CX Corner: Customer Experience in the Enterprise by Mark Hewitt
Customer experience is a critical component of any successful digital enterprise. Customer experience professionals act as the voice of the customer as products are prioritized, created and maintained. Here are some key guidelines everyone can keep in mind to help ensure that their organization is delivering exceptional experiences to its customers at every touchpoint:
Understand your customers: In order to deliver the best possible customer experience, it is essential to understand who your customers are, what they need, and how they interact with your organization. It can be easy to make false assumptions about this if real customers are not consulted. Conducting customer research, surveys, and interviews can provide valuable insights into your customers' needs and preferences, which can more reliably inform the development of your customer experience strategy.
Prioritize customer needs: Once you have a clear understanding of your customers, it's important to prioritize their needs and ensure that they are met. This could involve streamlining processes, simplifying navigation, or providing personalized experiences. Data presented to the customer should be the data in which they are interested and it should be presented at the right time, in the right way, and in the right context.
Empower your employees: Your employees are the front line of your organization, and they play a critical role in delivering a positive customer experience. It's important to empower them with the tools, training, and autonomy they need to provide excellent service and meet customer needs. This includes providing them with accurate and up-to-date information about products and services, as well as giving them the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of the customer experience.
Leverage technology: Technology can be a powerful tool for enhancing the customer experience. From personalization and data analytics to chatbots and AI-powered virtual assistants, there are many ways to leverage technology to improve the customer experience. Again, it is vital to put customer needs and efficient workflows at the heart of technology decisions, rather than leveraging the technology for its own sake.
Create a culture of customer-centricity: Delivering a positive customer experience is not just about providing excellent service, but also about creating a culture within your organization that genuinely prioritizes the needs of your customers. This means creating a customer-centric environment where everyone from the CEO to the front-line employees is focused on meeting customer needs and providing exceptional experiences.
Continuously improve: The customer experience is constantly evolving, and it's important to continuously monitor, measure, and improve the experiences you are delivering. This means regularly reviewing customer feedback, conducting surveys, and analyzing data to identify areas for improvement. It also means encouraging employees to share their own ideas for improving the customer experience, and implementing changes that can help you deliver better experiences to your customers.
The goal of every customer-facing digital enterprise should be exceptional experiences that build customer loyalty while driving business growth. When customer needs don’t get the priority they should, the organization needs to ask itself why.