Companies innovate, but are they focusing on the really key aspects of a great customer experience?

Speed, efficiency, convenience, consistency, friendliness and above all personal attention. These are some of the characteristics that, together with the use of technology and the role of the employee, create a great Customer Experience (CX).

 Need To Enhance Your Custome Experience? Let us help you and show you how you can implement User Experience for your business! 

What is customer experience

Customer experience (CX) could be defined as the collection of all the perceptions that are generated in the customer's mind about a brand through their relationship with them.

In other words, every transaction, communication or approach with a company or a company is an experience.

What has happened in recent years is that organizations have glimpsed the power that CX has in their marketing strategies (online or offline), sales and, of course, in terms of profitability and profit.

For this reason, customer experience is one more department of its operations today.

CX has two fundamental aspects: the customer and the product.

In other words, a brand must surprise with its products and, moreover, with the care and dedication it shows in solving problems and meeting needs.

According to ThinkJar, 86% of consumers would pay more for a product or service if it came with an experience that was better or better than the rest, which shows the great opportunity that the CX can provide organizations.

This is also conveyed into the virtual realm, and that is why digital marketing strategies must view this concept as vitally important.

For example, actions such as sharing information on a blog, browsing a website, or the user interface of an application should also be considered to provide a pleasant user experience.

Now why is this so important for brands? The answer lies in the growth viability provided by CX.

Ensuring a positive customer experience translates into loyalty and engagement or affinity, opening up the possibility for that user:

• Become an "ambassador" of your products or services.
• Attract more audiences.
• Help improve how others perceive your business, which is like being a prosumer.

So with all of that said, you might be wondering where this move came from?

Find out below!

Changes in consumption habits: the genesis of CX

The concept has been around since the 1990s and the turn of the millennium, but businesses and enterprises still did not understand the power that user experience had over aspects such as product quality or the price.

At that time, confusing CX with product quality was very simple, because it was not a principle configured in the routine of brands.

About ten years ago, the fierce competition between brands and globalization triggered the conditions for the Customer

Experience to be so decisive today, since the price and quality started to be less relevant to users. above all, they want to feel taken care of, satisfied and listened to by companies.

In addition to this change in consumption patterns, since 2006 the so-called "sales funnel" has been used, responsible for the Inbound Marketing methodology and its derivatives such as the Content Marketing.

These strategies have been used to attract and drive customers from brand discovery to conversion or sales, but it has not been enough to retain them.

What has changed?

Well, according to statistics from the Nielsen Group, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends, family or acquaintances more than advertisements.

This fact opened the eyes of brands, showing that the experience was just another product of their business.

This has resulted in a new need to understand customer profiles and needs, enabling more personalized products and services to be offered for longer periods of time.

7 characteristics of a Customer Experience strategy

In order to give the customer a pleasant experience, it is necessary to take the following steps to differentiate yourself from others.

Know the customer's perception

Study and analyze the different interactions that your brand has with its audience. We are talking about reactions, comments, actions, behaviors and opinions.

This way, you will find out what they value about your brand, what they see as important to the service, and what changes they would make to improve their experience.

Identify your brand promise

The next step is to recognize the brand promise to its customers. The experience must be consistent with your values… and with the mission.

All of this generates positive emotions in the minds of users just like marketing for customers.

Work on the employee experience

The face of the company is the employees, if they are not feeling well, the customers will know it. The employee should be the first to feel the pleasurable experience, only then can they speak coherently and convey their feelings to customers.

To boost this indicator in companies, a solid Employer Branding strategy can be put in place.

Find the needs

By understanding customers, you can anticipate their needs before they know they have them. This is one of the main characteristics of the customer experience because you will understand what is going on in the minds of the public with a long time to your advantage.

Meet the needs

By understanding what they need, you can deliver products, services, and experiences that delight customers in unexpected ways.

Start selling

When the user already has a positive experience with your brand, they will be much closer to purchasing.

It's time to offer you personalized attention, a simplified and direct purchasing process, transparency in operations and great kindness, speed and respect.

Meet your expectations

Finally, when the customer has already tried your brand's products or services, it's time to analyze their emotions when using your articles. By doing this, you will be able to better understand their expectations and ensure that they are met over time.

The satisfactory use of the product has been the basis of a very important concept for technology companies: that of Product-led Growth, i.e. the process of turning the product into stone. angular growth of the company.

CX is a differentiator for any organization in the world. Brands know that it is vital for their ambitions and their own expectations.

 Need To Enhance Your Custome Experience? Let us help you and show you how you can implement User Experience for your business! 

Benefits of the customer experience for your business

While it seems like customer experience should be a common factor in a business, it isn't. Many companies do not find enough benefit in their approach to be implemented in all departments.

However, when a well-functioning customer experience project is created, launched and used for ROI, there are always cases where the company's revenue increases and the base of the business grows. stable customers are multiplying.

Among other things, because customer satisfaction increases and loyalty increases.

Previously, at the DEC Association, we talked about the ROI of the customer experience and covered all the related aspects.

The truth is that measuring the profitability of this sector is by no means a single order of magnitude. According to Sage, ROI is measured in terms of acquiring new customers, retaining existing customers and being effective in terms of their customers' ROI.

Therefore, one of the most obvious benefits of using a customer experience project is the economic returns. More importantly, these economic benefits must be matched by loyalty and consumer satisfaction.

What is user experience and how is it different from customer experience?

User experience (UX) is a customer's relationship with a specific product. That is, it relates to part of the customer experience.

It is a series of factors related to the interaction with the user, the result of which is the creation of a perception of the service or the product.

As there is a very high degree of interaction, we have to rely mainly on technological means and integrate the user experience into the customer experience.

However, it is common for both concepts to be misunderstood. Users and customers can have a similar meaning in Spanish, as both can be understood as "consumers of a good or a service".

But you have to know how to distinguish the user from the client. The user focuses more on the digital environment, the feedback of positive experiences with a product. Rather, the customer is a long-term consumer of the business.

The user experience should focus on ensuring that the user has an unforgettable experience with the product they have purchased.

This should range from what the user expected to what they would normally consider in their other reviews. This should be done from full alignment with the customer experience strategy.

4 factors that promote a good customer experience

In order to provide your customers with a satisfying experience, we recommend that you follow these practical and effective tips:

Identify the best communication channels

Businesses need to determine the channels through which customers are present. The availability of a channel in terms of range is a requirement that the CX privileges.

This type of information is essential in a customer-oriented, not supply-oriented business. So you can research which channels you feel most comfortable communicating with and with which tools.

Chatbots, for example, currently play an important role in optimizing interactions between customers and businesses, as they allow the user to dispel concrete doubts independently.

Allow more flexibility

There are many touch points on the buyer's journey, and the consumer can contact the business through a variety of channels during their journey.

It is therefore important to have flexibility in communication channels without losing the context of previous interactions.

With this in mind, customer management process automation tools like CRM go a long way in capturing the consumer's full history with the business.

Invest in personalization

CX only works when a personalized customer experience can be provided. Brands that can solve the problems and needs of each customer will set themselves apart from their competition.

Of course, content creation is an important resource in achieving this goal, especially when it's based on real data about the behavior of current customers and prospects.

You'll come across a lot of content marketing best practice documents here on our blog, but today I want to highlight one of its most promising dimensions: interactive content.

These are content pages that give the user the opportunity to actively participate in the information transfer process, either with questions that they can answer, or with scenarios that they can simulate. .

There are many types of interactive content such as infographics, landing pages, calculators, quizzes, maps, e-books, and more.

What they all have in common is the ability to drive engagement and conversions as static content as they collect relevant data from users at every interaction they have.

Create the customer journey map

Each brand offers a different journey for each customer. There you can identify every point where the customer is involved, which is crucial for a consistent experience.

This in turn helps the brand to plan and prepare to deliver more value throughout the customer lifecycle.

Metrics to know if a CX strategy is successful

There are 4 basic metrics that can be used individually to drive the customer experience in your business. To meet you!

CES (Customer Engagement Score)

Measure experience with a product or service in terms of difficulty or ease of use. It has 7 levels, where 1 means "very difficult" and 7 means "very easy".

NPS (Promoter Net Score)

With simple questions like “On a scale of 0 to 10, how much would you recommend this product to a friend? NPS measures a customer's loyalty to a brand.

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Factor)

Measure a customer's satisfaction with a product or service they receive from your company. It can be expressed in 5 or 7 levels, where 1 means "not very satisfied" and 5 or 7 means "very satisfied".

TTR (fade time)

The average time it takes for customer service to resolve a problem after the customer reports it. It can be measured in hours or days.

Customer Experience Application: Examples

Throughout the history of the DEC Association, we have come across several cases of brands running customer experience processes.

Large international companies took the opportunity to turn their brands into legends.

One of the most innovative was a coffee: Starbucks. Now everyone is talking about the "suspicious" appearance of a glass of this brand in the current Game of Thrones series.

Beyond that, however, Starbucks is characterized by a feeling of security and closeness.

The American company has revolutionized the coffee market thanks to the customer experience it has generated.

From the conditions of the premises, to the colors and smells that each of its shops emanate, to the contact between workers and customers and the marketing they use.

Additionally, Starbucks has become a social status brand, a one generation brand, and even a type of person.

It is common for this coffee shop to be connected to a young man with laptop and headphones, working or enjoying a coffee.

It is very common for people to drink coffee on the street, which is not possible with "classic" coffee products.

It is true that the variety of coffee on the menu at these establishments covers a wider market. If we add things like groceries or selling coffee bags, mugs and more, it becomes a very profitable business.

Even its price, which is much higher than what a coffee can cost in any other café, is not an obstacle in many cases. This is Starbucks' biggest success and has led to the appearance of knockoffs in every country.

It is a strategy that Harley Davidson has been pursuing since the 1980s.

Thanks to its marketing strategy, the motorcycle company has been able to appreciate its brand as a market advantage.

In a case similar to that of Starbucks, Harley Davidson has managed to convince people to prefer and support one of their motorcycles over other brands.

Throughout their customer experience, they have used social networks or choosing where to sell to help build their image.

They have also used the sale of related products to customers who cannot afford a motorcycle and who may be interested in their accessories (t-shirts, event planning, track sponsorship).

In short, they have exhausted their possibilities, have always put the brand first and created a special aura that not only generates customers but also loyal followers and offers consumers everything they could want from this company.

The future of the customer experience

In 2017, the telecommunications consultancy company Cisco produced a report on this topic, in which it highlighted seven points that will surely be present in the Customer Experience strategies conducted in 2021.

According to Cisco, maintaining a high level of excellence in the customer experience will be a sure-fire value for all businesses when it comes to influencing and guiding consumers through the "complex maze of interactions and touchpoints."

Smart shops

Digital commerce is growing by leaps and bounds, and companies with higher sales figures are starting to blur the difference between physical stores and their online versions.

This is the consequence of creating an omnichannel experience. In 2020, physical stores are expected to integrate online channels by providing unique experiences with items that can't be used online, according to the report.

Hyperpesonalization of the segments 

Data technology and consumer expectations are driving the demand for personalized products. Everyone is different and their preferences are totally different. Most industries find themselves in the situation of having to adapt their products to each customer.

Smart assistants

Assistants like Alexa or Cortana have already begun to be marketed, but so far they can only respond to direct requests.

According to Cisco, in 2020 they will be able to have meaningful conversations that invite interaction.

Among other things, this type of technology can manage payment processes, provide real-time assistance in case of problems, or search for large amounts of data to provide solutions to complex problems.

The big North American companies that dominate the tech sector were the first to launch: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.

Have experienced remote personnel

Although technologies acquire interaction skills, including support, there will always be a need for people who can best interpret customer requests and situations.

Nowadays we are used to having support even at home, but every time the companies that offer this service are the fewest. What they ventured out of Cisco in 2017 was keeping workers at bay, something similar to what happens in telephone companies.

Instant execution

In 2017, Cisco highlighted speed of delivery as one of the 2020 customer experience standards.

Two years after this study was published, Amazon did so. Parcel and courier companies are accelerating their processes to improve the customer experience.

Virtual reality and augmented reality

This is another point where the digital world and the physical world cross their borders. As with the aforementioned digital stores, virtual reality and augmented reality merge the main characteristics of the two sectors.

Application experience

By transforming phones into multitasking elements, the applications of any factory or department must satisfy any desire a potential customer may have in relation to the industry in which they operate. .

Customer experience? Yes, when it makes sense

Customer experience makes companies a better version of themselves. This allows them to adapt to changes as they occur, not when they have lost their connection with the vanguard. This is the end of any customer experience strategy.

All the processes that companies implement should be done after studying their industry, their market and their customers.

This will cause a variation in the trends to be applied between companies. To this it must be added that the Customer Experience is constantly improving in its ideas and in its application.

There are as many strategies as there are companies and this forces us to keep learning, to keep reading and to keep knowing what is being tested in the other organizations around us.

At CED, we care about what you have to say, so we encourage you to comment on the evolution of the customer experience and the challenges we will face in the future.

 Need To Enhance Your Custome Experience? Let us help you and show you how you can implement User Experience for your business!