. These will catch visitor’s attention and are retainer for longer periods. Draw the viewer’s attention to the call-to-action section.

  Optimize for local content

People usually include “near me” in their online searches. Over the years, searches have become more detailed and accurate. To make the most of it, clearly show your business name, contact number and address. Use schema markup in your website and setup your Google My Business listing correctly. Integrating Google Map with your listing is also a good idea for CX and to get better rankings.

  Fast loading website
This is not only for the home page. All pages in your website must load fast or else it will have far less conversions. The customer’s time is precious. They will not stick around if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load. And won’t bother to revisit it.

If your site is slow loading, it’s highly advisable to invest money in it to improve the speed. Not only is this beneficial short-term, but long-term for the investment you’ve made having it built.

  Make sure your website is mobile friendly
We’ve written numerous articles about having a mobile friendly website. But it bears repeating, because we occasionally still see standard website layouts on mobile devices. Today, most of the global web traffic comes from mobile users. Ensure that you give equal importance to all users. Be prepared to lose revenues if your site is not mobile optimized.

Wrapping It Up

Every single thing that a brand does, the products it sells, etc., all boils down to one thing – CX.

CX is the summation of how customers engage with and become involved in your company. It’s not just a specific span of time. It’s throughout the cycle of being a customer. Customer experience is very delicate. It tends to change with each interaction with your organization. Therefore, it’s crucial to maintain a strong CX throughout. It is one of the most priceless aspects of a brand. And managing that in all of its forms is the topmost priority. It should be the responsibility of every employee in the company.