Customer experience (CX) can simply be defined as the impression that customers get from their interaction with a business entity. Generally, customer experience revolves around two major factors, that is the people and the product. This means that how the people in a business respond to customers and their needs and also how the needs of the customers are met by the product are the two factors of customer experience. Customer experience plays a vital role in determining the success of any business especially in the long run. However, many are times when business enterprises put efforts in coming up with policies aimed at improving their customer experiences but fail to implement these policies to achieve the desired outcomes. Such businesses normally end up failing in the long run. Customer experience plays a critical role in ensuring future business success in a number of areas;
Uniqueness
If well utilized, Customer experience could be the most opportune tool that determines the future success of any business entity through a number of ways. For one, good customer experience helps the business to stand out in the midst of its competitors. In most of the times, Customer experiences is taken to be the definition of any business. In a crowded market, a business may consider using good customer experiences to curve out a niche for itself and stand out as the most preferred choice for the prospective customers in comparison to its competitors. While price-based competitions among businesses offering similar products and/or services may lead to losses, competing on the basis of customer services guarantees not only retained customer base but also provides the potential for expanding the customer base.
One of the ways through which any business can create and maintain a stable and ever-growing customer loyalty base is by remaining unique as compared to its competitors. Once the business remains unique in terms of the customer services provided, it is bound to possess a competitive advantage over its peers. This ensures that the business remains on top of its competitors which then translates to better sales as compared to the competition. In addition to that, this uniqueness ensures that the customer loyalty is maintained. When all of these factors are combined, the business is bound to experience steady and upward growth in revenues in the future.
Reduced Advertising Costs
In order to maintain its customer base in the face of increased competition among businesses offering similar and interchangeable products, majority of the businesses invest heavily on advertising. However, there is no cheaper way to conduct advertising than through investing in customer experiences. This technique works by ‘recruiting’ a customer base that remains loyal to the business enterprise and who tell their friends about the great customer experience offered by the particular business. This, therefore, ensures that not only is the customer base maintained, but also new customers are recruited into the businesses’ customer base without having to spend anything to achieve this.
In addition to that, good customer experiences cultivate the sense of customer advocacy for the business. The happy and loyal customers will tend to go talk to their friends about the services offered by the business and in so doing, encourage them to get services from the business. This has been proven to be a concrete way of creating user-generated advocacy which in turn leads to brand loyalty as well as brand recommendations between customers. The benefits that the business stands to enjoy by simply generating a stable customer advocacy are limitless. However, the sole aim of every business entity is to make profits and experience growth. This therefore means that with good customer experiences, the business is able to make use of customer advocacy to increase its customer base which in turn results to the overall growth and expansion of the business entity.
Willingness to Pay More
Other than being customer oriented, customer experience can be used as a smart business technique that is aimed at achieving higher rates of sales. According to a research conducted by the American Express, majority of the customers are willing to pay extra charges as long as they receive great customer services. Therefore, smart businesses need to consider investing in customer experiences which will in turn ensure that the customers are maintained and willing to remain loyal to the business even with increased costs. This may act in the best interest of the business in terms of increased revenue which ultimately leads to business expansion.
This shows that customer loyalty is not affected much by the cost of goods and/or services provided by the business. When customers receive great customer experiences, their loyalty to the business brand is no-longer a factor of the cost of the goods and/or services provided. Customers are normally willing to pay up to twelve percent increase in cost of the goods and/or services provided. This indicates that customer experiences directly influence customer loyalty regardless of the costs incurred. When this is maintained, then the business is set to experience steady growth and expansion in the near as well as the extensive future.
Personal Relationships
Good customer experiences have been found to create a sense of ownership and connection between the customers and the business in question. This makes the customers feel important and valued and special in the eyes of the business. This in turn helps in building trust between the two parties which leads to generation of a long-lasting relationship that is beneficial in both ways. Creation of personalized relationships between the business enterprise and the customers leads to improved customer loyalty which ensures that the business will continue enjoying its customer base and thus continue recording profits which in turn translate to business growth.
By developing and maintaining a positive and productive personal relationship between the business and its customers, the business gets the confidence to expand and experience growth in the future. With a stable customer loyalty base, the business will always be assured of loyal customers, who as discussed earlier, are willing to remain loyal to the business even when they have to incur extra charges, only just to get the customer services they require.
Customer Satisfaction
Generally, the sole aim of improving on customer services is to ensure that the needs of each and every customer are met to their satisfaction. To do so, business brands need to be accurate, dependable and reliable in delivering their services in accordance to the customer needs. When this is done, it translates to ensuring customer loyalty is achieved and maintained by the business brand. In addition to that, customer satisfaction, which is an end product of good customer services allows for the provision of business expansion and improves on the likelihood of the business doing good in the future. When the business is honest and reliable in matters concerning its ability to deliver to customer needs, it will never face any challenges, even when it decides to expand it operations. The chances of such a business entity to be successful in the near as well as in the extended future is close to certainty. Therefore, business brands should focus customer experiences towards achieving overall customer satisfaction.