As consumers, we’re complaining more than ever. According to Professor Moira Clark, 66 million complaints about products and services were made in 2014. That ‘s almost double the number from the previous 12 months!
A big part of this rise is growing customer expectations. We all want to be treated well by companies and expect great experiences.
It’s no longer enough to be better than your competitors. We all have to be better than the brands delivering great customer experience. Customers don’t just compare you to companies in your industry; they compare you to the companies famed for getting customer experience right.
For brands this comes down to consistency. How can you get each and every touch point with each and every customer right? Here are three factors to consider to help you deliver consistently great customer experience.
#1 Prioritise customer needs, not product features
When you see a cool new idea for a product, it’s easy to get carried away. Suddenly this feature or that feature becomes the priority – the thing that is going to revolutionise your products. It’s the thing that’s going to make the difference.
But it forgets one important factor: the customer. What do they actually need? If it’s something entirely different to your brand new product feature, then you’re missing the chance to connect your product innovations to a real human need.
Innovation is great. But if it isn’t solving the problems faced by your customers or helping to make their lives easier, then it isn’t prioritising their needs.
#2 Embed your brand in every interaction
Your customers have expectations for your brand. They expect seamless interactions across every channel. They expect to be treated in the same way, regardless of which employee they speak with. They expect you to live up to your brand promise – ensuring it’s carried through on everything from your feedback mechanism, your social media, right through to the way you answer the phone.
It’s not just about the frontline; it’s about everyone in the business understanding the brand, what the brand stands for and what customers expect from the brand.
#3 Treat Customer Experience as a competency of the business
If customer experience isn’t embedded within the whole organisation, then delivering consistency is going to be a real challenge.
Consistency in customer experience only happens if everyone is on board.
Delivering the same level of experience for your customers, across every channel and with every employee, can only happen if everyone is on board with what you’re trying to achieve. Everyone needs to adopt a customer first mentality, regardless of job title.
As Jason Sharpe said at CX Day 2015: ‘Give them [colleagues] the keys to the kingdom and let them know you trust them to use the keys wisely’.
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