Customer experience, popularly known as CX, is your customers’ perception of their experience with your products and with your business. CX is the result of each tiny interaction in a customer’s journey, all the way from searching your website to getting an issue resolved, and receiving the product they bought from you. Customer experiences greatly impact your business growth, as CX helps creating brand ambassadors.
Now, defining a customer experience encompasses any impeccable interaction, online or offline, with your company that a customer or potential customer may have, and it encompasses the whole experience, starting from the first contact to the last sale.
It spans the lifetime of customers’ relationships with a brand, starting before a purchase is made, continuing to active use, and advancing to renewal or repeat purchase. Delivering an amazing customer experience also requires shaping your customers’ perception of your organization.
There are various factors that drive the customer experience. Here are some of the success factors for customer experience.
Customer Requirements
Different customers have different needs and constraints. Product/Service that meets those needs while conforming to the constraints delivers a good experience on requirements. Overshooting customer requirements is a typical practice for organizations, which enables them to serve various client groups with one product. If the constraints do not conflict, this is good.
Price
This is one of the success factors for customer experience, as it defines what value the customer can derive from the product. Wal-Mart shoppers prefer low prices because they deliver the right kind of shopping experience. In contrast, Neiman Marcus prices offer shoppers the right experience when they are shopping for high-end luxury items. As a result, this success factor varies by customer segment.
Accessibility
This is driven by the availability of your product/service when the customer needs it the most. Customers rely on your services for their needs, and not being available negatively impacts the customer experience. An example would be the availability of a mobile network when a customer wants to make a phone call. Likewise, customers can find e-commerce websites that offer the right products when they are shopping.
Product & Service Quality
Imagine your television breaks down right in the middle of a big game! Wouldn’t it be a disappointing time for you? Hence, Quality is an essential part of customer experience, and poor quality harms companies over the long run. An example of a company delivering a good experience on this dimension is BMW. In offering an annual and four-year full-service maintenance program, they have reduced the threat of quality concerns.
Service
Support is a crucial part of the industry, particularly after the sales. There are different methods available for delivering the right customer service. Service plays a vital role in any business sector. Say if you have purchased a Samsung phone and it has suddenly stopped working. Won’t it be a dissatisfying experience for you until you receive great support from the customer care team? This portrays that how important the service is.
Brand
There is some brand value that gives the customer the level of comfort they require to do business with that company, thus driving the customer experience. Since it affects all the other success factors in a positive/negative way, this is the most important one of all. The customer experience of a B2C company is associated with the company, but for a B2B company, it can be related to a company brand and individual relationships.
View related article: Strategy to Create a Great Customer Experience
Expertise
Be knowledgeable about your product or service. When in doubt, say so, and quickly find out the answer from someone who does. Once you know the answer, take ownership to call the customer and guide him.
Fashion
This is the “Cool factor”. This requires meeting customer requirements in a way that amazes the customer. Apple iPhone comes to mind as an example, which can do things that sound crazy to the normal crowd. If we speak about NVIDIA and AMD, they are fierce competitors in the graphics card market, they keep delivering cool products year after year to amaze and capture the gamer market. The quality of graphic images and the speed of rendering continue to improve. As the trend changes constantly, I consider it fashion. Motorola RAZR has experienced like many other cool things today that are outdated tomorrow.
The importance of multi-channel servicing will increase
It’s important to remember that many customers will not complain, and this will vary according to the industry. In other words, we often are not aware of the extent of satisfaction/dissatisfaction if we do not ask. It is important to take great care when conducting customer satisfaction research. Measurement of customer satisfaction must be continuous, consistent, timely, accurate, and reliable.
Companies interact with their customers through multiple channels, such as forms on their website, live chats, social media, and more. However, customers expect communication within different channels to remain consistent, even if their service levels may vary. Do you provide a consistent experience across all channels, both online and offline? In this regard, IKEA is the gold standard. The IKEA experience is the same all over the world. Ikea invests heavily in customer experience. During the past year, they have opened more stores, invested in their home delivery network, and launched a new app – all to the benefit of their customers. This strategy should be followed by the companies.
To avoid serious hindrances to their business development, B2B organizations need to take direct action. By doing more of what they are doing now, B2B organizations will not succeed; they must change some things. A customer satisfaction approach that is centred on business development is a powerful strategy for B2B organizations.
Success Factors for Customer Experience: Conclusion
A successful customer experience strategy starts with an objective-based on what matters to customers, increased revenue growth, and empowering workers to deliver with a greater customer experience strategy.
Having a great experience results in increased customer loyalty, increased satisfaction, more honest marketing, positive reviews, and recommendations.
When you know your customers well enough, you can personalize every interaction with them. Today’s customers have more power and choices than ever before. As a result, you are responsible for understanding and acknowledging their needs & most importantly know their needs.
Ask the right questions to your customers with QaizenX. Request a Demo Now!
