Do you know what’s the most exciting opportunity for business? Yes, that’s right – It is to create a favorable customer experience. In the 2019 Digital Marketing Trends Report by Econsultancy and Adobe, it was revealed that a major chunk of companies believes in providing a smart customer experience to their target audience.
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However, most of them only try to achieve this. This is the age of personalization. Customers seek human engagement. Whether the communication takes place on phone, via emails or newsletters – the tone and messaging should strike the right chord with them and if it doesn’t, then the business loses out on customers sooner or later.
Do you know 85% of customers are willing to pay up to 25% more to ensure a superior customer service experience and 55% of them will recommend the company if they are happy with their experience? The biggest challenge for businesses perhaps is to keep up with that pace and still communicate with their customers despite the digital chaos.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience (CX) is defined by interactions between a customer and an organization throughout their business relationship. Interaction can include awareness, discovery, cultivation, advocacy, purchases, and service.
Customer experience is an integral part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the reason why it’s important is that a customer who has a positive experience with a business is more likely to become a repeat and loyal customer.
Simply put, happy customers remain loyal.
How important is customer experience?
A business cannot exist without its customers, and this is why companies are focusing on how to win new customers and perhaps more importantly, retain existing customers.
A survey by Bloomberg Businessweek found that “delivering a great customer experience” has become a top strategic objective. And a recent Customer Management IQ survey found that 75% of customer experience management executives and leaders rated customer experience a ‘5’ on a scale of 1-5 (5 being of the highest importance).
The challenge here is that even though it’s a high priority, many companies are failing.
So, the question remains, how can your organization create a great customer experience?
Let’s take a look at 5 ways to build a customer experience strategy that helps you, the marketer, to make the most of the coming year:
5 ways to improve the customer experience strategy in 2020
1. Mobile customer support
Think of the brands that customers go crazy about. How many of them do you think to get away with offering crummy customer support? FYI, not a lot. The brands who create incredible customer experiences treat customer support as a feature of their product or services. They offer something as tempting as free returns, no questions asked, refund-no problem.
While mobile web browsers have gotten better at rendering online content on small screens, it’s still not as perfect as on the desktop or a laptop. This can lead to customers often wanting to call the company directly which will further increase demand for the more costly Tier One agent support. For several businesses, instead of revamping their current mobile web design, it makes more sense to opt for customer service platforms that have specific mobile support capacity.
Companies that empower their support teams are the companies delivering the most exceptional customer experiences today.
2. Omnichannel Marketing
In both B2B and B2C spectrum, aligning content and design across all platforms to maintain consistency is a must. The value proposition that you put forward in the market is your brand message. After all, it is a promise that is made to potential customers. You should make sure it is delivered clearly.
Apart from this, you should offer insightful information to your customers regularly. Showcase yourself as the authority in your industry. Integrate robust data and analytics into your omnichannel marketing strategy.
Use machine learning to update data as the market evolves. Companies such as Wigzo offer great tools to achieve this. It will help you to create more relevant content for your audience.
3. Website Personalization
The website is the face of a business. It is the first step towards building a customer base which is why your website should appeal to them and this can be ensured if it is designed to cater to individual needs.
The team at Brooks Running, an eCommerce portal, saw that many people were putting multiple shoes of the same size or a half size different into their online shopping carts, and when they compared this data to their product return data, they saw that at least one pair was being returned.
To bring down the return rate, they opted for a unique personalization strategy. Whenever a shopper added a second shoe size to their cart, a dialog box would pop up asking, “Not sure which size to get?”, and offer a fit guide and support line for the customer to call.
This brought down the return rate of the eCommerce firm to 80% by making the customer experience more personalized and smooth.
4. Push & Web notifications
According to Adweek, push notifications are a default tactic for mobile apps to communicate regularly with their users and deliver 50% higher open rates than emails. Despite the increased use of mobile phones, desktop usage still accounts for 42% of the total internet time. This is where web push notifications enter the picture.
The aim of such notifications is to nudge the customers to take an action. Now this action can be to check out “Today’s deal” or to finish the checkout process which is otherwise on “idle” mode. eCommerce firms make heavy use of this functionality as it enables them to stay engaged with their customers.
In an age where cart abandonment rates are high and competition is tough, eCommerce firms have to continuously find ways to send messages that are hyper-personalized and on the right platform – and what’s better than sending a web or mobile push notification?!
Using Wigzo-personalised & trigger-based notifications, our client was able to convert 33% of people abandoning their cart. Why don’t you give it a shot too?
5. Email Personalization
Since the last two years saw an overload of “personalized emails”, 2017 is dedicated to reinventing that “personal touch” that is absent from many kinds of business interactions. 1:1 marketing is also known as “segment of one”.
Wigzo, for instance, automates email marketing processes by auto-populating the emails that each subscriber receives based on what he or she has previously shown interest in. This doesn’t just boost the open rates of emails, but also the conversions from the channel.
Similarly, cutting-edge designs that can be tweaked and reused and are high on responsiveness, independent of device and screen size can speed up the daily workflow for any business. Big and bold banners, coupled with engaging text and clear CTAs are instant eye-catchers.
And finally, Stop imitating and start innovating. There is more risk in copying our competitors than you may think. First of all, they might not have an exact idea themselves on what they are doing; even if they do, it doesn’t imply that what works for them shall work for you.
Remember “OK” is not OK when it comes to delivering experiences that aim to keep customers for life.
As a marketer, you must strive to make the customers to buy the “experience”. The smartest brands build communities and foster long-lasting relationships that turn into brand loyalty and a much higher rate of customer satisfaction.
Editor’s Note: This article was first published on Nov 17, 2016, and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness.
