With the fast development of technology and the introduction of new technical gadgets, the workforce is changing day by day, and the businesses must be prepared and well equipped to match with the rapidly changing business world. Although the digitalization of services replaces every manual work process, the process of delivering an excellent Customer Experience (CX) will always be there as a significant element of success required by the competitive businesses’ organizations.
According to a survey, 92% of the customers believe verbal recommendations of their known people rather than believing an advertisement wholeheartedly. The new and advanced technology options like social media and review sites allow the business brands to utilize these types of recommendations and reviews of satisfied customers as trustable credentials to attract new customers.
What is the customer experience?
Customer experience or CX is the communication and exchange taken place between a customer and a business organization throughout their business. These communication and exchange may include innovation, promotion, support, discovery, advocacy, service, purchase, awareness, etc. Customer Experience is very much essential for Customer Relationship Management ( CRM) as a customer with a positive experience can become a loyal customer of a business brand or organization. The longer the customers are happy and satisfied with a business brand, the longer they will be a loyal and repetitive customer to the business brand. On the other hand, if the customers are poorly treated by the business brand or are not given enough attention and support, the customers will leave as soon as possible. This is the reason the business brands provide better-quality customer service.
How is customer experience different from customer service?
Customer service, in general, is the formal interaction of a customer with an employee of a business brand over telephonic conversation or visit at the store. However, customer experience is the impression the customer has even after the formal introduction or the delivery of the required product or service. For example, if a customer receives good behavior while interacting with an employee of a tourism company while booking a tour package, it is excellent customer service. However, when the customer gets the tickets early, gets a better room than what was promised, and receives personalized services instead of general services, it generates an excellent customer experience. With the help of the advanced technology, nowadays customer service is not just the interaction between two persons, with the help of software’s like CRM, a customer’s previous purchase history can be traced and analyzing that, a company can assume his future needs while providing a service at present. So, the company can send him emails, texts and other forms of advertisements related to those requirements. It makes the customer surprised and happy, and he becomes loyal and constant to the company.
Steps to Improve Customer Experience:
If a business provider follows the steps described below, it can become successful in improving customer satisfaction and increased revenues.
Reachability: Reachability does not refer to the physical stores only; it includes the social media where the modern-day tech-savvy customers spend a significant amount of time. With the help of the social media account, the customers can easily reach to the services of the business brand.
Fixing problems: The business providers have to be very aware of the response to their newly launched products, and they need to perform continuous monitoring over the performance of the products. They need to find and fix any problem that the outcome might have before a customer finds it and experience dissatisfaction.
Do not harass users: Although email is a powerful medium to reach more customers and sell a product, a business provider should not send a bunch of emails frequently to the users. It might annoy them, and they may decide to unfollow the business provider. Some in-app-message services can be used as they are more relevant and useful than email marketing.
Personalization: The pizza brand ‘Toppers’ allows its customers to customize the drawings on the pizza boxes and adding a personalized message. By doing so, Toppers make the customers feel that their decisions and inputs are appreciated and accepted by the brand. It ensures a special bond between the customers and Toppers. Customers like to see their idea featured on the reputed brands.
Giving away free stuff: Everyone loves to get something which costs nothing, and this is a great strategy to enhance the customer experience. Personalized gifts, bonus, coupons, etc. deepens the relationship between a company and its customers and the satisfied customers become frequent purchasers.
Making people famous: If a company uses its customers’ photo and identity (with their permission) in its website, social media, blogs, etc. to tell their satisfactory words, those customers may feel themselves as similar to the brand ambassadors who will enhance the customer experience. The other customers will also recognize the company as a customer-focused one.
Remembering previous purchase: During a customer’s revisit a company website, if he sees his last purchase items as recommended items, it will make him remember his past interactions with the company. It will make the customer feel valued and appreciated by the company.
Final words
We can conclude to the thought that to enhance the relation and bond between the customers and the business brands, customer service plays a vital role. Customer experience is a sort of commitments that a company makes to understand its positive impact on the daily lives of its customers. By following the effective strategies of enhancing customer experience, a business can maximize benefits, boost up, and most importantly, grab new customers while making the existing ones loyal and regular customers.