How to Improve Customer Experience 101

Customer experience (CX) can include everything from a customer’s first interaction with your brand (e.g., seeing an ad) to their post-purchase experience (e.g., using your product or service). Customer experience (CX) is the perception customers have from their interactions with your company. Every touchpoint a customer has with your business contributes to their overall experience, whether it’s positive or negative. 

A great customer experience can result in increased sales and customer loyalty, while a poor customer experience will lead to customers taking their business elsewhere. It’s important to note that customer experience is not the same as customer service.

What is Customer Experience?

Customer experience can include everything from a customer’s first interaction with your brand (e.g., seeing an ad) to their post-purchase experience (e.g., using your product or service). Customer experience (CX) is the perception customers have from their interactions with your company. Every touchpoint a customer has with your business contributes to their overall experience, whether it’s positive or negative. 

A great customer experience can result in increased sales and customer loyalty, while a poor customer experience will lead to customers taking their business elsewhere. It’s important to note that customer experience is not the same as customer service.

Customer Experience vs Customer Service 

The customer experience is the sum of all interactions a customer has with your company. Customer service, on the other hand, is just one part of the customer experience. It’s the direct interaction between a customer and your company to solve a problem or answer a question. Think of customer experience as the big picture and customer service as just one piece of the puzzle.

What is The Goal of Improving Customer Experience? 

The goal of improving customer experience is to create happy, satisfied customers who will continue to engage with your brand and recommend your services to others. In order to achieve this, it’s important to understand what your customers want and expect from interactions with your company. Business owners will need to find ways to exceed those expectations by delivering extraordinary experiences at every touchpoint.

There are many ways to improve customer experience, but it all starts with understanding the customer journey and identifying where there are opportunities to make improvements. Once those opportunities are identified, businesses can focus on designing and delivering experiences that will leave a positive, lasting impression on customers.

Drive ROI

Many companies want to increase customer satisfaction (CSAT). They also want to showcase their return on investment and get people to come back and further invest with them. In today’s business landscape, the customer experience should be the main goal to drive this outcome. In fact, a study by Forrester found that “Improving CX by one point can lead to more than $1 billion in additional revenue.” And yet, despite its importance, many companies struggle to improve their customer experience. 

Additional Benefits of Improving Customer Experience

There are many benefits of improving customer experience, but here are a few key ones that will influence your business the most:

Build & Sustain Brand Equity

The clear outcome of improving customer experience is that it helps to sustain brand equity over time. A study by McKinsey & Company found that a 10% improvement in customer satisfaction will result in a 12–18% uplift in brand equity.  And when you look at the most valuable brands in the world, they all share one thing in common: They’ve built their brand equity over time by delivering great customer experiences.

Invest in The Right Resources

One key way to invest in customer experience is to make sure you have the right resources in place. This includes everything from customer service representatives to contact center technology. By investing in the right resources, you can ensure that your customers have a positive experience and are more likely to return in the future.

Investing in customer experience can also help you save costs in the long run. A study by Bain & Company found that companies that are leaders in customer experience have operating costs that are 6% lower than their lagging counterparts. Furthermore, a study by American Express found that businesses who invest an additional $5 per customer in customer experience can expect to see an uplift of between $25 and $95 in return.

Innovate More Quickly with Rich, Ongoing Customer Feedback

By investing in customer experience, you are able to innovate more quickly through rich and always-on customer feedback, keeping you well informed across all platforms. The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a key part of the customer experience, and it’s important to continuously gather feedback from customers at every touchpoint in their journey. A customer survey can be used to collect feedback at specific points in the customer journey. In addition, you can get customer feedback in real-time using customer experience management (CEM) software like Medallia.

What is Defined as “Good” Customer Experience?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as what constitutes a good customer experience will vary from business to business. However, there are a few key factors that are typically considered when determining whether or not a customer experience is good. 

First, customers should feel valued and appreciated by your company. They should feel like they’re more than just a number, and that their opinion matters. 

Second, the customer experience should be easy and convenient. Customers should be able to find what they need without difficulty, and the process of purchasing or using your product or service should be straightforward. 

Third, the customer experience should be personalized. Customers should feel like you understand them and what they need. And lastly, the customer experience should be satisfactory. The product or service should meet or exceed the customer’s expectations. If your company can deliver on all of these factors, then you can consider your customer experience to be "good".

How To Manage Customer Experience 

Employee engagement plays a key role in creating a positive customer experience. The most important thing to remember when managing customer experience is that it’s a journey, not a destination. To manage customer experience effectively, you should implement the following in the process:

Continuous improvement: Continuously collect customer feedback and use it to improve the customer experience. This drives both the improvement of your business processes and products.

Customer-centric: Design your customer experience around the needs of your customers. Provide a positive customer experience that build long-term relationships by putting your customers first.

Integrated approach: Take an integrated approach to customer experience. An integrated approach facilitates customer self-service and direct communication between your company and the customer. This reduces the need for middlemen.

If you want to learn more about how to improve customer experience, we recommend reading our guide Customer Experience Management Best Practices.

How To Improve Customer Experience 

There are many avenues businesses can take to improve customer experience. The following action steps can be applied to renew and improve your customer experience.

Leverage Customer Mapping 

The customer experience is one of the most important aspects of any business. It's how customers interact with your company, and it can make or break their relationship with you. That's why it's so important to have a strong customer experience strategy in place, and to continually work on improving it. One great way to improve customer experience is to map out the customer journey. This involves figuring out all of the different touchpoints that a customer has with your company, and then making sure that each one is as positive as possible. When you map out the customer journey, you can start to see where there might be potential problems or areas for improvement. You can then create a plan to address those issues and make the customer experience even better.

Invest Efforts in Social Listening 

If you want to improve customer experience, it’s important to invest efforts in social listening. Platforms like Medallia make it easy for businesses to track and measure customer sentiment across all channels. This gives businesses a clear idea of what customers are saying about them and where they need to improve.

Improve Data Collection & Analysis

Data is critical to understanding the customer experience and making improvements. But data by itself is not enough. The data must be high quality and collected in a way that provides actionable insights. There are many ways to collect data about the customer experience, but some methods are more effective than others. Many businesses find that partnering with a software like Medallia is the best way to improve data collection. Our software captures customer feedback from daily customer interactions in person, on the phone, and online.

Provide Actionable Feedback for Employees

Medallia Employee Experience helps organizations capture employee feedback, understand employee sentiment, discover new sales opportunities, and take action to improve the employee experience. We gather key insights from frontline employees on how to improve CX and understand how their experiences impact your customers. Learn more about how Medallia can help you improve employee experience.

Incorporate Diverse Ways to Provide Feedback

Feedback is essential to the success of improving the customer experience. One way to make sure your customer experience strategy is successful is by incorporating different ways for customers to give feedback. This allows you to gather data from a variety of sources, so you can get a holistic view of the customer experience. There are many different ways to collect customer feedback. Some companies use surveys to poll frontline employees, while others rely on customer service interactions or social media monitoring. Whatever method you choose, make sure you're getting feedback from a variety of customers, so you can get a well-rounded view of the customer experience.

The customer experience is made up of all the interactions a customer has with your business, from the initial contact to after they’ve made a purchase. Every touchpoint matters, and it’s crucial to make sure each one is positive if you want to keep customers coming back. Luckily, there are solutions like Medallia that can help you track and improve every aspect of the customer experience. Want to see how Medallia can help your business? Request a demo and our team will be happy to show you how we can create memorable experiences for your customers that lead to increased sales and loyalty.