Customer Experience Will Kill Your Business If You Ignore This

I remember two months ago, I intended to look for name tags for my mother’s daily work. I immediately opened one of the marketplace applications. After scrolling up and down the cellphone screen by checking each store, I finally met one of the shops–which I think fit the name tag I wanted.

After reading the various details of the products that the store sells, how to order the products, product specifications, and the delivery period, I contacted the store through other messaging media channels. Instead of me getting a good response and helping me, instead, I got a reply that disappointed me.

I was just checking whether I could order per pcs or not, but the shop responded with sharp, offensive, and unfriendly sentences. Long story short, I canceled to order of a name tag at the shop.

At least, business people must pay attention to the following things so that customers and businesses find a balance point of mutualism.

Design Thinking in Customer Experience

Illustration by Everest Group

There are at least eight important factors that we must consider in building a customer experience.

• Accessibility or the ease with which consumers can interact and access your product or service.
• Competence namely competence that the company can provide.
• Customer Recognition is the feeling that consumers feel that they have been appreciated or recognized by the company.
• Helpfulness is the ease that consumers feel in asking for help.
• Personalization is a comfortable feeling that consumers feel about the treatment or facilities that the company provides.
• Problem-solving is the customer’s feelings related to the problem that the company can solve.
• Promise fulfillment is the feeling that consumers feel about the promises the company makes.
• Value for Time is how consumers feel about the time they have that the company can value optimally.

Customer Journey Map

Illustration by Hubspot

This Customer Journey Mapping is created by collecting various data from your customers and potential customers. Then, turn it into a visual that is easy for anyone to understand. We can get this data by asking directly to consumers through surveys, research on social media, and/or using website analytics tools.

Maybe we think creating a Customer Journey Map is a hassle and a waste of time. However, in the way of doing business, we must be able to see in the long term. Customer Journey Map is an investment that can keep our business from getting new customers and maintain customer retention when other competitors start to lose customers.

With the Customer Journey Map, we can know the mindset of consumers, their motivations, and what steps they take to achieve their goals. Or if consumers don’t reach their goals, Customer Journey Map can help them achieve them. Remember, the customer is number one. Everything we do should have to do with helping consumers to achieve their goals with our business.

What We Can Do for Customer Experience Improvement?

Joe Fuca, President and CEO at Reputation listed four suggestions for us.

1. Gather and listen to customer feedback wherever it exists. Customer feedback is captured in more than just NPS surveys. Structured feedback in surveys can provide less authentic and “nonorganic” customer sentiment. Now, unstructured customer feedback is captured from review sites and social media channels. Therefore, we must find some way to gather all feedback, wherever it exists.
2. Respond to all feedback — and do it quickly. Responding to feedback promptly — whether it’s negative or positive — sends a message to customers that we are paying attention and committed to making the customer your top priority. Now, with Covid-19 top of mind for so many, two-way communication like this is especially critical. Take the healthcare industry as an example. Patients want to hear about other patients’ experiences with a provider during the pandemic concerning general facility cleanliness, PPE and safety protocols, and waiting room occupancy. However, equally important is the provider’s response. These days, only clear communication from providers will make many patients feel safe enough to step foot in their office.
3. Future-proof our business model by making customer experience, customer success, and customer loyalty a company priority. Face-to-face interaction is on hiatus, but the rules for customer experience haven’t changed. If anything, it’s more important than ever to make the customer a priority across the organization. Paying close attention to the customer experience and creating a customer-centric culture that is reflected in every aspect of business can ensure survival in a future where in-person interaction may be the exception rather than the rule.
4. Honestly evaluate our business, recognize that there’s work to be done and then do it. A lot is going on in the world right now, and many companies are beginning to acknowledge and confront skeletons in their closets — whatever those may be. Now is the time to honestly evaluate our business — see where holes and inconsistencies exist and acknowledge any poor service or operations — and fix the areas that need work. Our customers will guide us if we listen closely enough.

Conclusion & Closing

The Customer Journey or Experience is not for one field, but all fields in business or organization departments have important things — marketing, product, commercial, etc. We need to create an improvement pathways for better quality brand positioning, awareness, and inspiring other brands.

I am always updating all of writing about user experience and UX writing microcopy while combining product and marketing fields. Follow me for another writing about it.

Thank you.