The customer experience (CX), is critical for businesses. CX is your customers’ holistic perception of the experience with your business or brand. Customer experience is an accumulation of every interaction and touchpoint a brand has with your business, so having a great customer experience is key to success. Use GROWL’s six steps to redefine your customer experience strategy.
1 Employee experience is customer experience
When assessing your strategy, start by looking at every touchpoint. From the employee experience (EX) to the first purchase point, look at your strengths and areas of opportunity. Employee experience is what customers encounter and observe at every touchpoint. How a brand treats its team internally defines the customer perception externally. Customers will notice if your internal brand culture doesn’t match your brand personality. When considering your CX strategy, remember that EX fuels it.
2 Reassess your customer experience strategy
After looking inward, start looking outward. As a brand, reviving your customer experience strategy starts with assessing your customers’ needs and expectations. Always meet your audience where they are at, meaning, don’t make them search you out. Through this process, keep connections (virtual or physical) at the forefront of communication. By listening to customers, your brand can build relationships to help establish brand authenticity.
3 Personalization and reward loyalty
Leveraging consumer insights and data to inform your brand strategy is critical when it comes to the customer experience strategy. At this step, assess consumer behavior through the lenses of a situation analysis. Consider industry environments, government trends, economic status, and other impactful national (or global) occurrences. By listening to your audience and focusing on their changing needs, brands can be emotionally aware and enhance personalization, communication, and loyalty. Try finding ways to personalize every experience at every customer stage and reward loyalty.
4 Expand services
As consumers and their needs change, brands must update offerings and adapt. Listening to customers doesn’t only help enhance loyalty. As previously mentioned, listening helps brands expand service offerings. Understand what customers are looking for, how you can improve the experience, and discover ways to make the sales/services process easier for prospects. This includes investing in technology innovations for your online marketplace or digital chatrooms using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to answer consumers’ questions. When instituting tech solutions, keep in mind that consumers still want the option to speak to a human.
5 Purchase convenience
One often overlooked step of the customer experience is the purchasing procedure. Larger brands have the opportunity to develop technology that makes the purchasing process a breeze. If you aren’t Amazon and don’t have the resources to implement one-click purchasing options, you can still make the process convenient. Start by making sure your platform is compatible with common mobile payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Pay-Pal. This will streamline purchasing and help consumers follow through with your business. Many businesses are making buying necessities, like food, more accessible than ever. Grocery stores and restaurants have started to include delivery and curbside pickup for consumers, and some retailers now have the option for shoppers to select items and reserve a dressing room before even entering the store.
6 Always adapt your customer experience
Moving forward, many consumers will want the convenience of online shopping and delivery to continue. Make sure your business strategy continues to reflect the wants and needs of the consumer. Continue to communicate with your audience clearly and efficiently. Be flexible with the channels of communication, and always meet your target audience where they are, whether that is through social media or direct mailers.
Customer experience is rooted much more profound than merely the purchase process. It involves every touchpoint, purchasing convenience, communication, and connection. When reevaluating your CX strategy, remember to spark change at the center, as employee experience directly impacts the customer experience. When the two are integrated, your brand can build long-term customer relationships.
Looking to redefine your customer experience strategy? Contact the GROWL Team today!