Creating a satisfactory customer experience should be a top concern for every company, yet many businesses aren’t taking steps to focus on this area of improvement. Most owners, managers, and marketers will spend their time and energy optimizing various aspects of the company’s website or process map to facilitate an increase in measurable metrics like conversion rates and daily visit amounts. However, sometimes the most effective changes are made when you start to look beneath the surface for ways to enhance the overall experience for each individual customer. With that said, here are 3 tips you can use to impress and satisfy the vast majority of your customers:
1. Consult with Customer Experience Strategists
While you may be the best person to captain the ship in terms of steering the direction of your business, it’s always good to have some experienced sailors to help you make it through the unnavigated territory. To make sure your voyage is fruitful, you may want to consult with a company that specializes in improving experiences through cloud-based outsourcing and a wide variety of service-and-software-oriented tactics. Humach is one example of a firm that has been pioneering this nascent area of business management.
2. Ask for Feedback from Existing Customers and Clients
Many people won’t take the time to explain what they didn’t like about buying from your company unless you give them some incentive to fill out a survey or a check a few boxes at the end of the transaction. Collect customer feedback using website plugins and follow-up emails to encourage your customers to leave suggestions in exchange for discounts, bonus points, and other promotional offers. Simply asking for advice is the most straightforward and effective way to obtain guidance directly from the people who matter the most.
3. Play the Role of a Secret Shopper to Test Your Products and Services
Putting yourself in the shoes of your customers will give you a first-hand idea of what kind of experiences they’re having with your brand. If you run a service or retail business and manage more than a couple of employees, you could try the secret shopper approach and place an order from your own company to test product quality and support responsiveness. You might just find that there are certain deficiencies or annoyances in your site’s functionality or within the buying process in general.
Experiences are Everything
You might be thinking “as long as the quality of my product or service is up to par, my business should do well.” While that’s partially true, the ease and enjoyment of the actual experience is one of the main attributes that keeps customers coming back to your brand instead of competitors. If a competitor can find a way to make the process more convenient and comfortable for the end customer, you’ll have something to worry about in terms of keeping your current share of the market. Thus, try to take a proactive approach to customer experience improvement and attack it from all three of the angles suggested above.
