Defining Customer Experience
Customer experience, also referred to as CX, encompasses all of the interactions people have with a company, from their first impressions to, hopefully, their continued return as loyal customers. As CEO of Eclipse Technologies, Dave Dyson explains: “Customer experience is how a customer feels about the sum of their interactions with a business. It involves every way a customer interacts with a company, at all stages of the customer journey—including the marketing materials they see before they become a customer, the sales experience, the quality of the product or service itself, and the customer service they receive post-purchase.” (https://www.zendesk.com). The customer experience is centered around consumers’ emotions. Happy customers directly translate to business growth, by promoting loyalty and retention, and an ongoing commitment to brand advocacy.
Customer experience can be seen as the number one factor in the success of a brand. It is so crucial that 1 in 3 consumers have reported abandoning a brand they previously were loyal to, after only one bad experience with it. It has also been reported that customers will pay as much as 18% more when a company extends a superior level of customer concern, and that 49% have said they made an impulse purchase simply because of having been treated with personalized care. Companies that receive high customer experience ratings are able to retain a dedicated consumer base, one which is reported to spend 140% more, and who remains loyal for as long as 6 years into the future. (https://superoffice.com). With these statistics in mind, it stands to reason that focusing on providing an optimal level of customer experience should be a company’s top priority.
Vusi Thembekwayo’s Four Components
There is common agreement among businesses that providing outstanding customer experience is instrumental in achieving the goal of increased revenue and customer retention, but how a company can make this happen is not always immediately apparent. Vusi Thembekwayo, a highly regarded business speaker, entrepreneur, global CEO, and best-selling author, has come up with a formula that offers useful advice in this area. His debut book, The Magna Carta of Exponentiality, published in 2017, is an in-depth analysis of how to deliver exponential results in linear markets. His follow-up, Vusi: Business and Life Lessons From a Black Dragon, chronicles his success, outlining ways to shape one’s own destiny. Although his primary mission has been involved with moving South Africa toward a state of economic freedom, he has also been active as a catalyst for change in businesses around the world.
He is quoted as saying, “The most effective way to fund a business is your customers, it’s not external capital,” going on to delineate four components crucial to a successful customer experience: Relevance, Reliability, Convenience, and Responsiveness (RRCR). He explains Relevance as the ability to “offer the customer what he needs when he needs it. This requires being in touch with demographics, as well as having the flexibility to change with the times. The Reliability component consists of two parts: timeliness and consistency. Thembekwayo defines the latter as the place “where culture and systems connect,” pointing out that any gap between a company’s internal systems and the customer experience needs to be bridged, since no business system can afford to exist in isolation. “Be where the customer needs you, when the customer needs you” speaks to the aspect of Convenience. This holds true when it comes to online shopping as well as brick-and-mortar stores. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is Responsiveness, which he explains “means listening with the intent to respond, listening with the intent to understand. Understanding with the view to act.” (https://www.aq-services.com). This goes further than simply offering customer service; it demonstrates the willingness to understand the root cause of any questions or complaints that might arise. Implementing these four components can result in the marked improvement of a company’s customer experience.
Ways to Enhance Customer Experience
Customer experience strategies have one main objective: to create satisfied customers, people who keep coming back and who encourage their friends to do the same. There are a number of things a company can do to engender these positive experiences, starting by designing products and services that meet consumer needs and desires, then by creating marketing campaigns that establish realistic expectations about what is being offered, Throughout the buying experience, customers need to feel included in the process. Some ways a company can accomplish this are through transparency in pricing, easily accessible information about products, and prompt responses to any questions or difficulties. As customer service manager, Snigdha Patel, points out, “A great customer experience happens when you create an organization that is aligned around the singular mission of delighting the customers, Excellent CX happens across all the customer touchpoints when they are ‘wowed’ by an interaction with a business.” (https://revechat.com).
Once a company has put into place its overall goals, such as providing value, improving product lines, maintaining consistency and using just the right degree of technology, it is important to focus in on the actual act of consumer-purchasing. Since providing outstanding customer experience doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone, companies would do well to include explicit instruction in their employee- training in this area, whether customer interactions happen in-person or through online contact. As well as being sure to always provide efficient and respectful service, sales associates need to express empathy for their customers, personalizing the experience whenever possible. Showing appreciation is also a key factor, as are prompt response-times when it comes to service following sales. Positive customer experience is something that will be shared with friends and family, often becoming the determining factor that sets a company apart—and miles ahead—of its competition.
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