CX stands for customer experience, is the total amount of customers views and impressions following all direct and indirect interactions with a brand like the use of the brand’s products or experience with the aftercare service team, so covering the whole customer lifespan.
This is the true CX meaning which will ascertain the level of customer experience that a brand delivers to customers from being within the consideration set of preferred brands to customer retention in repurchasing the product or service.
Measuring customer experience is normally done by running and calculating metrics like the Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction (CSAT), customer effort score (CES) as well as the customer churn rate and loyalty (repeat purchases). These metrics allow brands to make insightful and informed decisions in taking action when required.
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Components of customer experience
There are four main components of customer experience to be aware of:
1. Service provided across the customer lifecycle
The first component of CX is the service that is delivered to a customer throughout the customer lifecycle. Therefore, it is vitally important that services are delivered in an integrated and consistent way inside your business as well as outside the business with customers, distributors and suppliers.
2. Product or service in meeting customer needs every time
Ensuring the product or service are meeting the requirements of the customer every time, so not only looking in the current situation but in the future as well. The customer’s journey throughout the product lifecycle can be managed based on making informed decisions via customer insights.
3. An organisation’s brand and reputation
This is a crucial point highlighting how well is the brand and its reputation integrated within the customer experience platform allowing it to perform at a high level through these various touchpoints that a customer has with the brand.
4. Price
The final component is price, which is a key driver of a customer’s perception of a brand. Therefore, its value pricing strategies need to be developed using insights about the customers willingness to pay for a product and the value benefits gained by using the product or service to implement a successful customer experience program. This requires the whole business at all levels and functions to take on being customer centric.
Importance of customer experience
The importance of customer experience rests on success of the brand in delivering a great experience for customers at all stages of interaction with the brand and in doing so promoting customer loyalty, retention and advocacy in recommending the brand to others.
Otherwise, poor customer experience will eventually have a detrimental effect on the brand’s finances and market share with the brand falling behind their competitors, so further down the pecking order of the consideration set of preferred brands that a customer may have.
Happy customers are also likely to be brand advocates in recommending the brand to friends, family and colleagues, so having a snow balling effect if a brand gets it right or vice versa if they are not happy and vocalising their dissatisfaction on social media.
Customer service vs Customer experience
Customer service often gets confused with customer experience, which are both important but they are not the same. The difference between the two is customer experience is related to all touchpoints of the customer journey from awareness of the brand to purchase selection and following on from that aftercare service a customer may receive, while customer service is the support a customer receives from staff during a point in time in the customer journey such as exchanging a faulty product or the experience they had with sales staff during the point of purchase.
So basically, customer service is more about the human contact that a customer has with a brand during the journey, whereas customer experience is about the complete journey from the brand reputation to the personal contact and other elements such as delivery of the product. Essentially you cannot have one without the other.
Good customer experience examples
The following are 5 good customer experience examples from well-known brands:
1. Netflix – Tailored Recommendations
This major online streaming service have used sophisticated algorithms for years to recommend films, animations, documentaries and TV series for subscribers to watch based on their viewing habits rather than subscribers trawling through the online catalogue searching for a film to watch. Plus, there are personalised thumb nails accustomed to the programmes you watch such as one for the adults and another for the kids.
2. Dominoes – Keep You Updated
Ordering online from this pizza chain could not be easier and the great thing for customers is the visual aspect of the dial letting you know the progress of each stage of your order and when it will arrive. There are other food delivery brands that illustrate progress bars but the use of the round dial is an efficient way of breaking it down and is visually appealing.
3. Starbucks – Personal Touch
Starbucks provide a great personal touch when you go into their coffee shops by simply adding your name to your take away coffee. They have been doing this for some time and helps to differentiate the brand with their competitors. Although there have been a small number of individual cases when this has gone wrong i.e., wrong name or misspellings.
4. Amazon – Advanced Personalised Filtering
Amazon with their huge array of products on offer, they make it easier for shoppers to filter on the type of product they want along with the personalised ratings and references that shoppers can click on especially the keywords in the reviews section, so you can drill down further to find out more about the product rather than just what’s on the product description.
5. Disney (theme parks) – Better User Experience Via App
When visiting the Disney theme parks in Florida or California., you can download and use the Disney app that will allow you check all the rides that are available, the latest queue times for each of the rides and the best bit, is you can jump the queues by booking rides in advance. This helps customers plan and maximise their experience of the theme park rather than fearing the unknown that you can have with really long queues. Plus, there are wrist bands you can use (magic bands), which you can link to your credit card, so you can easily pay for items around the theme park without taking out your wallet or purse
Hope you enjoyed reading this post, there more interesting posts below that you should check out.
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