Customer Experience

What is customer experience and why is it so important? It includes a lot of elements, but at its core, customer experience is the perception customers have of your brand. There are as many definitions of a good experience as there are customers. The most frequently cited characteristics of an exceptional customer experience are fast response times, consistency across channels, knowledgeable staff, clear and consistent messaging, access to a live agent when needed, multiple contact points, and easy-to-use tools. When defining employee experience vs customer experience, it’s important to keep in mind that linking the two results in increased employee engagement which, in turn, leads to happier and more loyal customers.

The acronym used for customer experience.

Shorthand for employee experience, it is an employee’s perception of the organization for which they work. Factors that contribute to EX include trust in leadership, work-life balance, and company culture.

Categories of customers based on common activities or characteristics such as gender, age, interests, and frequency of use.

A visual representation of every interaction and activity a customer has with a brand across multiple channels. Creating a hypothetical customer journey map helps organizations focus on personalizing customer experiences to best meet their needs and desires.

Knowledge management improves customer experience by centralizing data in one place, reducing standard inquiries, and delivering consistent services across multiple channels. Customer enjoy and appreciate that they get their problems resolved faster and service agents are able to use one source of information to provide the outstanding support that keeps customers coming back to a brand.

AI assistants like chatbots improve the customer experience and make people feel valued. In instances where a customer needs special attention, AI is able to prioritize their needs. AI-based knowledge management helps organizations recognize specific behaviors and get a better sense of how customers view their brand. It helps agents recognize customer emotions in real time and, when necessary, escalate a call to another agent or manager. AI technology combined with data analytics can be key to both better agent training and keeping customers engaged and loyal.

Customer experience metrics help organizations understand how satisfied, dissatisfied, and/or loyal their customers are. Analytics have the power to transform the customer experience. The most important metrics related to the customer experience include net promoter score, conversion rate, customer lifetime value, customer satisfaction, and customer acquisition cost.

NPS is a numerical metric that’s often called “the only number you need to grow.” It’s calculated by asking a customer how likely they are to recommend a brand’s product or service to a friend, colleague, or family member. It’s estimated that a 7% increase in NPS can equal a 1% growth in revenue so tracking this metric and making changes to the customer experience process can result in substantial financial rewards.

How to improve customer experience is a constant quest for organizations. Customers expect timely, personalized, and rewarding experiences across all channels but how they define these elements is continually changing. To improve the customer experience in call centers, an organization must develop a strategy that focuses on an omnichannel experience that is based in knowing its customers and knowing its ideal customer experience. A customer experience management program controls, tracks, and designs customer interactions at all touch points to meet or exceed customer demands. Implementing a self-service portal is a good example of improving the customer experience.

The customer lifecycle is the process a customer goes through from the moment they reach a website to after they receive a product or service. Unlike a customer journey, a customer lifecycle is based on an organization’s view of the phases a customer goes through.