The role of customer experience in increasing sales
Nicole Smith, Business Partner
Some business owners may roll their eyes at any mention of the term ‘customer experience’. But the reality in all businesses is that attitudes towards customer experience, and investment in it, directly impacts sales.
No longer only embraced by big businesses, progressive companies, and consumer-facing businesses, today customer experience, or CX, is empowering businesses of all shapes and sizes to achieve true customer intimacy. Through a company-wide commitment to CX, your business will increasingly get better at:
- anticipating your target audience’s needs;
- solving their problems before they ask you to solve them; and
- creating friction-free and memorable experiences.
And when you’re doing all of those things, your business will be rewarded with sustained sales success.
What is customer experience?
Customer experience is your customers’ holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand. Importantly, customer experience is not the same thing as customer service.
“Attitudes towards customer experience, and investment in it, directly impacts sales.”
Customer service is a piece of the CX puzzle, but CX is larger than customer service. It includes every touchpoint a customer ever has with your business, including:
- navigating your website;
- speaking with your customer service representatives;
- how they receive the product/service they bought from you;
- what they read about your business in the media; and
- how they are treated both before the sale and after the sale.
Great CX requires a customer-centric mindset, and its two primary touchpoints are people and product. For the benefits of great CX to be fully realised, customer centricity needs to be a company-wide initiative, as important for customer-facing team members such as sales representatives as it is for non-customer facing staff.
The intrinsic relationship between CX and sales
Whether directly or indirectly, everything you do impacts your customers’ perception of your business and influences whether they choose to buy from you again or take their business to one of your competitors. So, a great customer experience, including reducing the friction of customer complaints and returns, is key to maximising repeat business and sales success.
“A great customer experience is key to maximising repeat business and sales success.”
All business models can benefit from improving their CX because putting customers first is always good for business. When CX becomes a company-wide priority, your business will achieve:
- increased customer loyalty;
- increased customer satisfaction; and
- better word-of-mouth marketing, positive reviews, and recommendations.
Professional sales training is often used by businesses to review their processes, identify opportunities to improve CX and to better connect CX to sales success.
Five focus points for lifting your CX game
So, knowing that providing a better customer experience will empower your sales team and lead to better sales conversion rates, how can you get started on elevating your customer experience?
If you’ve identified that the CX you are currently providing customers isn’t up to scratch, there may be some low-hanging fruit that you and your leadership team can address to turn the tide. Here are five starters that can help your business turn the tide on CX.
Address company culture
Build a customer-centric company culture where every employee, from business leaders to junior staff, buys into the vision. In practical terms, this means knowing your customers – perhaps with the help of buyer personas – better than anyone else and helping them to be as successful as possible.
Make listening to your customers your top priority
If truly knowing your customers is the goal, then the path to success seems simple. But it’s more than just listening to your customers; CX-centric businesses make their customers’ concerns and frustrations priority number one.
Create memorable human experiences
In this 21st Century digital era where non-human, impersonal touchpoints such as AI, chatbots, and automation are aplenty, the human touch is more important than ever. Providing memorable human experiences will not be lost on your customers; they will remember them and they will remember you.
Reduce friction as much as possible
Customer service and customer support play a major role in delivering a frictionless, streamlined experience for your customers. Review and simplify your customer support system – make it as easy as possible for your customers to access help where they most need it. Prioritise simplified self-service where possible, and embrace transparency and honesty.
Reply quickly
This simplest of the five, but no less important. Reply to your customers quickly, and often. Don’t under-estimate the impact this will have on your customers. Your diligence won’t go unnoticed.
KEEP IN TOUCH
