As organizations around the globe accelerate their digital transformation, customer experience is a critical focus for today’s enterprises. Learn why the customer experience is so important and how to leverage the four pillars of CX success in your favor.
What is Customer Experience (CX)?
Customer experience, also known as CX, is the sum of all interactions a customer has with an organization across various touchpoints, such as voice, email, on social media, or in person.
Research shows that perfecting the customer experience is well worth an organization’s investment and attention. A great customer experience can result in improved customer retention and loyalty, deeper brand affinity, and creates opportunities to up-sell or cross-sell. In fact, companies that prioritize the customer experience generate 60% higher profits than those that don’t.
These customer experience statistics illustrate why:
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86% of customers say they would be willing to pay more for an exceptional customer experience.
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It takes 12 positive customer experiences to make up for 1 negative experience.
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A customer is 4 times more likely to turn to a competitor as a result of a service-related problem compared to a price- or product-related problem.
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62% of customers say they share their bad experiences with others. At the same time, 72% of customers will share their good experiences.
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Employees of organizations that excel at customer experience are 1.5 times more engaged than less customer-focused companies.
It’s clear that an exceptional customer experience is a point of competitive differentiation worth fighting for. But while many businesses think they are offering an exceptional experience, they may be surprised to find that their customers would disagree.
How can your enterprise close this “delivery gap” and start delivering the customer experience that your clientele expects? The answer lies in the four pillars of CX Success.
Four Pillars of a Successful Customer Experience
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Focus on the Customer
Every decision a business makes, whether it is client-facing or not, should take into account the customer and their experience. While strategies like workforce management (WFM) and workforce optimization (WFO) are meant to improve operations and a company’s bottom-line, they should ultimately enhance the customer experience. If these strategies are not properly implemented or integrated with existing processes, they’ll fall short on this objective.
To measure the success of newly implemented technologies, programs, and processes, businesses should always find ways to gather their customers’ feedback. Business leaders can sometimes focus too closely on the operations side of the organization, and lose sight of what the customer is experiencing. Leverage tools like CSAT scores, customer surveys, speech analytics, and sentiment analysis to truly understand how your customers feel.
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Understand the Full Customer Journey
Businesses house incredible amounts of information about their customers from purchase history to account information to previous interactions. But this information may not necessarily be easy to access or comprehend, especially if it is siloed in different departments or across disparate systems and communication channels.
To truly exceed expectations and enhance the customer experience, agents need a single view of their customers to understand their full journey. By integrating all client data across organization SaaS solutions, CRMs, and database management platforms, support teams can have a more adequate understanding of each customer and their unique needs.
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Operationalize the Journey
Gaining a holistic view of a customer is important, but virtually useless without a communications platform from which to act upon. Instituting an omnichannel customer care strategy that enables agents to utilize various communication channels (like voice, email, and chat) and access customer data from a single platform, is essential to operationalizing the customer journey. With immediate access to relevant client details the moment an interaction occurs, agents can more adequately respond to customer needs and inquiries with the most up-to-date information. -
Empower Every Individual Employee
Information and technology are essential to delivering great customer service, but if businesses are not giving their employees the tools and guidance they need, this will undoubtedly be a challenge. After all, the representatives answering phone calls, inquiries, and service requests are essentially the face of an organization. Enterprises can ensure reps are operating at their peak performance by adopting user-friendly technology, setting clear expectations, and offering actionable guidance backed by data.
WATCH: In this 3CLogic Fireside Chat, ServiceNow's Principal Customer Service Strategist for EMEA shares his views on the future of contact centers and their importance to delivering an exceptional customer experience.
Keep Your Customers Engaged With A Strong Experience At Every Touchpoint
The customers of today are prioritizing the customer experience above price point and product quality. To keep up, enterprise organizations need to do the same. By incorporating these four pillars into your customer experience management strategy, your business can attract and retain happy and loyal customers.
