You’re part of a company that really values the importance of customer experience and you want to make sure that this mentality runs throughout your organisation. The onboarding process is a vital part of maintaining this culture and it’s important that new employees buy into the company ethos.
So how do you explain customer experience to a new employee?
What is it?
It can be easy to overcomplicate customer experience and get caught up in detail. But, with brand new employees, simplicity is key.
Start with a straightforward definition: customer experience is, well, the experience a customer has when interacting with a brand. This may sound like a simple answer but it’s not a trick question.
Customer experience is about really listening to what your customers have to say and then taking action. It’s about showing that you care.
It’s this kind of compassion in customer experience that will lead to brand advocacy and an increase in word of mouth sales. On the other hand, bad customer experience can leave frustrated customers venting on social media with an audience to watch it all unfold.
People love to talk about their experiences and the service they’ve received. Consider when you’ve been to a restaurant and the waiter went above and beyond to deliver a great customer service, it becomes part of the conversation and friends or colleagues are likely to hear about it.
This is because great customer service is infectious.
Why is it important?
With the definition clear, it’s time to focus on the value – why should a new employee care?
Customer experience is much more than just an NPS score, it’s about listening and engaging with both your customers and employees.
One of the main reasons it’s so important is because it gives you direction and clarity. A fairly common problem is for brands to rely on what they think their problems may be, rather than listening to the feedback of their customers. Not only is this bad because you’re not listening, but it then also means you could be taking action on the wrong things.
Great customer experience makes sure that you’re addressing what’s really important to your customers. You might think that redesigning your product packaging is a priority but your customers may be more concerned about your website functionality.
By achieving a great customer experience you can start to shape customer purchasing habits and improve your bottom line, but the real value is found in having customers who don’t just buy from you, they buy into your brand.
You can even get people who don’t buy from you to love your brand, that’s when you know you’re getting customer experience right.
Shining Examples
The entire Amazon experience is seamless, they literally couldn’t make it any easier for their customers. There’s no squinting at your bank card details while you type them in, there’s no address to fill out. Within about 3 clicks and no more than 10 seconds you’ve placed your order.
Another good example of a company who really gets customer experience would be the delivery service DPD.
So you’re waiting on a delivery and you get a text from DPD letting you know what time they’re going to arrive. They then give you the option to confirm that time or reschedule.
Now this isn’t a huge deal, they’re not moving mountains for you, but these details help make life much easier for the customer. From a business perspective, they have less missed deliveries which ultimately improves their bottom line.
Everyone’s a winner.
Like Employee Like Customer
The values of customer experience need to start within an organisation and then trickle down through to your customers.
New employees need to understand that customers should be treated in the same way they wish to be. If you listen to employees and take actions based on their feedback you can encourage better productivity, more engagement, greater company loyalty and higher staff retention.
This approach with your employees should then filter through to your customers to trigger more purchasing activity, brand advocacy and higher customer retention.
So go ahead, ask them if they understand your philosophy surrounding CX and ask for their feedback as they're introduced to each level of the business.
