The importance of great CX
Delivering a great customer experience is essential for businesses that want to remain competitive in the current market.
Study after study has shown that satisfied customers generate more revenue and for longer periods.
The 22 CX Statistics for 2022 report cite that “86% of customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience. These customers are willing to pay up to a 16% price premium following a positive experience. ”
A study published by Emplifi in 2021 shows that customer experience is a key factor considered by customers when selecting a brand and considerations for product ranges, social responsibility, or brand image have a lower impact than customer experience.
Considering these numbers, it’s no wonder that over 80% of organizations indicated that they need to improve customer experiences if they want to stay competitive.
However, building a great customer experience is not a one-time endeavor. Over 86% of customers reported that they will stop buying from a brand after 3 negative experiences so delivering a great customer experience is an ongoing process that needs to be monitored and adapted as the market conditions change.
How to build a great CX
To be able to build a great customer experience you should understand what your customer is expecting when interacting with your organization and focus on making the customer’s journey as smooth as possible.
The quality of the product or service you offer to the customer is an important part of their experience. However, it doesn’t represent all the interactions that build the customer’s image of your brand.
Before acquiring your product or service the customer will probably:
- see your promotional campaigns on social media channels or at social events
- get information from other customers
- browse your store for product/service information
- see one or more sales presentations from your employees or resellers
When the customer decides to make the acquisition, he might:
- use the order process from your website or mobile app to place the order, make the payment, and configure delivery options
- or he might go through the order process in a physical store where he will interact with a salesperson to order, pay, and select delivery options
After the customer placed the order, your customer will continue to interact with your organization through:
- notification messages regarding the status of the order delivery,
- the shipping website or app,
- the product or service acquired,
- feedback request forms,
- the customer service department,
- loyalty programs or subscription renewal notifications.
If you want to build a great customer experience for your customers, you need to understand their expectations at each interaction and meet or exceed them. But customers will have diverse needs and preferences so personalization at each interaction point is essential.
To get an understanding of the customer’s expectations you might collect information by:
- conducting surveys,
- monitoring how customers are interacting with the touchpoints,
- request direct feedback via digital communication channels,
- directly engaging in dialogue with your customers
You will also need to create a customer journey map. This map is a representation of the interactions the customer will have with your business, and it tells the customer’s story, from the initial contact with your organization, through the engagement and into a long-term relationship. For each touchpoint, you should document each customer persona:
- the customer’s motivation and feelings,
- questions that the customer might have and the answers you plan to give,
- the customer’s understanding of your offering,
- opportunities,
- decisions the customer might take.
The customer’s journey map will help you identify touch points that create difficulties and discomfort for your customers so you can plan the changes required to improve the customer’s experience.
Then deliver a great customer experience by using the collected customer information to optimize the customer journey.
Your customers will look for a consistent experience throughout the journey, and they expect that the employees who interact with them understand their needs and their prior experience with your brand. For example, the offers or suggestions that you make will have greater success if they are tailored to the individual customer’s needs and preferences. The customer preferences will extend beyond the product or services you are providing and include things like the communication channel used to contact them (e-mail, phone, social media) or presentation format.
You will probably need to train your team in the updated procedures, and you will also want to consider if you already have the right software systems that will enable your team to reach the target. Make sure that your IT systems communicate with each other, so your teams are not affected by communication failures.
Your brand should always keep the promises it makes. If you promise next-day delivery, make sure to follow through. If you promise 24/7 customer support, ensure it’s available and that the customer service team has all the information needed to solve their problem.
What tools do you need for a great CX
It’s clear to everyone that having an online presence is essential for every product or service provider. However, having a shop that offers the built-in features required for building a great customer experience might be a little more complicated. Here is a list of features to consider when building your online presence:
- User-friendly navigation for mobile and desktop devices. According to Statista over 70% of worldwide retail visits come from smartphones. Having a shop that can be used on mobile and desktop devices is one thing but it’s important to have the content prepared for different screen sizes as well. Think of images videos and 360-degree views for your presentations.
- Product/Service reviews and ratings. According to a survey done by bright local in 2023, 76% of consumers read online reviews regularly, and 69% feel positive about using a product or service that has positive reviews.
- Straightforward personalized processes. Having simple order and tracking processes is important and you can get a competitive edge by personalizing the customer experience with AI integrations that make customized suggestions or answer customer questions in the review sections.
- Real-time customer service. Some customers will have special requests and they will want to talk to a representative about their needs. So, having a customer care team is important, however, you can ease the burden on your customer care service by implementing live chat and chatbot features in your shop.
- Delivery Options: You might outsource delivery to a partner or a delivery supplier, but the customer will still associate the delivery experience with your brand. If you offer your customers multiple delivery options, they can choose the one that best fits their needs.
- Order Tracking: Between your warehouse and the customer’s doorstep the package might go through multiple warehouses. Keeping the customer informed about the status of the package can reduce customer discomfort and the number of customer service interactions.
Salesforce
Salesforce offers Customer 360, which is an integrated CRM platform that ensures a superior Customer Experience by connecting all your departments and customer data. The focus is on the Customer and all departments share one unified view, enriched with customer data captured in every step of the journey.
Salesforce Sales Cloud empowers your Sales teams to perform, Service Cloud helps customer support teams grow brand loyalty and Commerce Cloud solutions (B2C and B2B) shape your online presence with seamless integration.
Agile Networks Technologies has Salesforce B2B commerce expertise and can guide your digital transformation starting with Salesforce adoption for your Sales and Customer Support Teams and continuing with shaping your online commerce presence to increase your revenue and increase customer loyalty.
For details and references, please visit our website (https://agilenetworks.tech/en/portfolio/salesforce/) and contact us for a free demo and discussion here: https://agilenetworks.tech/en/apply-as-client/
SAP
SAP brings best-in-class Customer Experience Solution on top of SAP® C/4HANA, that covers the entire Lead to Contract flow with the aim of transforming your digital sales from B2C to “Me2B”, having a focus on customer centricity. We offer guidance throughout your entire transformational journey, from a 360-degree digital sales assessment of your organization to implementation of your CX Solution on SAP technologies.
Here’s a more detailed view on how we can help you achieve a truly omnchichannel solution tailored to your needs [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/portfolio/sap/]. Contact us to discuss what would be the best CX strategy for your company [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/apply-as-client/]
eCommerce solutions
However, when starting a new line of business or planning your business expansion, you might want to start with just the Shop and integrate the CRM, ERP and Delivery solutions later. In this case, you might opt for a Shopware or Bagisto instance. Both are great solutions to get you started quickly and they can be tailored to your needs.
To help our clients build exceptional customer journeys and establish a robust online presence, Agile Networks Technologies is building custom eCommerce solutions that are visually appealing and reliable, scalable, and easy to maintain. We achieve this by leveraging established and proven technologies, including Shopware, Laravel, Symfony, Pimcore, and Bagisto.
If you’re looking for advice on how to create or modernize your online presence, contact Agile Networks Technologies using this form [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/apply-as-client/] or visit the eCommerce page on the Website [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/portfolio/custom-ecommerce-solutions/]
Joining forces with Milkman Technologies to build great CX for our customers
As already mentioned, delivery is part of the customer experience perceived by the customer.
Retailers have dedicated the past decade to refining their e-commerce platforms and enhancing customer experiences, streamlining processes, and creating cutting-edge e-commerce journeys. In today’s landscape, these efforts are no longer sufficient; a poor shipping experience in fact can impact the overall purchase experience, potentially negating the positive effects of a previously seamless ecommerce journey.
Milkman Technologies, to bridge the gap between customer expectations and the complex reality of logistics, offers a home delivery consumer-centric cloud solution, empowering Retail organizations to increase profitability through convenient and sustainable delivery options.
Milkman Home Delivery Platform reduces delivery costs (15% – 25%) while increasing customer satisfaction (+42%) providing a range of delivery options, and giving the customer a high degree of choice, control and visibility thanks to an efficient two-way communication interface.
One of the main Milkman Platform features, “Milkman Smart Promise’’ has been designed to solve one of the biggest non-obvious delivery and customer experience dilemmas: solving the inefficiency of pre-defined delivery slots (the industry standard is 2-hours delivery slots) and cut operational costs while delighting the end-customers.
In today’s market, customers seek more than pre-set delivery schedules and prefer brands that offer interactive delivery options. With Smart Promise, customers have the freedom to select their preferred time slots and pay accordingly. This flexibility not only benefits customers but also provides optimized logistics operations for retailers: by financially incentivizing broader delivery slots, it ensures better distribution of volumes while eliminating unfeasible deliveries, ultimately reducing operational costs.
Agile Networks Technologies is focused on helping customers boost sales by implementing professional IT solutions that enable the creation of great customer experience solutions. That is why we signed a partnership with Milkman Technologies. This partnership will enable us to complete our offering of IT solutions that represent the infrastructure required for great customer experiences.
If you want to discover more about delivery solutions, you can visit our website https://agilenetworks.tech/en/4850-2/ or the Milkman website https://www.milkmantechnologies.com/
Integrating all of it
Building great customer experience is not just the job of one team but rather the whole company must work together to make the customer journey as smooth as possible. So, it makes sense that your teams have access to the information they require to build great customer experience.
Results published in the Zendesk CX Trends Report from 2023 indicate that 74% of agents consider tools and data access relevant to their ability to personalized customer interactions.
However, a study, done by ARM and Treasure Data in 2019, has shown that 54% of organizations face difficulties in leveraging data because of data silos stuck in various systems.
Breaking data silos is one thing that IPaaS solutions do best. By connecting your storefront with the CRM, ERP, and Milkman you can transfer data in real-time from one system to the other and thus make sure that your employees have the power to build great experiences for your customers.
Once the data is made accessible you might consider using it to also implement business dashboards that can help with data-driven decisions and predictions of business developments.
IPaaS is an essential part of the toolchain required to implement great customer experience, however, you could also use it to automate your business processes and improve your profit margins.
At ANT we see the need for a strong IPaaS solution during each interaction with our customers. So, we partnered with Jitterbit, a recognized leader and visionary in the IPaaS industry, to design, implement, and manage, integration solutions that bring a competitive edge to our customers by automating optimal information flows.
If you are interested in finding out more about strategic or tactical integration solutions visit the integration section on our website [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/portfolio/integration-services/] or contact us using this form: https://agilenetworks.tech/en/apply-as-client/
The ANT offer
Agile Networks Technologies is a Customer Experience Company specializing in smoothly integrating critical technologies into flexible, scalable infrastructures that enable building complex sales strategies.
We are constantly working on helping our customers reach their business objectives by building and delivering the IT solutions they need to get a competitive advantage.
To find out more about ANT visit our website [Home ]
Or schedule a call with using this form [https://agilenetworks.tech/en/apply-as-client/]