Did you know:
- 87% of customers say how they are treated is more important than brand or price.
- 41% of customers do not report a bad experience, but 87% tell friends.
- Among the 41% that don’t report a bad experience, about 40% of those will stop doing business with your company.
In a recent survey of 362 firms, 80 percent of the businesses surveyed believed they delivered a “superior experience” to their customers. But customers were asked about their own perceptions, they rated only 8 percent of companies as truly delivering a “superior experience.”
So how does a company get into the “superior” 8 percent? The survey found that they place a distinct importance on customer experience.
What is customer experience optimization?
Every interaction with your business creates an emotional response from a customer or potential customer. This could include a visit to your web site, a customer service call, or purchase at your business.
Customer experience optimization (CEO) is the process of designing and optimizing the experience a customer or potential customer has with your business.
Customer Experience Design
Much has been written about optimizing customer’s online experiences while on a company’s web site. However, this is only a small part of customer experience optimization. Every interaction a customer or potential customer has with your business should be consciously designed.
The result is new customers and increasing repeat sales.
What will customer experience optimization do for you?
- New Customer Acquisition – increase sales from targeted new customers.
- Increase Customer Retention/Repeat Sales – it can cost up to seven times more to acquire new customers then to sell to current ones. Build repeat business effectively, and keep it coming.
- Differentiate Your Customer Experience – set your business apart from your competitors in your customers’ minds.
- Evolve Unhappy Customers into Fans of Your Business
- Boost Brand Value & Integrity
- Engage Customers in Brand Affinity & Loyalty
- Remedy Customer Complaints
- Grow Positive Word-of-Mouth – the most cost-effective marketing is word-of-mouth. It’s also the most difficult to achieve.
Remember the survey of the 362 companies? Unlike most companies, which respond reactively to improve customer satisfaction, the leaders follow these rules:
- The experience anyone has with your business, at every point of interaction, must be designed.
- Employees must “live the brand,” and implement customer experience optimization across all areas of the business.
- Employees themselves must feel empowered, and be having optimal experiences working for the company.
- Customer feedback, not sales alone, is the true metric of business success.
- Successful companies develop the ability to please customers on a repeat basis.
We can make customer experience optimization work for you – even if you have a small business.
Contact us for a no-obligation evaluation of your present customer experience strategies.
