Effective Customer Experience Strategy & How to Build One

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If you have run out of options to improve your customer experience, don’t worry –  we have one more. To create a customer experience strategy. 

Superior customer experience should be an inevitable part of any strategy. And businesses have started to realize that more as they all agreed that customer satisfaction is an essential part of every successful business.

🚀 Read Customer Experience Guide: How to Put your Customers First? 🚀

By creating a customer experience strategy you will deliver a superior customer experience that will surely set your business apart from the competition. And it will undoubtedly increase customer satisfaction.

But, without a customer experience strategy, your company will still be downsized and struggle to deliver experiences that will set you apart from other companies. So, it is time for that to change and to implement customer experience strategy into your business. 

Now, let’s start with the basics.

What is Customer Experience?

As Paldesk defined:

„CX is a concept describing the overall experience a user has with a brand, without the time or channel limitation. Consider CX as an umbrella concept that encompasses all channels, platforms, products, and interactions that the user has with a brand over time. The feeling the customer has around the brand is a result of the customer experience.“

Why Customer Experience Matters?

A study from PWC says: „85% of participants were willing to pay more for better customer experience“, which is why customer experience matters.

Every customer wants and needs to have an excellent customer experience. Because excellent customer experience results will company growth, customer loyalty, and most important one – your customers will be happy.

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” — Jeff Bezos

And when you’ve made your customers happy, you’ve created a powerful tool for promoting business. 

If you want to read more about making customers happy, check our other article about it: Happy Customer Guidelines.

What Is a Customer Experience Strategy?

“Customers will always have an experience – good or bad – and it will influence their purchasing behavior significantly.” – Phil Klaus, customer experience (CX) and strategy expert

Since customer experience (CX) refers to experience customer has with a brand, then the customer experience strategy defines the plans that need to be made in order to deliver a superior and positive customer experience.

Simply said, it is about improving  the company’s overall customer experience. And when a company implements the right strategies, not only will it improve the CX, but it will also increase its brand value. 

Use Customer Feedback Before Implementing CX Strategy

Before implementing a customer experience strategy, it is important to listen to your customers. To listen to what they say about your products and services. You can gather that information through social media platforms, reviews, online surveys and more. 

And when you gather all this information in one place, it will be easier to understand what customers think about your products, or what you need to improve. It is the first step before implementing a superior customer experience strategy.

Picture 1. Customer feedback

4 Customer Experience Strategies to Help You Stand out from the Competition

According to Ameyo, Contact Center Software, there are 4 key customer experience (CX) strategies:

1. Reachability and convenience

When talking about reachability, the first step is to identify channels where the customers are most active. And when you do, it will be easier for you to familiarize with the channel and to adapt your approach to customers. 

But if you are not able to identify the channels, you will miss a huge opportunity to engage with them. So, identifying channels is an inevitable part of any customer experience strategy. 

As for service convenience, the more you are reachable and the more information you offer, the more customers will be satisfied. You can provide customers with helpful information through a knowledge base for example. And don’t forget that customers can have questions on the weekend, so we recommend to install 24/7 live chat features, so you could offer help at any time. 

Picture 2. Paldesk Knowledge Base example

2. Channel flexibility

In order to provide superior customer experience, it is important to ensure flexibility to switch to other channels. And here is where the term omnichannel is important. Because in an omnichannel world, the CX should be unified through all the platforms and channels.

As TTEC, global CX technology and services company says: „Effective omnichannel solutions must include a 360-degree view of customer interactions across all channels (digital and traditional) to monitor channel preference, usage, and customer journeys from the customer perspective.“

Picture 3. Omnichannel approach

So instead of focusing on one or two channels, brands have the ability to pursue more different platforms to get more customers. Plus, the omnichannel approach allows customers to communicate with ease using their favorite device, channel or social network.

Also, companies who implement the omnichannel strategy will have multiple data sources. That will allow them to understand customer touchpoints (points of communication) better, which will allow them to design customer journey more authentic, tailored to their customers’ needs. 

🚀 Read: Omnichannel Guide for Digitally Advanced Brands 🚀

3. Personalization

After ensuring channel flexibility comes personalization. Gartner, leading research and advisory company defined personalization well:

„It is a process that creates a relevant, individualized interaction between two parties designed to enhance the experience of the recipient.“

With personalization, brands can differentiate from competitors and create a better relationship with their customers. Those relationships often result in customer loyalty. And most customers find personalization as a sign of respect for their loyalty. 

Read more about Brand Loyalty.

A customer experience strategy will only work if it succeeds in delivering a personalized experience to individual customers. A great personalization example is Shoe Line, a B2C shoe retailer. This retailer featured nursing shoes on their homepage only to visitors who have shown an interest in nursing shoes.

Picture 4. Personalization example

4. Customer journey maps

According to Paldesk definition:

„A customer journey map is a visual illustration of the full customer journey with the organization across major and minor touchpoints. Portraying the customer’s experience in different phases and intensities, a customer journey map is a holistic approach to understanding the experience flow a customer has with the organization.“ 

Simply said, is the sum of all the interactions customers have with your business. 

So,  if you aim to have the best customer journey, gather all the information you have and try to figure out the customer’s mindset. Try to put yourself into their shoes and think about the issues they deal with. After understanding them, you will be able to map out a customer journey.

How to Improve Customer Experience

Customer expectations change with time and it is upon businesses to recognize the trends and adapt to the market. Growing digitalization sets the standards rather high. Accordingly, customer expectations for an effortless interaction are becoming a standard.

Upon choosing the corresponding CX strategy, Ameyo suggests a couple of ways to create a seamless interaction with your customers.

1. Customer-centric Approach

It is extremely important to understand who your customers are and what makes their clocks tick. So it would be a great start to define all touch points right at the start and conduct a thorough analysis of their behavior. Obtaining a 360-degree customer view is what should set the tone of your CX strategy.

Read How Analytics Helps To Study Customer Experience.

2. Clear Cross-Functional Accountability

Providing great CX doesn’t depend solely on a single cog in the wheel. It requires close cooperation and clear cross-functional accountability between the front and back-office functions. Only then you can be assured that all changes and updates will be properly tracked, analyzed and implemented in a timely manner.

 3. Provide Employees with Customer Insights and Knowledge

Your customer support agents are your front line and the face of your company. Providing them with a complete overview of customer interactions over different channels will give them assets in delivering a seamless experience for your customers.

Wrap Up

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” – Michael LeBoeuf, American author

To conclude, this quote fits perfectly. Collect customer feedback and nurture customer experience constantly with the help of customer experience strategy. In that way, you will have satisfied and happy customers, and your business will grow. Because the success of your company lies in positive customer experience.