Customer experience, in simple language, is a measure of how satisfied customers are whenever they engage with your products or services on whichever channel they find themselves on. Research suggests that a business with a top-notch customer experience stands a higher chance of growing consistently year after year as compared to those with a poor customer experience strategy.
Why is customer experience important for your brand’s success?
Customers pass through several touchpoints when interacting with brands. There are so many of these before, during, and after purchase, and they are equally important. At any touchpoint, a single bad experience can derail all your efforts to deliver a great customer experience (CX). While brands make sure they provide a good customer experience to their clients, they miss a few touchpoints or must-dos.
With this blog, we will look at why CX has to be the topmost priority for your business. It needs to be the brand’s key goal so that all functions and employees can align their goals accordingly. In this post, we look at 7 key reasons why customer experience is important for any business.
Increasing revenue
As we have already established, a satisfied customer will keep coming back for more of your products and services. Research shows that loyal customers contribute to a 300 percent revenue increase over a period of three years. These numbers are too compelling for any serious businessperson to ignore, particularly bearing in mind that improving customer experience is a simple thing to do. A simple act of taking feedback from clients and then using them to improve your services is all you need to satisfy the customer. It is more about showing a genuine effort of going a step further in order to solve the customer’s problem.
Delivering exceptional customer experiences ensures you high customer loyalty and customer retention. The higher the customer loyalty, the more purchases they will make from you. Not only that, but loyal customers also help in spreading positive word of mouth for your brand and providing new customers through referrals. All these significantly impact your organisation’s business revenue positively. And what company doesn’t want to improve its financial performance?
Your competitors are keen on poaching your loyal customers
It doesn’t matter how long you have been with a given loyal customer, he or she will be tempted to leave for a better deal elsewhere. Unfortunately, your competitors know that loyal customers form the backbone of your entire business, and if that backbone is destabilised, your business will come crumbling down. You, too, must be breathing on your competitor’s neck if you want to win some of their loyal customers over to your side. How, then, do you safeguard your customers from the poachers and how do you successfully poach customers from competitors? It is only through having the best customer experience.
Great CX = engaged employees
An engaged staff is an asset to any organisation. They are loyal, great team players, dedicated, and align themselves with company goals. CX and employee experience (EX) are inextricably linked. Highly engaged employees positively influence the customer experience. They proactively look to find new ways and realise them to deliver exceptional customer experience.
It is the genesis of brand advocacy and community marketing
Brand advocacy is a case where satisfied customers talk to different social media platforms to praise a business, its customer services, and the quality of its services and products. Others use the word of mouth to campaign for a brand to their peers and family members. That is a very effective campaign strategy for any business. The opposite of this is where dissatisfied customers spread negative reviews about a company and its products to the extent that many prospective customers opt to shop elsewhere.
In either of the two scenarios above, the common denominator is customer experience. And with the increasing internet usage across the world, social standing and age notwithstanding, you cannot downplay the significance of good reviews online. They lead to increased shares and engagement around your social media content, as well as online traffic to your website. This is how your website gets good rankings on Google and other search engines. Good SEO ranking is one of the most effective strategies to acquire customers online.
Putting a human face to your business
Gone are the days when you could run your business behind the curtains and only come out to distribute the final product to the customers. Today, clients want to interact with your business at a personal level, each step of the way. If you share backstage information with customers as well as give them a glimpse of the personal lives of staff members, you create a unique rapport with those customers. Humanising your business is key to its future growth.
Makes you a better company
Brands that build their strategies and initiatives around great CX are companies that do well and innovate constantly. Such brands are great incubators of ideas, marketing campaigns, and initiatives and are better companies. They focus on customer pain points, look to resolve them actively, and do so with the easiest and most effective solutions. These needn’t always be big solutions that require large sums of money.
When customer delight and CX become part of your culture, you start reaching new heights. You start to innovate ideas and products to elevate your customer experience. You outperform your competitors and set new industry benchmarks. Blend is an excellent friend to have in tracking, measuring, and managing your brand’s CX initiatives. Why don’t you book a call with us to see them in action?
