Customer Experience research? Why???

Consumers today are getting used to higher and higher service standards, which is why almost everyone who runs their business agrees that Customer Experience is one of the key elements of achieving success. According to Forrester, 85% of American entrepreneurs believe that CX research is now more important than ever.

It does not matter if you run a hairdresser or a large organization. Do you know who your clients are? Can you properly use the knowledge gathered from various sources to improve the quality of service, improve internal processes, and use the power of recommendation to grow?

What is Customer Experience?

It is difficult to find one specific definition. It is the whole set of experiences in dealing with your brand. And it’s not just about the purchase or customer service, but every point of contact between the you and the customer.

Customer Experience is based not only on rational premises, but also to a large extent on personal emotions and the context of their occurrence. The experience is received on three levels: cognitive, behavioral and emotional. Cognitive refers to facts (eg expectations, prices, etc.), behavioral as to how an event will affect behavior, and emotional is a subjective judgment of the event.

Positive emotional assessment is crucial here because of the strength it exerts. Most of all it stays in the memory for a long time. It turns out that it is not always important what the brand offers to its clients, the more important is how it does it and whether it meets expectations.

According to various sources, where customer satisfaction was not taken care of, we can observe an average decrease in the total income by as much as 21% (!).

When to start working on Customer Experience?

Now!

The client’s experience is not only the quality of the product or service offered or the price. To build a healthy and valuable relationship, we must consider all stages of contact with the brand, both before and after the purchase.
Take care of your brand in terms of new and regular customers. The first will appreciate the transparency, ease of the shopping process, readability of regulations, easy product search and efficient contact with the service. For the latter, the key elements will be building loyalty with the brand: various benefits, but also (especially in online activities) the history of shopping and the opportunity to express opinion.

Significant emphasis should be placed on the quality of customer service. Service or administrators of websites should always be well informed and helpful. It should be remembered that the client usually does not expect miracles. Even if something went wrong in the process, it usually does not disrupt the brand image in the eyes of the consumer if the problem is solved in a short time. YourCX research results, among others, shoed an interesting observation about technical problems. If they do not prevent the purchase from being carried out, they do not have such a negative impact on the conversion rate as other issues.

In case of troubles, it is usually enough to propose an alternative solution and apologize for the inconvenience instead of telling the client that he is wrong or not letting him voice his opinion. The consumer remembers the reaction and the feelings associated with it. If they are positive, and the company, despite making a mistake, shows reliability and willingness to help, there is a good chance that the client will return.

After completing the transaction, you cannot forget about your client and have to remember to maintain relationships with him. This can be done in many ways, eg by the possibility of assessing the transaction. Thanks to this, the company receives feedback about what works and which areas may still need improvement, at the same time gaining a loyal customer who feels that his opinion matters and that it has a real impact on the company’s operations.

Can you do business without CX research?

…it is possible that such businesses successfully operated for years. One should be aware, however, that the lack of commitment to CX does not mean that such experiences and perceptions of the brand do not appear. Emotions accompany the consumer always. If we are unable to identify them, we lose any possibility of influencing them. In the era of such strong competition, the development of online stores and the rich offer of products, consumer preferences are very susceptible to influence, and their constant monitoring becomes particularly important.

It is not worth leaving this area alone. Listen to your clients and find out what they think about you. Learn how they use your products and don’t wait until the competition overtakes you. It is only up to you how you use the potential of Customer Experience research.