Customer experience (CX) is the lifeblood of every successful business. It’s capable of fostering long-term customer relationships. 

But how do you know you’re offering the best customer experience? 

How do you track and measure customer satisfaction?

This blog explores why your business must provide exceptional customer experience. And what factors influence it. 

We’ll also draw inspiration from brands that have excelled in creating positive customer experiences.

In the end, you’ll know how to measure CX and learn from experts’ strategies to avoid negative customer experiences.

Let’s begin.

What does customer experience mean? 

Customer experience is your customers’ relationship with your business. These experiences stem from interactions with your business throughout their entire journey. 

Imagine walking into a bustling café.

The smell of newly brewed coffee welcomes you. A friendly barista greets you with a warm smile. You settle into a cosy corner with your latte. The ambience feels right.

Now, recall a time when you’ve had the opposite experience.

Long lines, indifferent service, and a lukewarm cup of disappointment.

Which scenario would you prefer? It’s obvious.

This is the essence of customer experience – the heartbeat of any successful business.

Customer experience is a spectrum of feelings your customers have. Whether it’s the best or the worst experience, they always remember it. When people talk about customer experience, they often mean traditional touchpoints like point-of-sale. But as technology advances and digitalises our lives, brands have also evolved their approach to customer experience.

What is the difference between customer service and CX? 

Customer service is a part of the customer experience. 

Customer experience is a journey from awareness to purchase and beyond with a brand. It involves every interaction between a customer and your business.

Customer service is taking care of customer needs and wants throughout this journey. You can do this by providing exceptional quality help so your customers feel valued.

Why is customer experience important for your business?

Positive customer experience is a great way to grow your brand by getting noticed by new customers. With so much competition, a good reputation takes the lead in making your business noticeable.

But how do you build a good reputation? You can with a good customer experience strategy.

To understand this better, let’s consider an example of a customer experience journey.

Role of customer experience in a buyer’s journey

Imagine you own an online shoe store. 

Your potential customer is searching on Google for a pair of sports shoes. 

He finds an article that leads him to your website. 

Your customer is impressed with what he sees and looks around the website to learn more about your brand. 

He then reads reviews to see what customers think of your products and services. 

A few days later, while scrolling through his social media, a targeted ad of your brand pops up on his screen. It’s an ad for the same sports shoe he had looked up. 

Your customer gets reminded of his desire to purchase the shoes. By now, he has also heard good reviews about your business. 

He clicks on the link and lands on your website again. 

Your customer finally adds those shoes to the cart. He also wants some socks to go with the shoes but can’t locate them. 

So he heads over to the blinking chat option in the corner. 

This is where your customer service comes in. 

Your customer service redirects him to the page where he can find his ideal socks.

The customer service asks him if he needs anything more, like coloured laces. 

Once he adds all his desired products to the basket, your customer checks out and completes the purchase. 

A few days later, your customer receives his shoes. He’s happy with his purchase of shoes and recommends your store to his friends. 

He also purchases sports shoes from your brand in the future.

In this example, your customer came in contact with your business multiple times. This is the customer journey. 

He received quality customer service, which led to the purchase. 

His engagement with your business improved. He also overcame scepticism about your product, and his satisfaction improved.

He decided to recommend your brand to others, too.

So what’s the bottom line? 

You get loyalty by ensuring a better and frictionless customer experience.  

What are the factors that influence customer experience? 

The following are the 10 key factors: 

• Ensure easy accessibility. This can range from having a store that is easy to locate to a website with a clean interface. 
• Your customer values time. Set up automated responses or reply to queries as soon as you receive them.
• Your customer wants relevant information. Conduct a detailed analysis of customer data. Avoid spamming or coaxing customers to buy from you when they aren’t ready.
• Simple purchase processes make things convenient for your customers. Offer zoom-ins, keyword search options, and easy checkout with after-sales service. 
• Language impacts your customer’s experience if you operate in a foreign locality. Create chatbots and marketing material in the local language for your target audience.
• Like it or not, customers love it when you can deliver with supersonic speed. Whether your customers like the product or not, they have a separate opinion on delivery. 
• Price is the perceived value of the product. Lower prices will drive shoppers looking for affordability. Higher prices will attract shoppers looking for luxury. Tweak the level of customer service as your customer segment changes. 
• Companies often overlook availability. If your website is unavailable at purchase, your customer will move on to the next best option. 
• Quality products gain more loyal customers. But more customers want products and services that offer long-term after-sales support.
• Businesses that take up socially responsible endeavours make a good impression. If you donate to a cause, your brand gains favour.

While all these factors contribute to the customer experience, the brand’s value makes the most significant impact. 

You should consider excelling at least 3 to 6 factors to survive in a market. Focusing on only one is a recipe for disaster.   

Once you implement these factors, don’t forget to measure your customer experience’s success trends. 

How to measure customer experience?

Your customer’s expectations have evolved with time. 

So, the way you measure the customer experience should also evolve.

You can use multiple metrics to measure customer experience.

Here are some. 

1. Perception metrics

These metrics rely on how your customers feel about your business. You can use surveys or voice or text analysis software to understand customers’ sentiments.

The metrics you measure here cover satisfaction, ease, and confidence.

Check these metrics throughout the customer journey rather than a single touchpoint.

2. Interaction metrics

These metrics look at what happens throughout the customer journey. 

Pull the data from your website, contact centre software, and physical locations to understand interactions. 

Did your customers find satisfaction in the solution they received from customer service? Were they frustrated with long wait times?

Interaction metrics tell you how your brand’s actions impact customer perceptions.

3. Outcome metrics

These metrics measure the outcome of your customer’s perceptions and experiences. You derive these metrics from surveys, financial, and customer behaviour data. 

These metrics measure the relevance of your organisation’s output to your customer’s end goals. It measures how satisfied your customers are with what you have created. 

For example, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) or the number of products purchased tell you if you need to change your output.

These are very broad definitions. 

But you can use five common metrics:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): You can create a survey to ask customers about their satisfaction with a product/service. You can also use reviews and mystery shopping scores to record CSAT.
• Customer loyalty/churn: Depending on your business, you can calculate this in several ways. This includes average order size, frequency of purchase, repeat orders, loyalty program participation, and return rates.
• Quality: Most businesses overlook this straightforward metric. Consider adding questions about whether your product solves your customer’s problem. 
• Brand reputation/advocacy: This metric tells you if your customer will recommend you. Look at social media mentions, ratings, and participation in your events.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS is a loyalty metric. It gauges your customer’s willingness to recommend your brand by asking them to rate it on a scale of 0 to 10.
• Customer retention rate: This metric is the opposite of customer churn. Calculate it by subtracting your new customers from the total customers you had a certain time ago. Divide it by the initial count and multiply by 100. Strive for a high rate. 
• Support ticket trends: This metric tells you what problems your customers encounter. Once you identify a trend in customer complaints, you can take corrective action against it.

You can measure many of these metrics by using the services of customer experience survey companies.

Remember, you should adapt your customer experience measurement and strategy to your industry.

How do different industries approach customer experience? 

Customer experience differs between brands, especially in diverse industries. 

Think about your daily life.

You buy groceries and grab food. You also interact with healthcare providers when you’re not feeling well.

These are entirely separate industries. They offer unique customer experiences shaped by various factors.  

Here’s what customer experience means in these different industries:

• Customer experience management in financial services means providing the easiest access to funds with full security. This ensures quick resolution of inconveniences and provides uninterrupted online services.
• Customer experience management in healthcare means providing the best treatment. This translates to comfortable beds, no long appointment waits, and hospitable hospital staff.
• Customer service for retail businesses means ensuring customers have a smooth experience online and offline. This means boosting customer engagement, curating personalised solutions, and reducing friction in the buying process.
• Customer experience for e-commerce entails good website UI, easy access, and great product pages. This also means personalising experiences to each customer segment and responding to complaints.
• Customer experience for B2B services means responsiveness and seamless business and delivery. In B2B settings, above all, you must value pro-activity. You get customer loyalty by resolving issues before they arise.
• The hospitality business is highly customer-centric. You can enrich the customer experience by offering hotel amenities, easy bookings, and courteous staff.  

Train your team to listen and serve customers to ensure you provide the best customer experience. 

How does customer experience differ in the B2B and B2C context?

In B2B, customer experience is the perception and experience of your corporate business clients when interacting with your company. 

In B2C, customer experience encompasses all interactions and services your business provides to individual customers. 

The overall journey and interactions with your company define it.

Interactions across channels are similar for both B2B and B2C customers. 

But, the buying process in B2B is complex and lengthy. 

What are the strategies to enhance customer experience?

Customer experience experts recommend several strategies that can significantly enhance your customer experiences.

They suggest beginning by constructing strong product roadmaps.

1. Build strong product roadmaps

Anna Kuzma, Product Architect at UseResponse, says roadmaps help your business keep track of its KPIs. 

They provide clarity on implemented and missing technologies. They also highlight the tech that’s benefiting customers and future product plans.

This is the most useful if you sell products. 

Besides showing progress, a strong roadmap conveys your strategy to the organisation. 

The roadmap helps cross-functional teams pinpoint problems. This enables your team to use customer feedback more.

2. Automate first-level support

Antoine Goret, CMO at Crisp IM, emphasises automating your initial support options. 

Your customers aren’t willing to wait for a long time to get their problems addressed. So before sending your customers to the correct department, you must help them define their problems. 

Antoine recommends using chatbots at this stage. 

Create short auto-replies to speed up this step. Get responsive and quick when transferring customers to the correct department.

“Live chat is the fastest way to offer customer support to your customers. It will also help you gain more leads, which is great,” Antoine says. 

“This is a no-brainer for companies willing to enhance the customer service experience,” Antoine adds. 

3. Listen to your customers

Johnny Reinsch, CEO at Qwil, highlights the significance of customer listening from his experience.

Recalling his time handling support tickets, Johnny says, “I could track progress and provide answers in seconds.”

“But it took me much longer to realise people were conveying something very different,” Johnny adds. 

So, instead of resolving their ticket, Johnny listened and sympathised.

Johnny used phrases like “I can see how challenging that is” to empathise with the people reaching out for support. 

He also said, “I’m truly sorry you’re going through this”. And “I care deeply for the way you’re feeling”. 

This led to Johnny’s customers leaving the chat quicker and happier. 

So, use emotional intelligence to understand your customers’ problems. 

Make them feel valued. 

Sometimes, this is more important than solving your customers’ technical issues.

4. Don’t keep your customers hanging

Maxim Godin is an angel investor and co-founder of CrazyLister. Maxim thinks your customers who are inquiring want answers right then and there.

“People don’t have the time to wait for days or even hours. If they make inquiries about an item and you don’t reply in minutes, they will move to the next seller,” says Maxim. 

“If they have already bought from you and must wait, they will deem your service subpar and tell friends to stay away,” Maxim adds. 

So, train your support team to respond quickly to customer queries and problems. 

Avoid wasting your customer’s time. Provide the quickest answer in the shortest possible time.

Remember to always end the conversation with a smile.

All these strategies look good in writing. But do businesses practise them?

We have some examples of top companies that create successful customer experiences. 

Real-world examples of great customer experience 

Below are three great customer experience stories that you can learn from. While most are B2C, we found some exceptional B2B stories, too.

1. Zappos

Source:chatra.com

Zappos has a legacy built around excellent customer service. 

After hitting rock bottom and burning cash in 2002, CEO Tony Hseih shifted their focus from shoes. Zappos instead focused on building their customer service. 

Tony ensured every employee understood what customer experience meant. He prioritised it for his entire company and not just a single department.

Zappos managed to excel in their customer service.

Since then, they have implemented and adhered to several initiatives:

• Zappos hires culturally fit employees. They declined many talented people who could make a great impact. But, because these people were not a good cultural fit, Zappo decided to forgo the short-term gain.
• Zappos has an intensive 4 weeks training program for new hires. The new hires also take customer calls during this time. 
• The company has free shipping and returns. They view the additional shipping costs as marketing expenses. 
• Their 356-day return policy makes it easy for people to decide.
• Zappos offers unlimited call times. The customer service staff don’t use scripts and listen to the customers. This makes them feel appreciated and happy. 
• Their warehouse runs 24/7. This means overheads but also getting the order out as quickly as possible.

Key takeaways:

Your employees must actively live and breathe the core value of customer culture. It stems from your organisation’s core values and intrinsic factors. The sooner your organisation sets the tone, the easier it is to build on it.

2. Airbnb

Source:archdaily.com

Airbnb makes travelling and lodging easier. 

It’s not just for the traveller. It’s also for the millions of hosts that open their spaces to people. 

Airbnb has built its unique customer service model on trust between strangers. As odd as it may sound, the company has found a way to balance risk and trust through its website.

Airbnb encourages its guests to leave reviews after a stay. 

They also ask their guests to rate their experience on six elements – communication from hosts, accuracy of information, convenience, cleanliness, check-in, and overall value.

Airbnb uses live chat and bots to support its customers 24/7. 

The company respond to customer calls within minutes and answers most emails in 24 hours. For instant help, Airbnb offers extensive FAQs and articles on its website.

Airbnb also recognises employees and connects with them regardless of location. They give shout-outs, celebrate birthdays, and share company wins. 

New hires at the company go through a week-long check-in process. This is where they learn about Airbnb’s values and strategy.

Key takeaways

Airbnb has two different and diverse customer categories. They manage them by keeping all lines of communication open and providing omni-channel experiences. 

Trusting strangers becomes easy when you build the foundation on solid principles.

3. HubSpot

Source: HubSpot

HubSpot is a pioneer in providing great B2B customer support with extensive and scannable online material. 

The company provides blogs, live customer support, and chatbots to help its customers. 

HubSpot also offers its customers a library of recorded material and live webinars. 

Also, HubSpot provides training and certifications. All this encourages customers to put in the hours to learn new skills. 

Key takeaways:

When a business is online, you lose the face-to-face element altogether. 

However, HubSpot changed the game by flooding its online channels with relatable material. This makes HubSpot’s tools easy to understand for its customers and users. 

These examples of businesses serve as an inspiration to building your customer experience. 

With all great experiences come a tinge of the worst. And that’s what you should avoid at all costs. 

4 common mistakes to avoid that cause bad customer experience

Companies with the best customer experience avoid making these four mistakes. 

1. Long journeys and inaccessibility

Nausheen Popat, CCO at LifeCare International Insurance Brokers, suggests creating a good balance in your customer support options. 

“It is becoming increasingly common for companies to use chatbots, automated emails, and voice recognition-based phone lines for customer service,” says Nausheen.  

Nausheen agrees that these tools help your business company save time and manpower. 

But in addition to the answer to their problem, your customer wants something more, says Nausheen. 

Your customers also seek human-specific behaviours like reassurance, empathy and sincerity, Nausheen adds. 

So create a system where customers can connect to your contact centre staff for problems. Do this besides chatbots and automation. 

Also consider adding knowledgebase and FAQs on your website.  

2. Customer engagement extremes

When you decide against engagement, you stifle growth. 

You also fail to pick up on valuable insights and opportunities for development. 

Find out what your customers think about you by sending them surveys. Engage them on social media or create events.

But remember to find a balance. Too much engagement can leave negative impressions. 

Don’t spam your customers with survey polls, emails, or texts. Set up a non-invasive schedule where your customers receive messages from you. 

Send messages that add value to your readers, and they can respond.

3. Negative feedback

You won’t always receive positive reviews. 

When you receive negative reviews, you may feel tempted to ignore them. 

“This will do the contrary. You will appear distracted from how customers perceive you. If you can’t defend your brand, then who can?” says MHC Team. 

Picture this. A potential customer going through reviews for your business lands on a negative review. Now compare this to a negative review they read, which you have responded to. In the second scenario, your potential customer will likely view you as a company that values feedback. 

They also see you as a company willing to make amends and improve customer’s experiences. 

All this counts as a positive on the customer’s end. 

4. Not utilising social media

In today’s world, most of your customers use social media. So, ignoring this medium can become costly for you. 

Your customers start social media trends and expect you to keep up. 

One crucial aspect involves leaving reviews on your social channels, websites, and blogs. What begins as one complaint can blow out of proportion if many customers join the conversation. 

It may become complicated if all customers are unhappy about different service areas.

Businesses without a customer service element to their social media become vulnerable to such crises. 

Use tools to collect data without disrupting the workflow for your customer service team. Also, get your customer service team to track and respond to feedback as quickly as possible. 

Enhance your customer experience with Telebu

It’s safe to say that customer experience is diverse, and you can see and feel it on a spectrum. 

You can streamline customer experience by using the best call centre software like TelebuHub to manage your support system. 

TelebuHub is a feature-rich single-window cloud call centre software that’s powerful yet easy to use. Also, you can provide your customers with the best experiences on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. Learn more about what we offer and schedule a free demo today or talk to the sales to see how it works for yourself.

FAQs

What is customer experience in one sentence?

Customer experience is the perception a customer builds about a company’s products/services after interactions with the brand. This happens at various touchpoints.

What is a good customer experience?

Good customer experience means consistently meeting or exceeding customer expectations at every touchpoint. 

What are the 3 basic components of customer experience?

The three main components are discovery, engagement, and delivery. Failing to cater to any can harm your customer’s experience.

What is the ABC of customer experience?

These are steps that organisations make to offer a seamless customer experience. For example, Attention to detail, Being prepared for anything, and Communicating. You can create ABCs for your organisation, too.

What makes customers happy?

Customers get happy by receiving exceptional service, personalised attention, and timely problem resolution.

What is CX short for?

CX is short for customer experience.

What is another name for customer experience?

CX is an abbreviated term used for customer experience.

What is CX Vs CRM?

CX stands for customer experience. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM is a system that captures and maintains data about customers. CX refers to positive customer experiences.

What is CX vs UX?

CX stands for customer experience. UX is user experience. In software, you measure CX by tracking loyalty and satisfaction metrics. UX focuses on improving product design.

What are CX improvements?

CX improvements involve refining processes, products, services, and touchpoints. These increase satisfaction, loyalty, and the overall experience.