Just customer care? No! It is customer experience that matters

Customer experience is about how customers perceive their interaction with your business each time they come in contact with your brand. It is about how they consciously and subconsciously feel about their experience with each of your various touchpoints as they go through the customer journey. This perception has a great influence in their behavior, driving them to become your loyal customers, which translates into better return on investment.

Customer experience is key to the success of your business. Studies have shown that customers opt for superior customer experience over low prices or high quality products. That is why it is crucial to shape a customer-centric strategy that improves your whole processes, whether in-store, out-of-store, online, direct or indirect. Customer experience should be at the core of all the components of your organization, be it products, services, processes, or employees. You have to make sure that your customers are completely satisfied with each of these components in order to differentiate yourself amongst the fierce competition and to stand out.

A good customer experience is directly linked to your customers’ willingness to be loyal fans to your brand, make new purchases, and spread good word-of-mouth about your brand, which draws in more potential customers to your business. It’s as simple as that.

Let us have a look at some of the main reasons why customer experience has become so important for businesses today.

Happy Customers

For a lasting retention of customers and easy acquisition of new ones, you need to make sure that your customers are always happy with your service, whatever touchpoint they reach you through.  Therefore you need to create a favorable customer experience across all your touchpoints and channels to make sure that a positive experience is delivered to your customers through the whole customer journey, ensuring that they stick to your brand. Statistics have shown that most revenues come from repeat customers. Offering a valuable and unique customer experience to your customers that far exceeds their expectations is a guaranteed way to build permanent customer loyalty.

Differentiation

In a world that is crowded with competitors, differentiating your business is a must. Offering your customers a personalized and exceptional customer experience gives you that sustainable competitive advantage you are looking for.

Maximized return on investment

Nowadays customers are giving more and more attention to customer experience. They are willing to pay more in order to get a better service, which manifests in more gains.

Better churn management

With the vast alternatives available, it is crucial to offer your customers a memorable customer experience that prevents from customer churn to competitors. A good customer churn management policy leads to customer retention and growth.

Word-of-mouth marketing

Whenever people want to try a new brand, they often seek recommendations and referrals from relatives and friends. They might even read online reviews about your business in order to make an enlightened decision. This is where the role of word-of-mouth advertising comes. Your current customers are free of charge and valuable advertisers for your business. Word of mouth marketing is a powerful tool which you should utilize to your advantage.

Personally, I have experienced both extremes and I can confess that Business Continuity is greatly determined by the impression a business leaves on the customers.

Customer satisfaction and experience starts well before the sale. Time to review and restructure is now.