The Customer Experience Battlefield
Customer Experience is the new place to show your difference!
89% of companies say, Customer Experience is the new competitive battlefield, and that’s not a battle you want to lose!
It’s never been about technology and which platform(s) you are on.
It’s about your customers and their feelings, it’s about psychology.
Customer Experience isn’t just carried out once you have the customer, it’s there from the first step of their journey with you.
What is CX, Customer Experience?
Customer Experience is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioural consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. (Taken from Wikipedia)
Which means, every touch point your customers (potential, new and current) encounter need to take into account your customers feelings, thoughts, understanding and acceptance of your brand and how they interact with you.
If you want more engagement, you need to create content that sparks engagement.
To get more shares, you must create content, experiences, products and services that are shareable.
For more comments, you should start a conversation.
Creating an experience isn’t just about creating content but getting the reader to do something because of what they have read, watched, listened to and consumed.
To sustain your business growth and have loyal customers, creating a customer experience help you keep clients for longer and encourages brand ambassadors and love.
How do you create a Customer Experience?
Answer these questions to create an amazing customer experience for your audience;
- Create a Customer Experience Vision (C.E.V) – What does it look like to work with you? How can you see your customers coming into your world? What needs to happen? What skills do you need to learn? What needs to change or be amended?
- Understand who your people are and what they want from collaborating with you – Knowing everything about your people is important when it comes to customer journey. Understanding their feelings, beliefs, whims, thoughts, decisions, fears and more, equips you you speak to them in their language.
- How do your people discover you? – Ask yourself, how did your last 3 clients find you? Were they recommended, was it LinkedIn or did they come to an event you ran? How do they discover you and what are they actually looking for?
- Spark an emotional connection – When you get a new client, I’m sure you create an emotional connection with them by asking questions and wanting to learn about the problem you are here to solve. Get to know them, listen (without wanting to answer but to hear what they have to say) and be interested in them, as they are in you!
- What is the best way to engage with them? – How do you engage with your clients? Do you speak regularly, find out how they are and what they are up to? Do you keep a log of this information?
- Capture customer feedback before, during and after their time with you – Do you survey your customers and check in with them? Ask them how they are getting on or what more they need from you (if anything). Gathering feedback enables you to not only be attentive but be able to anticipate their next move. Being able to answer the questions they have in their head before they know they have the question.
- Can you improve upon your delivery of your product/service? – When was the last time you updated your system or processes of taking on new clients? Is it in your head or written down? How do you know if it has been improved? What are you measuring against?
Next Steps…
Customer experience (like marketing) is an area that needs constant nurturing and care.
Review these questions every 6 months to see how your customer loyalty has improved as well as the retention or recommendations and income.
With a greater focus from you on your customer experience strategy, you will see a positive impact on your customer loyalty, higher retention rates and an increased revenue growth!
Because of what you are about to create, they (your customers; potential, new and current) will want to share you and not keep you for themselves.
