Today, investing in customer experience is investing in your business’s success.
While in the past, it may have been possible to win loyalty or generate revenue through unique products or spectacular marketing, today, loyalty lies in the experience you provide your customers.
In fact, businesses today, who prioritize customer experience and improve it, notice a sizeable return with an 80% increase in revenue.
From positive word-of-mouth marketing, repeat visits, or improved work culture, customer experience has proven time and time again to generate a hefty ROI – convincing businesses around the world to pivot and build thriving customer experiences.
Therefore, to showcase its importance and the benefits, here, we share the top 5 reasons why you should start investing in customer experience and how you can start.
5 Reasons To Start Investing In Customer Experience
Deepen The Customer Relationship
Especially after an isolating year, more and more customers will look to businesses to provide nurturing relationships and welcoming atmospheres. With a strong customer experience program in place, you can get to know the customer, be transparent about operations, and really build your business around their expectations.
With the formation of strong, authentic, trusting relationships, you reduce churn, build loyalty, and stand out amongst a sea of competitors.
Improve customer retention
According to Bain and Co., increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%. In addition, repeat customers are 9 times more likely to convert than first-time shoppers, five times more likely to purchase again and four times more likely to refer a friend to the company.
Loyalty reigns king when it comes to business success – it’s in the numbers.
When you improve the experience, you communicate to the customer that you want their service. You show customers their value and form meaningful bonds, which all contribute to retention. Whether it be through in the moment surveys and making immediate changes to your business, or monitoring trends and adjusting overtime, customers notice and appreciate your efforts.
For the sake of clarity, let’s take a look at this in contrast. Think back to a time when you had a less than superior customer experience. Whether it was unhelpful staff, a dirty establishment, or long wait times – would you return?
In most cases a customer wouldn’t and in others they’d express to their friends and colleagues what an underwhelming experience they had. Investing in customer experience deters this negative sentiment, and even helps to turn those same unsatisfied customers, into brand advocates.
Employee Performance will Skyrocket
Customer experience doesn’t only benefit the customer, but also employees.
According to McKinsey and Co, companies with initiatives to improve their customer experience see employee engagement increase by 20% on average. Following that, according Gallup, businesses with engaged employees outperform competition by 147%.
It’s safe to say happy customers directly translate to happy employees. And proven by a number of sources happier employees reveal more productive and efficient operations.
Build a Sound Reputation
Reputation is everything for customers. Think how many times you check review sites or ask your friend for their experience before visiting a business?
Through customer experience efforts like making small amendments to service or using personalization tactics, you build trust and a thriving reputation. Customer recommendations go a long way and having those who consistently share a positive sentiment can be a major differentiator in a sea of competitors.
After all, American consumers will pay 17% more to purchase from a company with a reputation for great service.
Boost Bottom Lines and Creativity
Lastly, investing in customer experience boosts bottom lines and creativity. Throughout this blog, we’ve mentioned many ways CX improves revenue, whether it be through customer referrals, a solid and inviting reputation, and repeat customers, the power of a solid customer experience program on revenue shouldn’t be ignored.
However, on top of thriving revenue, creativity and an openness to conversation is another massive reason to invest. When you illicit conversations with customers and request feedback, you open up a whole world of new ideas, tactics, and strategies to improve your business. This translates into better business but also into employee performance where you create a culture of excitement and encourage an exchange of ideas on enhancing the experience.
How To Start Investing Into CX
When you invest in your company’s experience efforts you invest in your success. Here we share our final thoughts on how you can begin to start investing in customer experience.
Listen to Your Customers
The first step is to invest your time into listening and learning from your customers. Go out of your way to ask for actionable feedback and reward customers when they do. Consider how a customer currently feels about your business, what they look for and how you could make the journey more seamless.
Once you have an understanding of your current customer experience, it becomes easier to build out a fortified customer experience plan, and ensure you’re investing capital in all the right places.
Consider Customer Experience Solutions
A customer experience solution is a fortified way to streamline the collection of feedback and converse. One of the most promising ways to generate ROI on your CX program.
Firstly, a fortified solution will be able to send surveys and help you measure success and progress. Ask for feedback on a customer’s most recent stay and connect with customers in the moment about any negative sentiment. If you receive positive feedback, make note of any recurring trends, while also measuring the success of the experience over a given period of time.
Secondly, a sophisticated customer experience solution will offer omni-channel capabilities. A feature that allows you to connect with customers on the channel of their choice and build relationships that are built to last. Using a CX platforms omni-channel capabilities, you don’t need a huge staff to communicate as all channels are siloed into a single inbox – readily available with sentiment analysis.
