Organisations that put the customer experience first and foremost exceed those that do not by as much as 80%.
An enriched customer experience throughout the customer’s journey can lead to a greater retention rate and companies that do this well see an average increase in profits of up to 95%.
So how do you make sure you deliver the absolute best experience to your customers consistently and effectively?
1 – Use a CRM
To improve your customer experience, a CRM allows for personalisation and improved resolution of any manner of complications. When a client contacts you with a problem, you can access their previous emails, calls and correspondence with your company alongside their purchase history. This helps avoid you annoying your customer by asking them questions they’ve already given the answers to, possibly several times before.
It also allows for a better understanding of their position and assisting them into finding a solution to these issues swiftly. Your team can reach out to clients directly (especially those of high value) and assist them with onboarding or other guidance.
A CRM allows your team members from different departments (such as sales and marketing) to share information. This enables them to be proactive at gaining feedback, building better relationships and providing personalised interaction. This ensures the client gets what they need and makes them feel like you are really paying attention to them.
2 – Provide Live Chat on Your Website
Live chat is the ideal balance between emails that do not take up much time and phone calls that provide immediate answers.
Customer satisfaction with live chat rates at around 83%. Customers can multitask and continue to be productive in their own day, whilst still speaking to a representative of your company to get immediate solutions to their enquires.
Your agent can guide them through the online process, this is because the client can have several tabs open at any one time. You can also provide a chat bot, that answers frequently asked questions and assists the client to find answers. This can be done to cut down the necessity for your staff to answer FAQ’s all the time and allows the client to be forwarded onto an agent when required.
3 – Send out Surveys
It is paramount to gather feedback from existing consumers to increase customer satisfaction and improve the quality of your service. But how do you know where you are doing well and where you could do better if you don’t ask?
Surveys can be multiple choice or free-text questionnaires that do not take long to fill in. This is a valuable way to establish whether your customers are satisfied with your service and help you to discover any problems so you can improve your service in general.
The very fact that you have taken the time to ask your clients for their point of view, shows them that you care about them and are focused on improving the service you provide to them. This in turn strengthens relationships, builds trust and these two factors invariably lead to increases customer retention and sales.
4 – Improve your NIPS Score
Your Net Promoter Score is a score of how inclined a customer is to recommend your services or products to their family and friends.
This goes further than customer satisfaction, it displays how clients feel about your business as a brand in its entirety. It is not just about decerning whether your client is content with the standard of your product or level of support they got from you. Rather, it is the assessment of their entire experience and their perception of you as a brand.
Improving your Net Promoter Score is an ongoing practice that involves improving all facets of your company, leading to heightened growth. It begins with improving customer loyalty, which you can achieve by building strong relationships, setting up loyalty schemes and increasing trust. In addition to this you need to offer value, do everything you can to assist customers with onboarding and be available to address their concerns. Furthermore, you need to listen to the customer, collect feedback, increase accessibility, and expand your customer support performance.
The most successful companies in the world all focus very strongly on this aspect.
5 – Increase your Social Media Presence
Having an effective social media presence not only promotes authority and conveys social authentication, but it also helps to enhance the customer experience.
These days nearly everyone is on Twitter, Facebook and/or Instagram. You can use social media to get messages and announcements out to your clients quickly, you can inform them about seasonal discounts, freebies and flash sales and you can use it to give yourself a voice and a presence in their lives.
Social media is a quick way to enhance engagement by asking questions, listening and responding to comments and replies.
The most crucial thing to remember is that, enhancing the customers experience, is not a one-off task but a constant operation that needs to be an essential point in your business strategy.
If your company is interested in learning how you can improve your customer’s experience, loyalty and repeat business with you please reach out today and we’ll be happy to help.
