When a business is struggling to increase its sales and\or achieve its profitability goals, a smart step is to take a hard look at its customer experience (CX) strategy.
A CX strategy is considered successful when it yields higher customer satisfaction rates, reduces churn, and achieves or even exceeds revenue goals! Unfortunately, some businesses have yet to realize the importance of a great CX and how it’s an integral part of the revenue stream as well as its contact center services.
Understanding Customer Experience
CX is defined as a set of interactions and experiences a customer has with a business throughout the customer journey from the very first contact to becoming and remaining a satisfied and loyal customer. It is not the same as customer service. The latter is just one part of the customer’s entire journey. To differentiate between the two, let’s look at some examples.
Some time ago, a JetBlue passenger tweeted that he was upset because the airline didn’t serve coffee before boarding. JetBlue’s customer service team at Boston’s Logan airport was notified immediately after the Tweet was posted. Before takeoff, the customer was served a mocha after which he raved about the brand’s customer service on Twitter. In other words, JetBlue recognized the opportunity to go above and beyond and provide the customer with top-notch service.
Now to understand CX, let’s take the example of Zalando, an online fashion retailer that takes pride in its 100-day return policy. This policy frees the customers from the anxiety of returning the product immediately after the purchase. A policy like this is designed to impact every customer touchpoint starting from the online purchase to returns and beyond!
Sell the Relationship
Salespeople have the reputation of being sales. They are the first people your prospects interact with. HubSpot survey says that 71% of the companies admit that closing deals are their top priority, which means for them that generating leads is more important than the CX itself.
Positive customer engagement solutions and CX combined can help close more deals because satisfied customers convert into loyal customers, and loyal customers make repeat purchases, which eventually boosts revenue.
Here is why CX should be the focus of any business’s strategy:
It Brings More Conversions
PwC surveyed 15,000 people from twelve different countries to learn the importance of customer experience. 73 percent of the respondents said that a good customer experience is an important factor in their purchase decision. This means with a satisfying brand experience; a business can bring repeat customers and improve its CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value).
It Enhances Customer Loyalty
A single bad experience can immediately put off a customer and force them to engage with your competitors. By delivering a delightful experience, your agents can ensure that your loyal customers stay happy and keep doing business with you.
A study by Deloitte & Touche revealed that the companies that put customers at the center of their operations are 60 percent more profitable than the ones that don’t. With that being said, CX should be an important aspect of your inbound contact center services.
How to Improve Customer Experience?
Since CX has an integral role to play in generating leads, turning existing customers into your brand advocates, and eventually boosting revenue, here are some ways to deliver a great experience:
Understand Your Customer First
Everything starts with understanding what your customers want, their pain points, and then going from there.
Some ways to learn what customers have been experiencing is to conduct focus groups and ask for customer feedback via questionnaires and through research. This will present a picture of both positive and negative experiences and help you craft a CX strategy accordingly.
View CX From the Perspective of Delivering Value
To improve CX, think about it from the perspective of delivering value to your customer. How much effort does the customer need to make a purchase and maintain services with your company? Offer a positive, low-effort experience at every touch point, and make sure you prioritize their needs. Since the customer’s needs change from time to time, make sure your team has the capacity and the autonomy to adapt accordingly.
Resolve Customer Issues Quickly and Smoothly
Once your support team knows what issue the customer is facing, they can tailor the sales and service to address customer needs. At the same time improve their experience so that the customer becomes a repeat client by ensuring the following:
Reduce Call Wait Time
The State of Customer Service report by Netomi says 43 percent of customers believe that a long wait time is at the top of the list of things that frustrate them. To deliver a smooth experience, start by reducing wait time and make sure your agents answer the customer with their undivided attention. Make them feel that you are interested in resolving their issue as quickly as possible.
Minimize Call Transfers
Shifting customer calls from one agent to another is annoying and can prolong the call resolution time. To improve the experience, agents must address customer issues without having to transfer their calls to several different agents/departments.
Reduce the Need for Repeating Information
Another thing that customers dislike is having to repeat information when they have an issue. Giving the same information over and over again is not just a waste of time but it can increase customer frustration. Real-time voice transcription and automated workflows are two great ways to reduce having to repeat information.
Ditch Scripted Responses
Today’s knowledgeable customers know when an agent is using scripted responses to resolve their issue. There is no harm in using these scripts to provide prompts and talking points, however, while doing so, the agents must sound empathic and ensure the customer’s issue is addressed efficiently.
Meet Your Audience Where They Are
Another strategic approach to improving CX is to meet your current and potential customers where they are even when it comes to offering chat, SMS, and self-service support. If your audience prefers getting help through Twitter, set up a support channel on Twitter. If they prefer getting support via live chat before making a purchase, your website must have a live chat feature.
Figure out which customer service channels your customers prefer and offer them an omnichannel customer service experience.
Build a Customer Resource Center
Also known as a knowledge base, a customer resource center is a collection of content your customers might find useful when navigating your product and/or service. The mediums include tutorials, how-to articles, infographics, and other resources which can be accessed anytime they need them.
A knowledge base like this demonstrates that you care about your customers. at the same time, it will free up your agents since they won’t have to spend time answering common questions and your customers will have a positive experience most of the time. Knowledgebase articles can be used for agent support, self service, and BOTs.
Delivering a great customer experience is a continuous process. With positive agent-customer interactions and implementing strategies tailored to customer needs, not only can you improve CX but close more sales too. Telvista as a business process outsources can help you meet these customer needs with the staff and technology suite to deliver bespoke solutions to your CX strategy across sales, service, omnichannel, and automation.