According to customer experience research from Gartner, more than 70% of leaders struggle to design products that boost loyalty and result in ideal outcomes. It is easier to improve the customer experience (CX) with the right solutions and tools. Companies can optimize the overall experience by focusing on ways to improve at each touchpoint.
Because small to midsize businesses have more competition and survivability challenges today, cultivating an exceptional customer experience is essential for long-term sustainability. These are some overlooked approaches to consider for boosting customer experience.
1. Help Customers Envision a Product or Service
An important part of the customer experience is connecting with your service or products. What makes customers connect with a product or service enough to want to purchase it?
Photo galleries of work or products are not necessarily an ideal solution for this. Instead, help people see products or videos in real life. Ask customers to tag you on social media in photos. Provide video demos, instructional videos, or vlogs that show people’s uses for a product. Help them see it in real life to allow them to envision themselves using it.
Focus on what makes customers connect with a product or service enough to not just make a purchase, but feel satisfied about it afterward. When they feel good about purchases, they are more likely to become loyal customers.
2. Broaden Payment Options
One of the most overlooked parts of a CX strategy today is customer satisfaction at the moment of purchase. Even if you have a strong pre-purchase experience and excellent after-purchase follow-up, the point of purchase may not be ideal. However, since that is when a person becomes a customer or a repeat customer, it is important to address. A lack of payment options is a common source of frustration for customers.
Some companies only offer one or two payment methods, but they may lose customers or potential customers by limiting payment options. For example, several independent research findings show that many customers prefer PayPal as an option since they like that provider’s “pay in four” option. However, many small and midsize businesses do not offer this payment method.
Accepting more than just credit card payments helps, but it is even better to offer three separate payment options. As you adjust your CX strategy to allow for more payment methods, find out which options your specific market prefers.
3. Strengthen Your Education Strategy
Customer satisfaction is the broader desired outcome of a CX strategy, and one of the overlooked reasons why it fails sometimes is a lack of product or service education. Sometimes, you can find clues about this when you read reviews or feedback. In addition to helping prevent negative feedback, thorough education can help prevent returns or refunds.
For example, if a company sells a type of coffee brewer that does not work well with pre-ground coffee, a customer who does not know that and buys it may return it if the customer does not have a coffee grinder. If customers know more about what they purchase, they have the knowledge to make an informed decision. This means that they are more likely to be satisfied.
Thinking from a customer perspective, review your products or services. Add information that will help educate them before they buy. Be sure to incorporate relevant feedback from past reviews, returns, complaints or refunds. Properly educating your customer’s on your product is a huge way of boosting customer experience.
4. Enhance the Support Experience
The customer support experience addresses any interactions customers have with the support team or digital support features you offer. A poor support experience leads to dissatisfaction, returns, and losing customers. Analyze your current support experience by mapping the customer journey. As you work to improve the support experience, be sure to include these suggestions:
- Improve education for support roles
- Use customer feedback
- Look for trends in complaints
- Focus on solutions
- Look for tech improvements
- Use more software features
Many companies that have CRM software may not have comprehensive enough options. It helps to work with an experienced consulting firm that offers a broader range of software solutions that work well for small to midsize businesses. A more comprehensive software program can boost efficiency for your support team, provide customers with more digital solutions that are convenient for them and much more.
5. Improve Customer Data Management
You may already offer exclusive deals for returning customers, promos, and customer loyalty benefits. If you cannot afford your own app to make these easier for customers to use, you can find other ways to make them more manageable. Customers should at least have online portals where they can access information about past purchases, any loyalty points and other important information. It also helps to have this information in a database in your CRM software.
If you have a store, employees should be able to look up information for customers to apply coupons, let them use points, or complete similar tasks. When customers cannot find what they are looking for or use the promotions they came for, they are more likely to shop somewhere else. Customers have little tolerance for frustrations today, so make sure that they can easily access the data they need online or in your store.
6. Appoint a CX Team With Clear Roles
Depending on your type and size of business, the CX team might be two people or several people. One person may have multiple roles in a smaller business. As you plan roles, these are some important areas to consider:
- Customer data analysis
- Collecting insights and research
- Thinking, designing and improving CX
- Inbound support and care
- Outbound support and care
- Technical assistance
When there is no appointed team, or when CX roles are unclear, it can erode the overall experience. Employees may not know how to help customers. They may refer customers to another department or may try to handle tasks they are not qualified to do.
When you assign clear CX roles and equip workers with the training they need to fulfill those roles, customer care is more effective. Be sure that all CX team members are working toward the same vision and that their goals align.
7. Build a Strong Customer Onboarding Experience
This is especially important if you have a service or product that requires a closer relationship with customers. For example, personal trainers or people who sell a system of health products that customers are supposed to use in intervals are two examples of businesses that should have a strong onboarding experience. This is where it is also important to have a comprehensive set of CRM software tools. They help you create, maintain and monitor the customer onboarding experience.
When onboarding customers, focus on welcoming them with the information they need to know that will answer their questions. This can vary greatly in specifics from one business to another. During onboarding, customers should feel comfortable, satisfied, and confident with their purchases. Keep those goals in mind as you develop your own solutions.
Fortunately, improving your CX strategy today does not necessarily mean hiring a new team of workers. With efficient SaaS solutions, you can streamline several tasks and processes to make them more efficient for workers and customers. Learn how the proper Zoho implementation can help streamline business flow while boosting customer experience at the same time. Drop us a line and we’d be happy to help get you started!
