Good Intentions Lead To Good Customer Experience – Jared Cornell

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“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”

Steve Jobs

Given the current business landscape, customer experience has become more crucial than ever. While it would be quite a relief if companies could just put customer experience on “autopilot” mode, in reality, it is not the case. 

In order to provide an exceptional customer experience, companies need to have good intention, where they don’t look at customer expectations as a mere by-product but look at it as an end goal.

As more and more companies are competing to offer better experiences to their customers, it has lead to a meteoric rise in consumer expectations. Your old ways are not enough to keep your customers satisfied.

If we examine the top companies in the world all of them have a laser focus on customers and how they experience their product or services.

All their actions are driven for their customer enablement and experience. Not only do these companies have good intentions to serve their customer but in today’s business world it has become a need to keep customer experience above everything.

Before you begin to put in place a good customer experience strategy, you have to understand that customer expectations from a brand tend to revolve around the following factors:

  1. Availability:
    Customers can need your help any time so they expect you to be present for them virtually almost all the time.
  2. Advice:
    Every customer who visits your website expects advice from your end. In most cases, a customer will describe their requirement and expect you to provide a suggestion, a feasible solution to the confusion they have regarding the product.
  3. Accuracy:
    There should be complete accuracy in terms of information about the products and services.
  4. Alternatives:
    The modern customer is spoilt for choice. It’s not easy to satisfy them with just one product, making it imperative for companies to keep various alternatives at hand.
Ask yourself, does your customer experience strategy offer the above benefits to your customers?

If your answer is no, let’s understand 4 ways consumer expectations have changed over the years and how only companies with a good intent to serve will lead the consumer experience wagon.

#1. Customers Want Instant Gratification

Image: mashable.com

As customers have different options to explore from, they won’t wait around and waste their time if your company can’t serve them at the right time. With the advent of technology and easier access to mobiles and computers, customers tend to expect instant answers and solutions.

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Whether it is a pricing issue, return and exchange situation, delivery issue, or even if they are simply seeking information – consumers demand quick and timely replies.

They are not going to wait for your next agent to be free to answer the queries. They’ll be more than happy to move on to the next company. It is very crucial to attend to your customers in time and hold their attention.

  • People who have their questions answered immediately are more likely to stay satisfied customers, as reported by the Economist.
  • Improving customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 95%, according to Bain & Company.

Companies have been smart enough to make use of live chat software to offer faster responses to the customers. Live chat is an online communication tool that is added to a website, allowing the website visitors to interact with the company in a hassle-free manner.

With live chat Customers receive a response that is not only quick but also feels more personalized, queries are met in real time; in return increasing the rate of customer satisfaction.

#2. Customers Have Multiple And Conflicting Options

We are living in a time where you have endless options to satisfy a single need. This makes the consumers take a longer time to decide the product that is right for them. This is where a good customer experience can come in and help the buyers choose the product that is best suited to satisfy their need.

In a study conducted by Forrester Research, it was found that 44% of online customers considered that a live person answering their queries in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a website can offer.

Having a live Support chat that can assist the customers to find the desired product and recommend options based on their requirements and previous purchase history makes the buyer’s shopping experience a pleasant one.

No customer has the patience to scour an entire website or product page to find what they are looking for. In a scenario like this, live chat can really help the buyer get through to their desired page or product and offer real-time solutions.

#3. Customers Are Hard To Satisfy

Your company has to serve various kinds of customers and not all of them are going to be agreeable. Rude customers or customer support agents can both prove problematic for companies. When the interaction is tough, it becomes quite difficult to maintain an agreeable tone.

See also  Highlights From The Global State of Customer Experience 2016 Report

#4. Customers Are Smarter Than Ever

Thanks to technology, your customer is now smarter and well informed than ever before and can sense the motivation of a business.

If the motivation of the business is only to make money out of their customers and not focus on the value they are adding in their life, it can hinder the entire customer experience. This makes it important that brands maintain transparency and don’t make promises that they know they can’t deliver.

What impact good intentions make to the customer experience?

  • Increases word of mouth marketing
    A good customer experience is always shared with the group and increases the word of mouth marketing.
  • Improves Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
    A customer is 10X more likely to stick with the brand while having the good experience and the bad experience adds one more customer in your competitor’s bag.
  • Boost customer loyalty
    A loyal customer will always be enticed to know more about your brand and absorb your new products and services much faster. The more loyal customers you have the further ahead you stand from your competitors.

Conclusion

It was okay for companies to take their customer experience at face value may be a decade ago, but things are different now. If you don’t keep the will and intention to deliver a positive experience and satisfaction to your customers, you will be taking a deliberate step towards tarnishing your company’s value and image.

Do you think companies must focus more on customer experience than ever now? Let us know your thoughts below.

Jared is a customer-support Specialist, a marketing evangelist, and a book lover, associated with  ProProfs Chat. Jared is passionate about customer support and loves to solve customers queries. He is always keen to develop new strategies to help customers seeking live chat assistance for a delightful experience.

Kelechi Okeke
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