10 strategies to improve your customer experience

There is one truth that is universal and is supported by everyone in the business: create a customer experience strategy to improve it. So let us ask you, why are some companies more successful than the rest? Why do some companies grow and grow?

Well, there is a trick involved. Do you want to know what it is? Get ready to be the most loved company in the whole world! Check out the secret tip:

"It's not about what you say, it's about how you're saying it!"

Such a simple but assiduous thing to implement. Companies with successfully implemented customer experience strategies achieve higher satisfaction, higher revenue, and lower customer churn. Research by American Express found that about 60% of customers wouldn't mind paying more for a better customer experience.

<<< 25 effective ways to improve the post-purchase experience >>>

Customers demand that every interaction is the best experience they have with any company, so how can your organization improve it? Here we bring you the most efficient customer experience strategies that can help your company reach the pinnacle of growth:

1. Have a clear vision of your customer experience

Before you create anything, you need to make sure what you want from the whole process. Having a clear vision of what you want to achieve is essential, as your customer is the most important stakeholder in your business. The easiest way is to have a vision statement that can guide you through the process of creating a strategy.

For example, Amazon, one of the world's leading tech retailers, and Jeff Bezos, its CEO, are known to be incredibly customer-obsessed. This is why every project or product on Amazon starts with a press release featuring customer quotes.

"The obsession with customer experience is the only long-term defensible competitive advantage," Bezos said. During each meeting, they reserve a seat for the customer, which is a way of saying that every meeting and discussion has to have customers in mind.

When your vision is clear, it is easier to operate and move things forward by driving the entire organization. Instill the emotion and ethics of having the highest standards for the client and expecting only the best from your employees, and you will be on your way to becoming a first-rate company.

2. Work backward

'Work backward' is 'the rule' in today's highly competitive business world. So what exactly is this rule?

'Working backward' starts with your customers. You try to find their needs and requirements and then find a dedicated solution which could be a feature, product, or service. As opposed to this, the conventional method starts with creating a product or service and then finding an audience for it.

The key motto is to make the customer feel "served" instead of being a scapegoat for the new products introduced. With such a method, your customer service, marketing, and sales strategies will be more of a solution that addresses the needs of customers.

3. Understand who your customers are

To improve the customer experience, you need to know who they are and what they like. You cannot blindly implement strategies one by one. You should do enough market research to find out who they are and identify buying behaviors and trends. An efficient market research platform will help you reach the right customers.

Creating customers can also help you. You give each person a name and a personality. Like, Anna is 30 years; she likes technology, while Alex is 32 years old and needs to follow instructions on a web page. By doing this, your customer support team can easily identify who they are and better understand them. It is an important step to becoming a real customer.

Do you think how often you conduct surveys to your customers? If it's not frequent enough, it's about time you spent time collecting your customers' thoughts.

4. Collect customer feedback at regular intervals

Some of the world's greatest minds have emphasized the importance of 'asking' when it comes to relationships, life, and business. The same applies to your relationship with customers.

Suppose you have been dealing with a customer for quite some time, but have not received any feedback from them. Here are some of the things you could be missing out on:

• Know what they think about your product.
• Be aware of whether they face difficulties during any part of the buying cycle.
• Know the possibility that they will choose a new supplier due to certain difficulties that you never realized because you did not ask for comments.

There are so many feedback mechanisms available that need to be employed at different customer touchpoints. Ask for feedback from your customers during each stage of the interaction. People will often give you good grades unless you do something wrong. There are many ways to get feedback from your customers, whether it's through emails, cold calls, surveys, and more.

Surveys are an important part of understanding the minds of your customers. After creating your survey, you can send it to the email list or share it on multiple platforms. You can add and remove features and make many adjustments to your products based on validated data from the surveys your customers complete.

5. Create an emotional connection with your customers

Research says that a customer's decision to buy from this or that brand is based on how emotionally connected they are to it.

Every customer wants to be treated with priority. They want to see that their opinion matters. Simple touches like greetings on anniversary or birthday discounts could do the trick. Customers who are emotionally connected to the brand don't care about the other options available and are more open to buying newly launched products than new customers.

An experience depends heavily on emotions, and these shape the attitude that influences decision making. Customers become loyal because they are emotionally attached to the product or service. And they are more likely to recommend your product or service at least three times, according to a Harvard business study.

6. Educate your customers

Another area where many companies fail is when they assume that customers know everything about their products, the features that come with them, etc. You couldn't be more wrong! Customers should be informed about what you offer and how they can use your products or services, even after they buy something. Also, educating your customers makes them trust you, your brand, the services, and products you sell, etc.

One of the best ways to get positive attention is to give away knowledge for free. This is one of the most popular methods used by marketers around the world where they gain the trust of their target market by offering free knowledge, after which they offer their premium services at a cost. When you become a trusted source of information, most people looking for the service you offer will come to you.

7. Encourage customers to share

Your customers are your best brand ambassadors, so always find a way to encourage them to share their experiences with their friends and family. Customers love being the first to learn about a product or service and then introduce it to the people in their lives.

Keep track of your habitual customers, and then notify them when discount sales are starting or invite them to try out a new addition to your product line. This is an excellent strategy to increase customer loyalty and turn them into ambassadors for your brand.

8. Convenience of service and purchase

Customers these days are highly empowered to discover information about your products, services, and every detail about the company. You must ensure that all service windows are readily available as an option to all customers.

In this day and age where chatbots have almost replaced a layer of communication, you're missing out on a lot of goodwill if you still take two days to respond to a customer's email. Give your customers the ability to get all the information they want without having to contact the company.

Allow customers to shop the way they want, this could include being able to find you through any platform, being able to make payments using a variety of options, and introducing any type of convenience according to their whims and fancies.

9. Omnichannel approach

While you may want to innovate when it comes to different channels, make sure the experience is consistent across platforms. Use customer satisfaction tools to measure how they feel at every touchpoint. It's essential that you provide high-quality customer service across all channels, as a bad experience can lead them to seek out other businesses.

If you want to have an omnichannel approach as an important part of the customer experience, you need to consult with all stakeholders to discuss what you want the customer experience to look like across all channels.

The point is that the experience your customers have with you should keep them coming back to you again and again.

10. Stop imitating and start innovating

Unfortunately, when it comes to providing a great customer experience, most companies are happy to simply keep up with the competition. Although it might help you to some extent, this bores customers.

Only the names of the innovators and pioneers are admired and appreciated, not all those who jumped on the same bandwagon and tried to enjoy the leftover cheers.

Innovate your way and offer compelling ways for customers to experience a fascination with you. TD Bank's "TD Thank You Account" campaign, where they surprised their customers at ATMs, in branches, and also over the phone with personalized messages and surprise gifts is one example. AT&T celebrated reaching 2 million Facebook fans by creating over 2,000 personalized videos, thanking them is another example.

<<< Full guide: how to create a customer onboarding process >>>

The need to create a customer experience strategy is to increase customer satisfaction and it has never been higher. Customers are highly skilled these days and they only want the best for themselves, especially given the fact that there are so many companies that will bid on them. Always keep in mind that this is an ongoing process. You need to make sure there is a long-term plan associated with all the changes you intend to make as part of this.

<<< Top 10 NPS best practices to make visible in 2020 >>>