What is Customer Experience? A Simple Guide
Customer Experience, also known as CX, is every interaction a customer has with an enterprise. This means contact centers and all they have to offer, perform a significant part in shaping the encounters a business’s customers have. CX should be like a well-oiled machine, a machine that begins with a great start. It should continue smoothly and present as few roadblocks for customers as possible.
You can think of CX as a journey where customers reach your website, contact center, FAQ section, or even talk with a virtual agent. No matter the medium customers arrive by, it should make it simple for them to access all the information they need. HubSpot Implementation Specialist, Jason Bordeaux, opened up in a recent blog post about CX. He said, when it comes to CX, it doesn’t matter if you’ve had a great experience, or a poor one – he believes customers remember the interaction either way.
“The way you think about CX has probably had a profound impact on how you look at your business as a whole.
“This is just one reason why creating and obsessing over great customer experience is so important. And if the customer experience you’ve created is not great, how to improve it and where to start.”
What Role Does Omni-channel Play?
Today’s customers want enterprises to be where they are. If customers have questions and want to reach support via a mobile device, they should be able to. Enterprises should, therefore, offer service through many touchpoints, something an overwhelming majority of UC experts I’ve spoken with tend to agree with. They all say, leveraging omni-channel is important because it offers insight from customer data collected via forms, CRMs, phone menu options, etc.
There is also the factor of convenience, which omni-channel extends to customers and enterprises. Because of the seamless nature of omni-channel, UC systems that enable omni-channel experiences, are great sources of customer satisfaction. For example, if a customer calls a contact center, then has a webchat with an agent two hours later – the agent should have a record of the customer’s conversation history, no matter the point of contact.
According to a 2019 Omnisend report, omni-channel is remarkably beneficial. Omnisend found – enterprises where customers interact with three or more channels, had 250 percent more purchases than customers who engaged with one channel. The same report found customer retention rates were 90 percent higher among companies with omni-channel comms.
Continually Adapting CX
Enterprise leaders in the UC world have taken a liking to a popular trend – using customer feedback to develop in-demand features that come from the individuals who actually want them As a result, there are countless solutions that prove UC system designers are in tune with the needs of customers and want to enable great experiences.
Because of growing customer demands – their expectations often change. To keep up with these shifting demands, enterprises can ask customers what’s going on in their heads. During the next step (optimization) – take this feedback and make changes to CX. This way, a powerful tool like a survey might lead to more self-service options and a reduction in call hold times.
The key thing to remember is to continually optimize the customer journey, provide training for agents, and be available where customers need you most – that’s CX.