If your business isn’t focusing on enhancing customer experiences to augment sales, you should consider these eye-opening facts:
97% of consumers and 98% of contact center managers have said that customer service interactions impact the consumer’s decision to stay loyal to a brand.
Further, 61% of consumers wouldn’t mind paying (at least) 5% more when they know they’ll get a good customer experience.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise because 88% of buyers agree that customer experience matters as much as a company’s products or services.
Fortunately, progressive businesses are taking notice of these numbers with 60% of leaders agreeing that customer service improves customer retention.
The truth is, there’s no end to the scope for improving customer experiences. However, it is crucial to equip your teams with the tools, training, and strategies that keep customers engaged and sales peaking.
Sales enablement plays a big role here as it allows teams to deliver personalized content and automated interactions. This leads to greater customer satisfaction which, in turn, means a higher sales performance.
Mentioned ahead are a few tips to improve your customer experience efforts and take your sales performance through the roof.
10 Tips for Better Customer Experiences and Boosted Sales
The tricky thing about CX is that customer expectations keep evolving. This is why it is vital to constantly analyze and improve customer experiences. Read on to find out how to succeed at this.
1. Listen to Your Customers
All thriving businesses tend to have one common goal: to solve customers’ problems through their products and services. The only way to achieve this is by knowing about these pain points. And how do you understand their problems? By listening to what they have to say.
This is where tools like customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter Scores, and so on come into the picture. They allow customers to give targeted feedback, both positive and negative. Businesses can use these responses to improve the overall CX, improve offerings, and increase sales.
Other great ways to detect loopholes and shortcomings in products and services include mystery shopping, evaluation of online reviews and ratings, and usability testing.
2. Prioritize Personalization
So, you’ve been gathering a ton of customer data but don’t know what to do with it? Personalization is a good place to start. We’re talking about highly targeted marketing, custom product recommendations, tailored communication, and the like. After all, personalization is key to engendering stellar customer experiences and boosting sales.
The fact is, by leveraging customer data, your sales and marketing teams can create more relevant CX. Data analytics and machine learning are ingenious tools that businesses can harness to optimize their personalization efforts. Embracing personalization is also a great way to foster a lasting emotional connection with your customers.
3. Map Customer Journeys
Customer journeys can be mapped to understand their interactions with your business‑from start to finish. This entails working through the entire customer lifecycle to identify pain points, interactions, touchpoints, and more.
This can help increase sales because businesses are able to understand how customers are communicating with them and about what specific needs. The sales team can then approach them accordingly.
All in all, mapping the customer journey allows sales teams to step into the customers’ shoes and interact with them on their level. This makes customers feel seen, heard, and valued, motivating them to keep buying from your business.
4. Leverage Technology
Offering customers the bare minimum (especially in the age of AI) is sure to leave them frustrated. You want to avoid issues like mobile app glitches, slow website speed, poor data security, awkward user interfaces, and such if you want to keep your customers. Needless to say, outdated technology will tank your business’s credibility. Using sophisticated tech, on the other hand, will take you places.
Cloud technologies, environments, and integration can help businesses manage multiple apps and an ocean of customer data. This can make it easy for sales teams to create flawless customer experiences and result in improved sales performance.
5. Create Smart Spaces
In the CX realm, smart spaces refer to environments equipped with advanced technologies that engender personalized interactions. Sales teams can use these paces to provide real-time responses to customers. Integrating smart spaces with sales enablement strategies can allow businesses to create experiences to match specific customer preferences.
For instance, retailers can use smart displays to make product suggestions based on the customer’s browsing history. Similarly, sensors can be deployed to reduce waiting times at checkout points. Implementing this tech-driven approach can not only increase customer satisfaction levels but also improve sales results.
6. Invest in CX Audit
If you’ve implemented a CX strategy, you’re going to want to know how it fared, and what products/services and interactions need improving. Here, you want to conduct an evaluation of various processes and touchpoints to see if they’re in line with customer expectations.
For instance, conducting a CX audit can help you find out how customers discovered your business, the reasons they buy from you, your delivery process, customer service interactions, and overall communication with your business, among other things.
The takeaway is simple: implement CX audit correctly and you stand to gain tremendous customer insights that will eventually help you augment the customer journey.
7. Create an Omnichannel Strategy
Customers today use a number of channels to interact with businesses. Social media, emails, online chats—nothing can be ruled out. Know that your customers will use the most convenient option available to them to talk to you.
Hence, you need to present them with an array of touchpoints at once so they get authentic information from the right sources when they need it. Doing so will help you provide consistency and continuity throughout the customer journey, thereby closing any communication gaps or misrepresentations.
8. Innovate, Innovate, Innovate
Your customers will continue buying from you only if you can keep up with evolving technologies and trends. It’s understood that before arriving at their buying decision, they’ll compare your offerings with those of your competitors.
They’ll also compare experiences, such as app experiences or the speed of response to their queries. Basically, keeping up with the latest innovations is one area where your business cannot afford to fall behind.
To live up to these expectations, consider using the most updated data analytics (for personalization), conversational AI (chatbots), SEO-optimized websites, and intuitive mobile apps. All of these will take your CX to another level and help drive sales performance.
9. Don’t Forget about Customer Service
Exceptional customer service will always be among the key considerations for customers to either stay with you or move on to your competitors. Remember, your customers are buying from you not just because you sell what they need, but because they’re sure you’ll be around when they need product support. It’s no secret that customers stay loyal to businesses that live up to this expectation.
Providing stellar customer service depends on several factors. Your employees will need to be trained to put the customer first. They’ll also need support to grow their customer-handling skills and attitudes. In fact, your overall business culture will need to emphasize delivering not just quantity, but also quality. This means your business infrastructure, CRM tools, and experience management platforms need to come together to deliver memorable customer services.
10. Acknowledge Loyal Customers
One of the most effective and cost-effective ways of boosting your sales is using your loyal customers and their positive feedback to promote your offerings. This is a total win-win because your business can attract more customers who are ready to buy your products and services.
At the same time, your existing customers feel acknowledged with the exposure they get. In the long term, this strategy will help you differentiate your business from your competitors while solidifying customer relationships.
Conclusion
If you’re still considering CX initiatives an option, you’re on the wrong track! The fact is, it is non-negotiable if you want to boost your sales and retain your loyal customers. Remember, as customers become more powerful, the need to create memorable experiences for them also increases. Of course, improving CX takes constant work and care. But the sooner you start, the better. With a robust CX strategy, your business will be able to engender the outcomes it needs to thrive: improved customer loyalty, greater retention, and higher ROI.
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