Customer experience (CX) examines the actions in a potential customer’s shopping journey. In this guide, we cover why it’s crucial for businesses to foster an excellent CX, how to measure it, ways to improve the customer experience and explore customer experience management.
What is CX?
CX concerns every facet of a customer’s interactions and experiences with an organization during the client journey. This includes aspects, such as initial awareness of a product or service; touchpoints with team members; and the feelings, emotions, and perceptions a client has about a company.
Why is customer experience important?
Consumer-facing businesses must strive to build an exceptional CX to drive sales, retain customers, and forge a positive reputation for their brand. Here are a few reasons why a top-notch CX is paramount:
- Competition: Most organizations face fierce competition in their market. Having a strong CX makes you stand out from the crowd because customers can expect to be heard and taken care of.
- Reputation: Customers leave reviews and talk about the experiences they have with brands. When someone Googles your company, you want them to read about positive impressions others have had with your brand so they feel comfortable trusting you to meet their needs. Plus, having a great reputation fosters word-of-mouth referrals that drive more customers to your business.
- Customer loyalty and retention: When customers know they can expect an unparalleled experience, they are less likely to move to a competitor. This helps companies build clientele and grow revenue while reducing churn rates.
How to measure customer experience
Teams must measure their customer experience with various methods to ensure it is steadily improving and meeting customer’s needs and expectations. Here are some of the top ways to measure CX:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): This is a survey companies use to analyze customer loyalty using a scale of 1-10 that measures the likelihood a client will recommend the business to others. A higher NPS score indicates a better CX.
- Customer churn rate: This measures the percentage of customers who stop using your products or services during a set period. Companies seeing an increasing churn rate should examine strategies for improving their CX.
- Mapping customer journeys: Analyzing the touchpoints in the customer journey, or sales pipeline, allows teams to visualize particular pain points and work on methods to streamline parts of the buying process. For example, if leads get stuck for weeks in the negotiation phase of the purchasing process, it could be that sales representatives don’t answer questions about pricing during this period and hot leads become cool.
- Customer satisfaction surveys (CSATs): CSAT surveys measure CX by asking customers to rate their level of satisfaction on a scale of 1-5. Often, they are administered after a purchase or after solving a customer service inquiry.
How to improve customer experience
Consider the following tips to foster an exceptional customer experience that helps brands stand out from competitors:
- Leverage omnichannel support tools: Make it simple for clients to reach out however they prefer. Be accessible via email, live chat, chatbots, phone, and social media. Teams often use customer service tools that streamline communications in one platform to ensure customer inquiries don’t fall through the cracks.
- Invest in employee training: Businesses must make a customer-focused culture part of their mission and train employees to put the customer first by solving client issues proactively and promptly, answering customer queries efficiently, and relying on data.
- Be receptive to customer feedback: Companies that listen when customers express problems and aim to solve them are the ones that level up their business. Teams can analyze customer feedback with tools like social listening tools and surveys.
What is customer experience management (CXM)?
CXM involves the tools and strategies teams use to measure and improve the experiences customers have with their business. The main objective of a CXM strategy is to foster customer satisfaction and retention while building brand loyalty, leading to an overall increase in customer lifetime value (CLV).
CXM vs. CRM: What’s the Difference?
CXM is heavily focused on what the company looks like in the view of the customer themselves, including their feelings, emotions, and behaviors. CRM involves how the customer appears in the company’s eyes and is often measured with a CRM system that tracks customer engagements and purchase history.
CXM strategies utilize Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs and tools that measure customer sentiments. Typically, CRM programs involve adopting software focused on outreach and sales that drive revenue.
The takeaway
Customer experience involves analyzing every interaction a customer has with an organization. That information is then used to create an unbeatable CXM strategy that meets customer’s needs, solves pain points, and fosters an environment where the customer is always put first. It’s crucial for companies to measure customer satisfaction and retention consistently, listen to customer feedback, and implement ongoing improvement strategies to delight customers, earn referrals, and drive revenue.
About the contributors
Jess Pingrey is an expert freelance writer in the fields of sales, software, technology, startups, and marketing. Previously, she was a managing editor at Fit Small Business leading a team of content creators writing about sales, customer service, and CRM systems. She’s written for publications that include AppleInsider, Pocket-lint, The Run Experience, and TopInterview.
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