5 Key Customer Experience Practices to Put into Action

 
 

5 Key Customer Experience Practices to Put into Action

Insights from Kenco Chief Commercial Officer, David Hauptman

August 19, 2021

STARTING WITH THE BASICS

Customer experience (CX) is all the interactions between a user and your brand. That means users don’t actually have to use your brand’s service or product to interact with it. Simply put, CX is the way a customer feels about your brand. 

A customer’s feelings can be made up of micro-interactions with advertising, customer service, sales, operations, CX design and more. While it may sound out of your control, we can help you own the customer experience. But first, why should you? 

CUSTOMER FOCUS OUTPERFORMS

Good CX drives greater customer loyalty and market share which gives organizations opportunities to cross or up-sell. A survey published in Harvard Business Review revealed that customers who had the best experiences with transaction-based businesses spent 140% more than customers with the least rated experiences. 

Whether or not you are already competing on the basis of customer experience, good CX can do amazing things for your bottom line—you just need everyone to buy in.

CX IS RELEVANT TO EVERY SIDE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION

A customer’s experience should go beyond front-facing interactions like customer service, sales, account management and operations. If IT, or legal, or HR—any support department—is not CX aligned, you may have large gaps in servicing your customers as a result of prioritizing internal interests. 

Ensure all departments understand and engage with your customer’s needs. Unengaged employees create unengaged customers which leads to substantial lost business. 

PUT YOUR CUSTOMER’S EXPERIENCE FIRST IN FIVE STEPS

In the above webinar, CCO David Hauptman attributes his success with Kenco and other major corporations like Geodis and DHL to committed customer focus. He shares 5 insights on the power of CX design inspired by the Miller Heiman Group, Inc.

  1. Understand how customer experience links to business outcomes. Without understating how CX benefits the entire organization, senior executives will prioritize other initiatives. You must present your business case using hard numbers. ROI can be seen throughout the entire lifecycle, so focus on the data that is easier to quantify in the short term, like cost savings, increased revenue, and increased efficiency.

  2. Define and communicate your vision of CX. Don’t just fix what isn’t working, make what’s working work even better. Define the experience you want your customers to have by creating a customer journey map. A CX journey map follows a specific customer and documents any friction they may experience. The map can cover either a complete end-to-end exercise or focus on a key component such as the buyer’s journey. 

  3. Ensure you deliver CX that matches your brand promise. Do what you say you’ll do—simple as that. Ensure you’ve defined the experience, communicate it to customers and stakeholders, measure it, and then hold yourself accountable for the delivery.

  4. Use Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs to monitor CX delivery. If you are not already utilizing VoC programs, start now. When used effectively in the sales process, the data obtained is invaluable to every side of your organization. Just make sure you are capturing the right outward-facing data. 

  5. Use VoC to drive continuous improvement. Closing the loop is vital to success but you shouldn’t stop at soliciting VoC responses. If feedback does not drive action, then you will stop receiving responses. Why would customers waste their time with feedback that isn’t acted on? Ensure a robust follow up process.

If you’re looking to get higher revenues, better shareholders, and outpace your peers, invest in Design Thinking, an important facet of the customer experience. Bridge Innovate offers the best and latest CX design tools that take a human-centered approach to solving complex challenges. Not sure where to start? Ask us about our CX Design.

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