We have talked about Customer Experience Management in our Services page:
Here, let us see how to build effective strategies for customers to have a meaningful and positive experience with companies and their products/services. A Customer Experience Strategy is a compilation of a set of plans, actions taken to execute the plans, and guidelines created to maintain an effective customer experience. For a company to have a successful CX strategy, it has to start from the time a customer knows about the company until the customer keeps coming to the same company for products or services. So, the company has to ensure that their customer’s experience is effective in this entire journey.
When it comes to the Indian market, Customer Experience Management is a huge platform to handle. Since we have both Indian and International products/services competing in our market, it becomes very vital for the companies to satisfy and retain their Indian customers throughout the year.
We have listed about 10 tips to build an Effective Customer Experience (CX) Strategy:
1.An organized Customer Care department:
It is important to have a well-planned Customer Care department executed as soon as a product/service is launched by a company. The employees need to understand that customer is the one who makes a product/service successful or unsuccessful.
2. Know your customers:
A company has to identify its customers first before providing any service to the customers. A good survey or a good Mystery shopping program could help a company to understand their type of customers. Once this is done, the customers can be approached for further communications.
3.Empathy to customers:
Empathizing with customers when they approach a company with any issue strengthens the bond between the company and the customers. When immediate action is taken or a polite reply is given, it helps in building customer relationships in the long run.
4.Continous customer experience mapping:
There must be a continuous survey of customers’ likes and dislikes and the data from such surveys should reach all levels of the employees. This could result in a lot of innovative ideas coming in from the employees to satisfy the customers.
5.Team development:
Providing data to the employees from the survey alone is not sufficient. There has to be re-training or re-educating the employees based on the results of the surveys conducted.
6.Easy and User-friendly platforms:
The digital platform provided to the customers should first of all be easy and user-friendly. Only then, the customers would like to use these platforms for their queries or feedback. This has become even more essential especially in these Covid times since customers cannot visit the stores for their regular needs.
7.Social media reviews:
To get reviews from customers faster, social media is a good platform to use. Platforms like Facebook or Instagram can result in a lot of reviews from a big group of customers. From this, happy and unhappy customers could be found which might help the management to make good decisions.
8.Excellent Interactive tools:
Creating very good interactive tools can help in getting real-time feedback from customers. These tools launched on the company’s websites can help in catering to customers’ demands quickly and also resolving their issues without wasting much time.
9.Pandemic era:
During this current pandemic era, customer service has become the heart of any business. Reaching to the old and new customers, catering to their demands and offering them great service is the most important activity for any company.
10.Good ROI metrics:
A company has to regularly be aware of its investments in the products or services and its customers’ satisfaction levels. For this, a good Return on Investment metrics tool is very essential. The numerical representation gives a good analysis for the employees to understand their customer experience management. The top-level management team can also implement new strategies based on the results of this tool.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanjeev Shenoy
Managing Director, HS Brands Asia
Sanjeev Shenoy has 15+ years’ experience in mystery shopping and customer experience and has helped several global brands design and manage programs across Asia. As a post-graduate in Management, he has worked in Marketing & Operations across retail and food and beverage. As a believer in the beginners’ mindset, Sanjeev seeks to bring in innovation in the mystery shopping industry through technology and best practices from other industries.
