Five Customer Experience Strategies You Can Implement Now.

April 7, 2014 by in category CX with 0 and 0

ProcessWe believe building a Customer Experience focused organization involves four stages: 1) Culture. 2) Understanding. 3) Design. 4) Training.

Every customer experience is individual. For example, on most airline flights, the customer experience for a first-class passenger will differ from those in coach. Two customers in coach may have very different experiences on the same flight.

In this day of smart, digitally empowered customers, personalization is the foundation of every aspect of your business: marketing, sales, customer service, distribution, even purchase.

But unless you’re Lehman Brothers, you have far too many customers to make sure every experience is amazing. It takes a big-picture re-alignment of your organization.

That being said, big change comes from the little changes made along the way. Those little changes are driven by the golden rule: simply develop processes that help your company treat your customers the way YOU want to be treated. Here are a few customer experience strategies to start with:

1. Understand customer needs. One of the biggest obstacles for purchasing online is the inability to easily make returns. Amazon changed the game. Rather than erode their trust to make a little more money, Apple will actually down-sell customers, offering lower-priced products simply because they meet the customer’s need. Imagine how this makes customers feel about the company. Do you make it this easy for customers to satisfy their needs and overcome the obstacles to purchase?

2. Hello? Hello? The automated voice system. One of my favorites. I know from experience these are more efficient and much less costly to use, but hiring a live person (the right person) can pay off in terms of customer experience. It doesn’t have to be a receptionist. The person answering should be knowledgeable because they can direct. Sending a call to the right person could lead to additional sales, helping solve issues before they become problems. People are more intuitive than software. At the very least, reduce the levels they have to navigate before reaching a live person.

3. Employee Empowerment. If the rules are simple, the decisions your employees make are common sense. Armed with the correct training and information, every employee should excel. Nordstrom’s number one rule is to “Use best judgment in all situations.” Their number 2 rule is “There are no additional rules.”

4. Speed should not be rewarded, success should. Zappos tracks customer call time. But not to reduce the average.  According to Software Advice, the customer service analysis firm, they actually reward employees for making an emotional connection. You can’t do that by rushing someone off the phone. If your customer has reached customer service, they may very well already be irritated. Take care if their issue in one call. Always.

5. Never stop reviewing. Find out how well you’re doing. Ask you customers. Ask your employees. Then determine a customized key performance indicator. Once everyone understands how they’re being measured, they will be excited to help make your customer’s lives easier. It’s an amazing cycle. So make sure you communicate every individual employees impact on individual customers.

Take your first steps toward Customer Experience management for your organization.

 

Helicx provides companies and organizations with a toolbox of processes (assessments, benchmarking and workshops) to enable them to create systems that attract and retain the best customers and the best employees. The Helicx process focuses on the business activities that most influence the customer experience such as marketing, sales, employee interactions and leadership. To see if these processes are right for your organization, take this survey