As we’re all so aware, the customer is still considered king and every single customer who buys from you has the power to bring success to your brand and company or they can simply go to your competitors.
It’s probably pretty obvious which you prefer! Making sure your customer is completely satisfied will, in turn, make sure they’ll tell others about that extra mile your company goes to in order to make them happy. This is so crucial to any companies success.
Let’s start with the short answer as to some great ways to keep your existing customers fully engaged with your brand.
How can I improve my customers journey? There is a wealth of modern ways to improve your customer’s journey, using social media, an omnichannel approach, free services, staying one step ahead of the competition, obtaining brand ambassadors, personalized service are among the many options available to modern businesses.
If you’re looking to improve your customer’s journey and their overall experience in order to remain competitive, then read on for some easy wins you can make to take your customer’s level of satisfaction through the roof!
In order to understand these crucial methods of customer engagement let’s start by looking at why it’s so important.
Why is it so important to give my customers a great experience?
In this current extraordinarily competitive commercial landscape, customer experience is the next battle you have to win.
Previously, simply having a great product or service created the right environment to keep up with, and ultimately compete in your chosen market. However, there’s been a shift of focus towards the customer’s complete journey and experience recently, which is important to maintain and deliver on, in order to keep your valued customers.
According to The Temkin Group, companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn, on average, an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.
This important research simply demonstrates how, by investing in your customer’s whole experience, you have the potential to double your revenue in 3 years.
However, it can be a tricky subject understanding exactly what customer experience is – and often companies are not sure how to begin the improvements. Budget is often an issue too, as it can be difficult knowing which ways of increasing customer’s experience are going to reap the most rewards.
Customers are now expecting personalized and rewarding experiences across all channels. Interacting with your company via any device or method which is most convenient, is crucial to today’s consumers. This is where products like CommBox can help streamline and integrate your customer interactions.
So let’s take a look below at 12 super effective ways you can increase your customer’s journey with your brand or service.
“…companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn, on average, an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.”
1. Set up your customer experience analytics
By setting up some great customer experience analytics, such as using behavior-based web personalization platforms, it’s possible to respond to and track user behavior as it happens.
This means you can be proactive in attending to customer trends, in order to maximize their experience, rather than simply reacting to customer complaints.
It’s easy to think of customer service as simply a department we create to deal with emails and calls directly from customers.
Whereas getting to know how your customers respond by using behavior-based analytics, is a much better way of understanding what makes your customers tick.
It also gives you the added bonus of being able to directly track what they say against what they actually do.
2. Freebies
This is one of the simplest ways of engaging your customers and keeping them happy. Everyone loves free stuff!
However, make sure it’s something that will really bring some value to their experience. For example, if you’re a marketing company, perhaps you could give away some free marketing guides, or if your customers are small business owners, you could possibly launch a business advice guide.
Understanding that free stuff needs to directly engage your customers – while allowing them to deepen their connection with you, is paramount to re-enforcing the value your company brings to them via your paid offerings.
The important thing to remember is that you should personalize the free offering you give. Not all customers will want the same types of information.
Use a web personalization strategy to help you determine which type of free content or offers should be presented to different customer segments.
3. Set up in-app messaging
Using event-driven in-app messages can be a much more relevant, timely, and effective way of marketing than emails as it directly increases customer engagement with your brand or product. This can then be integrated into your existing communications via a variety of CommBox messaging module options.
Although email is a powerful part of your marketing mix, they can appear out of context to your users, as your customers aren’t in the process of directly being involved with you when they receive the mail.
So even triggered and open-time emails which are a good way of engaging with your customers can sometimes annoy your customers as they may not actively be in your space when they see your mail drop into their inbox.
When used wisely, in-app dynamic messaging is perfect to create a much more enjoyable and balanced experience for your users.
4. Appoint brand ambassadors
Do you have any power users in your customer community? If so then don’t forget to give them a moment in the limelight! Maybe on your website, a blog post or social media.
This also has a powerful knock-on effect for your other users too. It helps to show them how customer-centric you are and can really help to create a community around your brand or service.
This has a positive effect on any potential new customers too who witness the buzz around your product and can be very appealing.
Giving your loyal customers a moment of fame on your website or other forms of social media can really boost your customer’s journey. Not only for the lucky user in the spotlight but also show your potential new customers that people are your company’s primary focus.
Most people love to be recognized in the spotlight and by highlighting your super users, you will most certainly create a life-long customer and more importantly, a brand ambassador.
5. Create a stellar signup form
Taking the time to create a customer-focused and uber-simple sign-up form, will really help to impact your customer’s experience at the onboarding process.
Use the feedback from existing and new users to create a much more efficient and attractive experience for your customers.
ideally with the help of new and existing users. Incorporate their feedback to create a more efficient – and more importantly a much more attractive proposition for your customers.
Check which areas are performing best for your customers and help to build a great product page from the word go!
Sign up forms are often one of the first things you see when visiting a website for the first time and if customers see a lengthy and unwieldy signup form, it’s likely to send them running straight towards your more customer-centric competitors.
6. Stay one step ahead of your customer
By staying one step ahead of the customer, you’ll not only be able to plan your customer’s journey and personalized it, but you’ll also start the process of creating a perfectly seamless customer experience.
For instance, if you notice a recurring problem with a particular user segment, you may pull out the contact information along with the user history and incorporate that into an in-app dynamic message or even a personalized email.
Being one step ahead of your customers gives you the ultimate control in your customer’s journey …every step of the way.
7. Deliver personalized packaging
Taking the time to connect with the customer on a personal level when they receive your product creates a really strong bond between your customers and your brand. This will be an experience they will remember and will leave them with a great first impression of your company.
Whether you physically ship a product with packaging, or if you simply provide a receipt, you can make sure your customer receives a really personal experience.
This will send a great message to your customers that their business is really appreciated and will help to strengthen their loyalty.
8. Offer a personalized experience
Brilliant products along with a unique experience are the way forward to enhance your customer journey.
If you offer a free trial then look to deliver a really personalized welcome email and maybe offer a free advice phone call.
Your customers may not take you up on that offer, but it will give them trust in your brand and shows them you’re aiming to give them the most personalized experience with your brand, which in turn can be a really powerful tool in enhancing their experience.
9. Deepen your relationship with your customers
By highlighting one of your users for a little ‘special’ treatment, perhaps based on your analytics and how you see your customers using your product. It‘s a great way to deepen your relationships with your customers.
You could organize a thank you drinks party and invite a selected number of VIP customers. Going offline and into the ‘real world’ with those who buy your products shows them that you really appreciate what they bring to your brand and can be a very powerful strategy by recognizing them and rewarding them.
10. Highlight customers previous purchases
Nothing is as convenient as going to a website for the second or third time and having the content, products, or info that you’re looking for immediately made obvious and available to you.
When a user comes to your website, make it easy for them to build on past experiences by highlighting previous purchases or interactions. As a user, when your preferences and past actions are remembered by the site, not only is your experience easier, it also makes you feel valued and appreciated.
11. Self-service
According to CRM Magazine, modern customers aren’t interested in you helping them, they want to help themselves!
Over 45 percent of companies who are currently offering web or mobile self-service options discovered their website traffic increased, while theIr phone calls to customer service departments significantly dropped.
Keeping up with today’s trend and busy customers who much prefer to find out answers to their questions by checking out your web resources, means that you stand to increase website hits and therefore, make more sales.
By adding resources such as FAQs, helpful guides and other online help, your customers will be able to instantly find the solutions to their questions.
Efficiently and quickly finding what you need to know is a much better experience for your customers than waiting in line for an agent!
12. Get social!
With over 79 percent of US citizens using social media on a daily basis according to Statista, It stands to reason that making sure you have a stellar social media strategy will guarantee your customers will have a far better experience!
Using social platforms to build relationships and to engage in meaningful conversations about your product is a great way to get the attention of your customers and enhance their product journey with you.
Some brands really go out of their way to engage their users in amusing ways. NASA’s Curiosity Rover has its own social media handle with millions of followers, and regularly shares humorous posts in the first-person. Wendy’s, too, shares weird tweets and posts which are guaranteed to make you smile.
And here’s our bonus method to vastly improve your customer journey…
Create a modern seamless service
Developing a smooth customer journey is key, in this era of multiple platforms, it’s important to converse with customers on any level and on any platform, at any time.
CommBox is a completely open, customizable and secure platform that enables you to optimize customer engagement on all communication channels by using ready APIs, flexible configuration and advanced machine learning algorithms. CommBox provides that omnichannel approach to deliver the ultimate customer service.
And finally…
Customer satisfaction along with customers experiencing an enjoyable and meaningful relationship with you are the two critical factors that keep customers loyal to any brand and should be a driving force of your whole customer experience strategy, in order to remain competitive.
Why not get in touch with one of our expert team to discuss ways in which we can help your company measure your valued customer’s important journey – with your brand or product in mind, and let us help you develop a loyal following of brand fans!