Customer Experience (CX) is at the very top of the priority list for business leaders, from the CEO to the CRO to the CMO to the CIO. While many organizations have created a specialized role for a Chief Customer Experience officer or equivalent within the business, most brands are still struggling to drive effective outcomes from their CX initiatives. With customers increasingly demanding richer, more intuitive and more personalized experiences—in both B2C and B2B scenarios—brands must evaluate their end-to-end customer experience strategy to deliver experiences that remain deep within the hearts of their customers.
At the core of a successful CX strategy lies customer research. And while customers are more demanding than ever before, organizations have the chance to know their customers better than ever due to the breadth and depth of data and insights available to them. However, how well brands use this data is what defines the success or failure of their CX strategy.
The ultimate goal of a CX strategy should be to use customer data to understand their sentiment, and deliver experiences that increase customer satisfaction and build long-term brand loyalty.
Understand the critical elements of a successful CX strategy
Your customer experience strategy and design strategy enables you understand your key customer personas, map your customer journeys, and align your design, marketing and customer service operations to deliver interactive and personalized customer experiences.
The key elements in your CX design should include:
- CX insights driven by customer research, behavioral analytics, customer satisfaction index and VoC (Voice of Customer) to continuously interact with your buyer personas, and create meaningful interactions across different touchpoints through the buyer’s journey.
- CX strategy created on the basis of CX insights to help you develop and execute effective CX roadmaps, and prioritize investments in CX initiatives with the highest impact.
- CX design levering tools, best practices, processes, framework and platforms to enable your CX teams and key stakeholders to design, and continuously improve your CX strategy, and ultimately deliver experiences that drive customer success.
One of the most critical aspects in building a CX strategy is the alignment of key organizational functions that, when executed correctly, collaborate and work cohesively to drive successful business outcomes.
Align your Customer Experience with your marketing channels
Gartner defines customer experience as the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations and, thus, increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Marketing remains at the helm of customer interaction, and integrating CX throughout your marketing funnel can help your marketing function to differentiate your brand and gain competitive advantage.
Understanding your buyer personas and customer journeys, and mapping your CX roadmap across your marketing channels will help you to create powerful and meaningful customer interactions.
Your most valuable resource ion this process is your customer data.
Leverage customer insights to design your CX
Data and analytics will play an extremely critical role in making your CX strategy a success. Understanding your customer data will help you unravel meaningful insights about their behavior, expectations and opinions. Develop and utilize analytics strategies and technologies to identify, gather, analyze and implement relevant insights to better understand your customers.
So what does CX truly mean in today’s digital world?
CX is not about delivering product or customer support or resolving the customer’s after-sale problems. The goal of CX is to remain with the customer throughout the buying process—from the initial buying intent to the actual purchase, and beyond—optimizing the experience throughout the buyer’s journey.
Not just that, understanding the term customer in customer experience is key. Your customer isn’t just your buyer, it is your entire funnel including your customer includes your target audience, your prospects and your brand’s influencers.
Continuously evolve and improve your CX
CX is complex and the fact remains that most brands are still struggling to effectively use it to drive revenue. But a laser focus approach on CX, and the mindset to keep evolving your CX strategy is the best path to success. They key lies in:
- Using data and analytics as the cornerstone
- Building strong collaboration between design, engineering, marketing, sales and customer service
- Creating customer delight
Always remember, no matter who your customers are—consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B)—or what industry you serve, it is essential to manage the entire gamut of activities, across the business that form your CX strategy. It is equally important to measure results, and make continuous improvements in order to develop and execute a CX strategy to create loyal customers that become your brand’s advocates.
