Integrated Customer Experience
People all over the world have higher levels of stress and a general sense of uncertainty after the pandemic. Just as Forrester predicted for 2022, customers tend to choose brands that deliver comfort and positive emotions. Brands that have purpose and are #DoingSomethingGreat will generally win a higher wallet share from customers than brands that are not.
We think this is because humans tend to seek stability and comfort and want to feel safe and secure. Therefore businesses should satisfy the needs of their customers and make them feel secure in the relationship, and look after society and/or the environment at the same time.
The Demand for Excellent Customer Experience
The demand for excellent customer experience is increasing as new technologies emerge and markets become more competitive. If a business wants to stand out, it should have a personalised, data-driven, and customer-focused approach. We help organisations become more customer-centric and differentiate their customer value proposition through innovation with a digital-first mindset.
Customers have many choices, and therefore they are more demanding. Especially the younger generation that has an "instant gratification" mentality because they were born in a connected world where information is readily available at their fingertips. They want a personalised experience that makes sense as we all want to be recognised for our individual needs.
Employee Experience Drives Customer Experience
Building a customer-centric organisation is not just about technology but more about values and culture. Your employee experience is a critical success factor. Happy employees ensure that you have happy customers; therefore, companies need to focus on the employee value proposition, which will result in a better customer experience.
Frictionless Experiences and the Zappos Model
Consumers expect a frictionless customer experience whenever they interact with a brand. When Zappos launched their money-back guarantee and free swap-out policy for their well-priced shoes and personalised service, they soon became a big business. Amazon.com bought them for their awesome customer-focused strategy.
"Over the years, the number one driver of our growth at Zappos has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Our philosophy has been to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and invest it into customer service and the customer experience instead, letting our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth." - Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
According to a recent report by Gallup, 66% of customers will cease doing business with a company that provides poor service. Furthermore, it takes just 20 seconds for a potential customer to decide if they want to stay or leave your website. You lose 25% of the attention span every click, so if the customer journey is too complex, you may lose customers and have very low conversion ratios.
What is a Great Customer Experience?
A great customer experience is one where customers feel valued, respected, and heard, and where they get all the information they need from the company easily and at the right time via the channel of their choice, and the experience is consistent across all channels.
It is about how your customers feel when interacting with your brand. It is about creating an experience that makes them feel unique and special and, most importantly, addresses their needs in the best way possible.
Technology Enables Great CX
Brands will build on their successes (and learn from the failures), leveraging technology-driven solutions to the challenges of building deeper connections and relationships with their customers. Artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) platforms have been enthusiastically adopted in marketing, product design, and customer services.
According to Forbes, the term "metaverse" has emerged as a key trend. They describe persistent, online environments where we can connect, communicate and collaborate increasingly immersively. This allows brands to deliver new and interesting customer experiences over virtual platforms.
Gartner shows that trying to undercut competitors' prices is not as viable as providing a superior customer experience. It is swiftly becoming the priority for brands attempting to differentiate themselves from their competition.
Permission Marketing and UX
Brands should be laser-focused on customer experience right now, partly because they know people will pay more for great experiences. Another major factor is that they understand that experience includes building trust. When we trust businesses, we are much more likely to be willing to share our data with them.
The importance of a great user experience or UX can be seen in the fact that 86% of customers say they will not return to a website or mobile app after a bad experience. Bad experiences can range from your website or app taking too long to load or being confusing and difficult to navigate.
In partnership with Netcore Marketing Cloud, we offer contextual "Digital Nudges" that guide the customer journey and lead to higher conversions.
#DoingSomethingGreat is about giving customers a great experience with your brand!