What is customer experience?
Customer experience is how customers perceive their interactions with a business or brand holistically; this includes every touchpoint a customer has with that brand, from navigating a website to customer service to product or service delivery.
Anything that occurs, when customers are interacting with a business, is a win or a loss with respect to how that business may be perceived by customers, which, as a result, may influence their future purchases. Be it friendly support, seamless omnichannel communication, or something that speaks to personalization, CX should be a powerful force that drives organizations toward success.
Customer experience strategy
A customer experience strategy is a structured approach with which an organization ensures positive customer interactions at all customer touchpoints. This is aimed at strengthening customer relationships by analyzing customer needs, setting the pain points, and fixing them accordingly. A CX strategy is developed through cross-disciplinary collaboration among various departments to design a customer-centric organization.
How to build a customer experience strategy
Building an effective CX strategy includes the following steps:
1. Gain organizational buy-in
CX strategy cannot work in isolation; a cross-team buy-in is needed, which assures support from other teams apart from customers-facing teams. Getting advocacy throughout the company involves:
- Presenting data that proves the impact of customer experience transformation on business results. McKinsey & Company research shows that companies implementing CX initiatives see a 15–20% increase in sales conversions.
- Appoint CX champions internally who will drive customer-focused changes.
- Schedule meetings, training sessions, and webinars for employees to familiarize them with goals related to CX.
2. Understand your customer base
Once companies have a conceptual basis for providing great customer experiences, they must get to know their customers:
- Identify brand loyalists, and analyze their demographics, interests, and behaviors.
- Create customer personas based on similarities and pain points.
- Investigate additional customer segments that would benefit from your products or services.
3. Collect and analyze customer feedback
Insight about strengths and weaknesses in CX can be gained from customer feedback. Key methods include:
- Surveys (net promoter score, customer satisfaction score, etc.)
- Online reviews
- Focus groups and social listening
- Competitors’ analysis includes checking on the gap and opportunity they unveil.
4. Employee training and support
A successful CX strategy needs well-trained and supported employees. Important ways include:
- Continuing training for customer service personnel.
- Providing them access to useful tools, such as CRM platforms, for managing relationships with customers.
- Encouraging employees to engage or provide inputs in improving CX efforts.
5. Optimize the customer journey
Mapping the customer journey helps businesses identify ways to improve customer interactions along the journey:
- The contact: Improve brand awareness through marketing and social media.
- Interest: Provide valuable content and personalized engagement.
- Purchase: Ensure smooth transactions and efficient post-sale service.
- Experience: Provide quality post-purchase support.
- Loyalty: Build long-term relationships through rewards and personalized offers.
6. Fill CX gaps
- Once a business has identified certain areas for improvement, it can come up with pinpoint solutions:
- Less wait time: Use AI chatbots and self-service options.
- Better omnichannel support: Provide seamless communication through email, chat, phone, and social media.
- Improving the website experience: Speed up the site and improve navigation and mobile responsiveness.
7. Adopt customer-centric best practices
Best practices in CXs for businesses to embrace include:
- Personalize customer interactions.
- Be proactive and timely in addressing customer concerns.
- Offer transparency and clarity in communication.
- Continuously monitor and elevate the CX efforts.
Good to know: Large enterprises today leverage customer experience software such as Sprinklr to streamline interactions, analyze data, and enhance overall customer satisfaction.
Metrics to measure for customer experience performance
Key customer experience metrics that businesses monitor performance in CX include:
1. Customer Effort Score (CES)
It shows how easy or hard it is for customers to accomplish something (e.g., getting an issue solved or buying something). Surveys usually include: “How much effort did you have to make to get your issue resolved today?”
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Evaluates customer loyalty by asking, “How likely are you to recommend this business to a friend or colleague?” A high NPS indicates strong brand advocacy.
3. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Measures general satisfaction with a product, service, or interaction. Customers rate their satisfaction on a numeric scale (eg. 1-5 or 1-10).
4. Time to Resolution (TTR)
Refers to the time taken to resolve customer inquiries. Quicker resolution times can enhance customer satisfaction.
Continual monitoring of these metrics allows a business to define appropriate strategies that influence a variety of customer experiences, helping foster customer loyalty and even longer-term success.
Final thoughts
Customer experience is key to making or breaking a successful business. It affects customer retention, the brand image, and growth. A customer experience strategy essentially entails understanding who the customers are, collecting feedback, training employees, and optimizing all customer interaction points. Continual improvement of those customer experience efforts through the selection of some key metrics can help the business create an integral relationship with its customers to ensure long-term success amidst growing competition.