When was the last time you, as a customer, had a great experience? Now, can you remember the last time you had a poor customer experience? How did both occasions feel?
The year 2020 saw a massive transformation in the customer experience industry. With buying trends and customer behaviors changing, businesses were forced to focus on customer experience.
According to PwC, customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for products and services if it means an excellent customer experience. Customer experience has been around for decades, but today, brands have become even more serious about it. More and more brands are starting to re-evaluate their customer experience and focus more on giving their customers a better experience.
Today’s consumers come with very high expectations, requiring brands to understand their pain points, needs, and wants. So, the most successful brands will be the ones who understand their customers’ expectations and invest in the best CX technology to ace it!
Now, let’s look at the reasons why customer experience is essential for your brand.
The Importance of Customer Experience
Excellent customer experience is critical for the sustained growth of your business. When customers have a good experience, it helps promote brand loyalty and retains customers, including brand advocacy.
Here are four reasons why customer experience matters the most for your brand.
- Customers respond better to relationships
Microsoft reported that 96% of customers say customer service is essential for generating loyalty to a brand. People value relationships more than marketing tools. When a brand focuses on its customer experience, customers feel more comfortable. This helps to build better relationships with your customers. Hence, customers begin to trust your brand and are more likely to respond well to any initiative that your business takes.
- Greater return of investment
A recent study on marketing and brand management states that more than two-thirds of companies now compete mainly based on customer experience. When it comes to customer experience, you must be consistent. You cannot be good with your customers initially and expect them to stay loyal to the brand forever. If you’re expecting a greater return on investment, then consistent customer experience is the key.
- Competitive advantage
Customer experience is a great marketing tool that can give your business a competitive edge. It’s one of the best ways to stay ahead of the competition. Remember, a company can have many marketing tactics to draw in new customers, but it will not sustain retention by offering its customers lower prices.
One of the best examples is Slack and Skype. Both these companies started by selling their services at a lesser rate and ultimately earned the trust of their customers by giving them an exceptional customer experience. They made sure that customer demands were met, which helped them receive a competitive edge over others.
- Reduces customer churn
Customers satisfied with a brand’s service and user experience are more likely to stay with that brand even in high pricing. Hence, a good customer experience is a perfect tool that many businesses have adopted to reduce customer churn. These brands ensure a great customer experience by promising everything that the customer demands.
How Does Social Listening Help to Improve Customer Satisfaction?
Social listening is an essential strategy that helps brands to monitor and revitalize their presence online. When you use social listening, you can engage in conversations and gain valuable insights that are necessary for the success of your business.
Here are a few reasons how social listening can help you improve customer satisfaction.
- Real-time customer engagement
63% of customers are expecting brands to make use of social media platforms for offering customer service. With social listening, you can immediately engage with your customers the moment they share or post something about your brand. Hence, social listening is one of the best real-time tools to listen and interact with your customers for the best experience.
- Valuable Feedback
You may be already working around getting customer feedback using surveys. However, most often, the response rate for surveys isn’t too good. With the number of social media users estimated to grow to around 4.41 billion by 2025, social media platforms come with a large audience. Using social listening strategies can help you reach all those customers who aren’t giving you any feedback. Getting valuable feedback can help you come up with better ways to improve customer service.
- Competitor analysis
When you use social listening, you do not only get a chance to keep track of your brand, but it also helps you keep a tab on your competitors as well. You can check out what works and what doesn’t for other brands so that you can make sure to avoid the same mistakes. It’s also a great way to get ideas and use successful strategies and processes that other brands are using.
If you’re looking to learn more about your customers and your audience so that you can give them a better customer experience, then Konnect Insights, a social listening, and social CRM platform is perfect for you!
Tags: customer experience, Customer feedback, Customer Service, CXM, Social Listening