The business world is taking the challenge to the next level. In 2018 companies were focused on providing seamless, omnichannel customer service. But you shouldn’t stop focusing on your customers. More than ever, 2019 will be the year of customer-centric and it’s even predicted to overtake price as a key brand differentiator.
To get a full overview of what the key to success is, we must understand the difference between Customer Experience, Customer Service and Customer Care. Even though the terms are closely related, they are responsible for different parts of building your relationships with the customers.
Forbes defines the terms as:
- Customer service is the advice or assistance a company gives its customers.
- Customer care means how well customers are taken care of while they interact with the brand.
- Customer experience is the total journey of a customer’s interactions with a brand.
The point is to continually work on increasing customer satisfaction, by providing quality customer service and creating an emotional connection with your customers. Your customers must feel that your brand cares about what they think. The summary of it all is Customer Experience, a journey that you take your customers on. From the first interaction, purchase, feedback and all further follow-ups with your brand. You have to plan the customer journey the right way to make sure your customers have a great feeling about your company and brand, whenever they hear the name of your company.
“Nearly 75% of customers who leave do so because they aren’t satisfied with customer service.”
– CustomerThink
Planning customer journeys is a complicated process and requires a lot of sources and knowledge about your customers. The whole Customer Experience must be built on a strong relationship between you and your customers, and not only on a one-time interaction. It’s important to nurture the customer during the entire customer lifecycle.
What is the most important about Customer Experience (CX)?
Your company should focus on monitoring the performance of all your customer experience efforts, to gather valuable insights about your relationship with your target group. The most important thing is to be in constant interaction with your customers, this way it is easier to follow up on their needs and expectations, sometimes it is just about trying out different ways. Some of them will work, some not, but it’s also important to learn what NOT to do.
Measure
The hardest to measure is Customer Care, it is understood as a long-term approach but not the whole lifecycle of the customer. Depending on the brand and the business type Customer Care can be defined by using variations of NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score).
Most of the time Customer Experience is measured by NPS “The tool aims to measure the loyalty that exists between a provider and a consumer.”. For understanding the performance of Customer Service efforts companies uses CSAT, which is usually a short survey provided to the customer right after receiving the service. It allows you to measure and understand the performance of your customer service efforts.
Conclusion
2019 continues the trend of keeping the focus on the customers, however, it is not just customer service anymore, but all aspects related to the customers. Companies must reconsider Customer Experience strategies and find the right approach to Customer Care and Customer Service to make it all work together for the brand. The only way to success is to build strong relationships with customers based on loyalty, trust, and satisfaction.