Jul 15, 20202 min
Updated: Jul 23, 2020
Never before have customers expected more when it comes to the experience they have interacting with a business. Customer experience has become more important than price or product, and companies are leaving big dollars on the table every day because their experiences don’t match what their customers want. Requesting feedback from customers at critical touch points will help you to understand what it is they want.
The experience is so important to customers that they will pay more for it. Ease is essential. Customers want efficient, friendly, and effective service.
Customers have more choice than ever, more access to your competitors, and will take their dollars elsewhere if you doesn’t deliver. On the flipside, customers are loyal to the companies that provide them with a simple, effective, and efficient experience. Believe it or not, loyalty remains flat once expectations are met.
Happy customers are loyal, and happy to advocate for their favourite brands. While unhappy customers can do a lot of damage, they are also a great learning opportunity and can become even better advocates if you are able to turn an experience around. Keeping an existing customer is far less costly than acquiring a new one and most of the time their advocacy costs you nothing.
Customer experience should be the fabric of your organization. It needs to be holistic - part of everyone’s job as opposed to a department unto itself. Your team must work together to ensure customers are getting a consistent offering true to a brand’s promise. Organizations that do so experience higher personal, team, and department satisfaction than other companies, and ultimately do a better job of exceeding their top business goals.