In a previous blog post, we shared how organizations must move toward a customer-centric approach, with a focus on the customer journey as a strategic capability. How, specifically, can you do that? Here are five steps to follow to ensure you find and keep the right customers.
1. BE CUSTOMER OBSESSED.
What attracts customers? The way a company interacts with customers, both passively (when a customer reviews the website or social media feed while researching the company) or actively (when a prospective customer reaches out via the contact center or on a social media platform). This builds the company’s brand/reputation, or the perception that customers have about the company. Third-party reviews strongly impact the brand, so it’s important to know what customers are saying about the company outside of its official channels. While internally, all employees play a role in developing the experience the company delivers, externally, all customers can shape the company’s reputation by sharing their experiences with the company.
Customers, and how they perceive the company’s products and services, can make or break a company’s reputation. They are influenced by how they are cared for throughout their experience with the organization.
Your brand and reputation improve immensely when you become customer-centric, and in turn, you become more likely to attract new customers.
2. INSTITUTE A MORE FLUID AND SAVVY DIALOGUE BETWEEN DEPARTMENTS.
An understanding of customers across all the key stages of their lifecycle is essential. All departments can work together to maintain consistency and communication across channels, ensure quality support services, and incorporate new technologies to stay on-trend with consumer habits. Remember that each customer touchpoint should enable the next touchpoint, and data should be shared across the channels of interaction and throughout all of the departments so that there aren’t any gaps. Throughout the customer journey, gather intelligence to customize new product and service offers and communication paths. Remember that Marketing benefits from participating in all interactions of Sales, Customer Success feedback, and Customer Support concerns, as it gains greater awareness of what customers are experiencing and how communications to them should be tailored.
The best customer experience is a reflection of customer values, not company goals. Take the time to consider the journey from the customer’s perspective.
3. EMPLOY SOCIAL LISTENING.
You must continually evaluate your brand and customer experience so that they evolve alongside customer preferences and digital transformation opportunities. By employing sophisticated analytics, social listening, and customer feedback mechanisms, you will be able to measure your brand’s perception in the market. You can use the feedback gleaned from these mechanisms to change processes, add and revise technologies, and empower agents with comprehensive data that helps them better understand and serve customers. Today, there are tools so sophisticated that you can employ real-time or near-real-time changes based on the feedback. The result is an effective continuous improvement program that ensures a consistently excellent experience.
4. LEVERAGE YOUR COMPANY’S BRAIN TRUST.
As has already been addressed, breaking down silos between functional areas is key. Creating a multi-functional forum will allow Marketing, IT, Customer Service, Sales, and Knowledge Workers to collaborate more effectively and improve overall operations. For example, IT can inform the customer experience strategy with its technological expertise, while all other business areas can play a more active role in digital transformation initiatives by sharing which technologies or improvements would best suit their needs. Decisions will be made more holistically, with the overall customer—and employee—experience in mind.
5. LEVERAGE TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE A WORLD-CLASS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.
Taking a technology-based approach to customer experience can not only enhance a company’s strategy and brand, but also position it as a leader in the digital marketplace. Decisions become more targeted, data-driven, and programmatic, and customers become empowered with self-service options that both allow them to own their journeys based on their needs and preferences and communicate vital information back to the company, eliminating gaps in the company’s understanding. It’s also important not to forget about customers who do wish to interact directly with an agent, so agents should be empowered with technologies that allow them to offer personalized, contextual, and helpful service—and remember that these agents may or may not always be human.
Summing It Up
How times have changed. Communications with customers spans all departments within—and outside of—an organization, sparking innovation and collaboration like never before. Customer experiences and company brand and reputation have emerged as huge influencers of company success. This is truly the customer experience renaissance, as the customer now owns his relationship with your company and can determine your success. Are you ready to turn your customers into brand ambassadors?
ARE YOU READY TO PROVIDE YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH THE WORLD-CLASS EXPERIENCE THEY DESERVE?
Learn how to advance your customer experience to the next level with a data-driven, customer-focused model that drives business success. Let’s continue the conversation today.
Topics: Customer Experience
