The All-Important Customer Experience (CX)

With improvements in technology, customers have more choices than at any time in human history. It is no longer necessary for people to buy what they need at the local shopping mall or big box stores; instead, anyone can jump on the Internet, compare prices and quality, and make purchases from all over the world.

Given this paradigm shift in global accessibility, creating an excellent customer experience is key to the survival of business. However, creating a positive customer experience that keeps consumers returning time and again can be a daunting and ever-changing effort.

What is CX?

Customer experience (CX) is defined as the perception that customers have at every touch point with your company. Consumers demand more than just the ability to purchase products and services; they want to enjoy the experience, feel good about making purchases from your business, and receive fast and quality service.

The customer experience is greater than just the look and feel of your online store or the quality of your customer service. Instead, you must deliver a quality experience every time a consumer interacts with your business. The ideal customer experience creates positive sentiment about your business, employees, online store or portal, channels, products, and customer service.

Why is CX Important?

Customers tend to be fickle; they expect and demand storefronts that are lightning-fast plus are easy to navigate. On those occasions when they must deal with customer support, they want to feel like they are being serviced by people who care and who can solve their problem quickly and efficiently. Customer expectations are that organizations should be responsive. They want to be delighted by responses to their social media postings and other online interactions.

Customer experience begins the moment that they first become aware of your brand or product and lasts for as long as they interact with your business. They might notice your product while walking down the grocery aisle or become aware of your storefront while searching on Google. They could even visit your stores (on or off-line) based on positive reviews on social media, but their experience is personal.

This is your opportunity to ensure that every touch point with your brand, product, channel, or business provides a positive and valuable experience for your customers. Negative experiences push away customers, who then quickly locate a competitor that will fulfill their needs more effectively.

When is CX Needed?

The purpose of providing a positive customer experience throughout the customer journey is to improve customer engagement. When customers are engaged, they feel emotionally connected to your brand and become loyal to your company. Trader Joe’s is a great example of a company that provides such an excellent customer experience that many people will drive hundreds of miles to make purchases because a store is not available in their local area.

Providing an excellent customer experience is not optional because there are always alternatives, many of which are available with the click of a mouse button or a simple search on Google. It’s important to note, however, that this can be a moving target because of continuous changes in demographics, markets, consumer expectations, competition, and even disasters such as the pandemic.

Ensuring your business delivers a positive customer experience throughout the customer journey is a never-ending task. Plan on getting customer feedback, understanding churn, analyzing support tickets, and using data analytics to locate experiences that can be optimized.

Defining CX Strategy

Customer experiences are the sum of all interactions the consumer has with your business. You must define and implement actionable plans to deliver and maintain positive experiences so that customers will engage with your business.

To define a CX strategy, begin by reviewing your current approach to customer service. Look at what’s working well for the business and what needs to be improved. Use feedback from customers and data analytics to get the information you need.

Aim your strategy at solving problems for the customer, which means you must understand their needs and motivations. Understand that there will be problems and inefficiencies; build in feedback loops (customer surveys and data analytics) to tell you what is happening so you can correct it.

Leading a CX Team

A good CX leader must be able to become the voice of the customer and then foster the desire in every employee to design the best experiences possible. Their role is to champion the organization's understanding of the customer experience so everyone can help figure out how to improve the customer journey.

From there, use strategic planning to address those areas of the customer journey that will cause the largest return on investment. Determine what resources are needed to make changes and then understand how the effect of those changes can be measured. The result is a roadmap that the business can follow to build a great CX.

Ensure that your team regularly gets feedback from customers, data analytics, and other means so that the customer experiences are constantly improved. Manage the changes and be ready to adapt as conditions vary.

CX Solutioning Approach

Once you understand the objectives of your customer experience improvement program, you’re ready to define potential solutions. It’s important not to choose solutions until you come to this understanding because you want to find the right tools to address the areas that you pinpointed.

Map out your customer experience journey so that you understand every step taken by your customers. These maps measure time versus their emotional response and highlights the areas where you need to improve and innovate.

Perform research to pinpoint what needs to be optimized or corrected. Create customer journey maps to help you understand how the customer feels during their experience. Use brainstorming sessions involving people from all departments to come up with a multitude of solutions. Validate and implement the solutions.

CX Tools and Assessment

Remember, begin with understanding your customer and the experiences that your business currently delivers to them. You can use tools such as customer journey maps that will help you gather and understand their perceptions as they go through the journey.

A tool such as a Voice-Of-The-Customer program can help you gather, analyze, act on, and monitor customer insights. You may also implement research programs to better understand your customers and analyze their engagement and loyalty.

MyCxAssessent.Com contains several tools to help you define and refine your customer experiences.

An Example CX

Microsoft partnered with B2B companies in the early 2000s to define the best practices for new products. They democratized access to their technology, and empowered businesses and teams with the technologies that they needed. They also invested heavily in their presence on social media, with different twitter accounts reserved for separate themes. In the social media accounts, customers can get help or engage with whatever resource they need.

Useful Links

·       Defining CX and customer engagement

·       What is a CX?

·       Five Skills for CX Leaders

·       Deloitte Digital CX Operating Model

·       What do you want your CX to be?

·       Develop the Ideal CX

·       Seven Great CX Examples

Conclusion

It is important to understand that the quality of the customer experience determines the success of a business. Great experiences along the entire customer journey will create brand loyalty, which results in higher profits and return visits. Conversely, poor customer experiences will degrade consumer loyalty, reduce profits, and even threaten the competitiveness and market position of a business. Customer experience is not a departmental function but a core value and ethos for business success.