How Customer Experience Drives Business Growth
All business owners want to achieve growth sooner than later. However, this business growth won’t just happen, as several vital factors influence your company’s growth rate. One of these factors is customer experience, with data indicating that 73% of consumers cite good experiences as influential in determining their brand loyalties. Therefore, you need a plan to create “wow” moments for your customers throughout their buyer journey to make them loyal fans. Appreciating customers’ perspectives is crucial here to understand what they value.
What Do Your Customers Want?
The most promising business opportunities come from clarity regarding what your customers need from you. You can achieve this through syndicated, third-party research, and a good customer experience map. One vital area of your customer experience map you must focus on is customer interaction, to find out what your clientele is thinking and feeling. Consequently, you need to talk to your customers regarding what they value most about your business and how best to modify your operations to improve their customer experience.
Gaining this knowledge requires a hands-on approach most entrepreneurs find uncomfortable – you must heavily engage your clients personally. Surveys are an effective way to do this, so prioritize regular surveys among your current consumer base and past clients to discover what they want. This crucial information will help you generate your customer experience map. Therefore, several business experts advise that you should overlook your fear of hearing something you perceive as bad regarding your business in favour of uncovering genuine, essential information vital to your company’s growth.
True interactions with clientele can lead to improved customer satisfaction. You can also learn valuable information through suggestions to improve your customer support agents’ training; this will in turn improve your service delivery. Also, engaging past clients can boost customer recovery. Your customers will feel engaged and valued, encouraging loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising to other potential clientele.
How to Craft Customer Experience as A Solopreneur
Small business owners and solopreneurs typically fill in several positions in their business, so they naturally feel intimidated and overwhelmed about taking on more responsibilities like providing excellent customer service. However, given your limited number of clients, business experts advise that you prioritise exceptional customer service, as losing them could spell your company’s doom.
You don’t need a complicated and costly strategy to accomplish this, as you are closer to your customers and have a better understanding of their individual needs. Also, many people love to patronise small businesses to support their operations and help them grow. As such, your small business status gives you a unique advantage to craft a powerful, personalised customer experience for every single customer. This personal touch can be a significant boost to your business over time as more customers develop a bond with your company. Therefore, it is vital to create a customer experience strategy that allows you to reflect your business personality to attract clientele. To do this, you can:
- Create a fun, engaging welcome video when new people sign up to your email list or purchase a product from you.
- Send customers a personalised gift from a local business close to them to show your appreciation, thoughtfulness, and evoke gratitude and loyalty.
- Be empathetic towards your customers. According to Forbes, the highest performing businesses also top the list of the most empathetic companies, proving that customers genuinely value being assisted nicely. As such, understand that your customers are humans and not just mere data points to create meaningful connections.
- Be transparent and communicative. Transparency in business ranges from honesty about what your business can and can’t do to accepting responsibility for a mistake. Transparency builds trust, a vital component of customer experience that drives growth.
- Ask and act on customer feedback. Feedback will guide you to decide what aspects of your business operations to optimise for improved customer experience. Working on this feedback shows the customer that you listen to and value their opinions, encouraging their loyalty and consequently, boosting your company’s growth.
- Build an engaged online community. In today’s business world, several business experts agree that having an engaged online community should feature in your customer experience strategy. Ensure that you educate, connect with, and listen to consumers in your online community for optimum results.
Surprising and Delighting Customers
Motivating customers to keep coming back to your business can be a daunting task, given the availability of many modern-day customer options. Consequently, develop innovative ways of engaging customers to boost retention in this hyper-competitive environment. Consider, for example, creating personalised offers to send to individual customers via email instead of large-scale proposal sharing, as this will be more impactful.
The goal here is to deviate from the industry norm to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Therefore, observe how other businesses and industries do business to see what elements you can borrow to make your brand unique. Are loyalty schemes popular with a customer base elsewhere? Consider implementing one for your business to stand out. Are other companies organising exclusive events that provide customers with too good to be true gifts and experiences to inspire loyalty? Why not do the same for yours?
It is widely known in the business community that the surprise and delight tactic yields significant results if executed correctly. According to the Harvard Business Review, surprises fuel more intimate relationships between brands and consumers, so consider featuring this tactic in your customer experience strategy for the best results.
How to Create Long-Term Customer Retention
Customer retention differentiates companies that grow from those that don’t. Customers patronise businesses for different reasons, and getting them to stick around is the real liquid gold of business growth. Several business experts advise that giving consumers an emotional and psychological win is what keeps them around. Strategies like providing exceptional customer service, surprising and delighting your customer base, and rewarding your loyal advocates will positively impact your retention rates. Also, prioritise regularly communicating with customers, delivering on your promises in a timely and professional manner, being trustworthy, etc., to boost your retention rates. Remember: when customers win, they stay in!
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