G U E S T A R T I C L E
By Toma Kulbytė
Post Summary
What is customer experience?
Customer experience is the new battlefield
The importance of multi-channel servicing
It seems that it was only yesterday that every business claimed the key to winning customers was in the quality of product or service they deliver.
But, things have changed…
Now it seems that an even more important factor for success has shown up.
In fact, all we hear these days is how important providing the best customer experience is.
Do you know why?
Let me explain.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience is your customers’ perceptions of how the company treats them. These perceptions affect their behaviors and build memories and feelings and may drive their loyalty. In other words: if they like you and continue to like you, they are going to do business with you and recommend you to the others.
And for your customers to like you, you should know them very well to create and deliver personalized experiences that will entice their loyalty. But gaining this in-depth knowledge about customers isn’t something that just happens. It’s about collecting a lot of customers’ data and bring out valuable insights from that data with speed and precision.
No doubt, this is well worth the effort.
It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in – improving the experience for your customers is the key to increasing sales and boosting customer loyalty.
Customer experience is the new battlefield
It’s highly unlikely that you want to do business with someone who treats you poorly.
How you feel after a phone call you’ve made to a customer service center affects your further decisions. According to Deloitte, 62% of companies view customer experience delivered by the contact centers as a competitive differentiator.
Therefore, if you want your customers to stay loyal, you have to invest in the experience. As a result, Gartner predicts that by 2018, more than 50% of organizations will redirect their investments to customer experience innovations.
So, where should you start?
According to the Gartner survey, companies that implement customer experience projects begin by focusing on ways they collect and analyze customer feedback. This is a great starting point for meeting your customers’ expectations.
The importance of multi-channel servicing will increase
Today companies interact with their customers across multiple channels – online, offline, via social media, etc.
In fact, Aberdeen Group Inc. claims that companies with the strongest omni-channel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, as compared to 33% for companies with weak omni-channel strategies.
However, while customers may be positive and accept different service levels from different channels, they expect the communication to remain consistent, and that creates a real challenge.
Accenture found that 89% of customers get frustrated because they need to repeat their issues to multiple representatives. Moreover, 87% of customers think brands need to put more effort into providing a consistent experience, Kampyle claims.
As companies are expected to compete mainly on the basis of customer experience by 2017 (Gartner research), it is one of the foremost tasks to ensure the consistent omni-channel communication.
In fact, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, by 2020 the demand for an omni-channel customer experience will be amplified by the need for near perfect execution.
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About the author:
Toma Kulbytė
Toma is a content marketing specialist at SuperOffice. As a former Communications Manager and graduate from the University of Oslo, Toma likes to write about all things CRM. You can connect with Toma on LinkedIn.
This article has been reproduced with permission from the author. The article first appeared on 9 February 2017 on SuperOffice CRM website. Title picture is not associated with the original writing.
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