10 Best CX Practices of All times

The importance of Customer Experience is not hidden from any. Figures speak for themselves why customer experience management is the need of the hour for any business aspiring to reach heights in the long run. For instance,

• Customer Experience has helped 80% of the companies in outperforming their competition according to Qualtrics’ statistics.
• Retail Customer Experience deduces that companies have been able to increase their revenues by 5.7 times with a good customer experience framework.
• A key determinant of brand loyalty for 73% of customers is a good customer experience design, according to PwC.
• Up to 33% of serving costs can be reduced through appropriate customer experience management, as per Forbes.

These stats make it only prudent for any business to focus on the bigger question: how to Improve Customer Experience?

Because only the best customer experience can help you keep your customers happy and create a differentiating factor.

So let’s talk about some amazing ideas to improve Customer Experience using these 10 best CX practices of 2020. Here we go…

1. Ease the Customer Experience Journey

For the best customer experience, an important aspect of your customer experience design should be to make your Customer Journey as easy as possible.

This means you need to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and identify those areas where they can be lost or might struggle. It is one of the best CX practices to keep handy solutions for these problems beforehand.

A great example of such best CX practices would be Amazon. When Amazon realized that users were facing problems due to longer delivery times and longer ordering process, which reduced its brand loyalty, it came out with the concept of Amazon Prime in 2005.

Offering customers 1–2 day fast delivery, one step order placement, and exclusive access to their OTT platform, for a nominal subscription charge, helped Amazon in 2 ways.

It raised their customer convenience to a higher bar. And the customers got more loyal to the brand to use their prime membership.

2. Communicate That You Care — Listen & Respond

Customers desire to be heard. Statistics from Zendesk reveal that 24% of customers put feedback and wait to see if actions are taken against them. Best customer strategies suggest that a brand must actively watch out for all possible areas from where a customer might reach out to them.

There may be reviews on your products, or comments on your social media, or even feedback through forms on your website. All these platforms must be regularly scrutinized and acted upon quickly.

Another one of the best CX practices can be using post-sales surveys.

According to a survey by Market Force, 88% of customers willingly fill in at least 1 survey in a year.

Feedback through surveys is unbiased and can help capture the true customer opinion.

3. Invest in Customer Service

For proper customer experience management, it is necessary to have great customer service. A proactive approach to responding to customer queries and complaints can create the best customer experience.

When in trouble, a customer wants someone to understand them patiently. You need dedicated teams at your disposal to attend to customer grievances.

A perfect solution to such best CX practices can be the use of chatbots on websites and FAQ guides.

According to HubSpot, for 90% of customers, it is important to receive an immediate response to their queries.

This affects their brand perceptions and loyalties.

4. Streamline Sales Efforts

Best CX strategies are often based on the accuracy of information. Your customers, whether B2C or B2B, are bound to be curious and have many questions before making purchase decisions.

The higher the value of the product, the greater the risk, and the more amount of information they seek. It is thus necessary that your sales team must be thorough with specific answers to any of such questions and have immediate access to help when needed.

Only then can your customer experience design work flawlessly.

For instance, a salesperson selling insurance must be thorough with the norms of the policy. Only then can he convince the customer to purchase the policy and help them make an informed choice.

Information makes the customer feel that you understand their problem and know how your product can solve it.

5. Drive Self-Service To Scalable Personalization

Talking about ideas to improve customer experience, best CX practices can be to diversify your self-service options.

According to SuperOffice, 67% of customers prefer self-service rather than having to speak to a representative.

This is so because self-service gives them the time to think, analyze, and then make informed purchase decisions. This makes it one of the great customer experience strategy best practices for the best customer experience.

You can use best CX strategies like e-commerce platforms for product sales, e-catalogs like the ones used by Tanishq, step-by-step video guides for technical products, free trials, and demonstrations, etc. can all help in increasing self-service elements in the customer experience framework.

6. Give Customer Opportunities to Choose

Alternatives are always a great way to keep the customer engaged. Especially in B2C sales where customers consider options as an important determinant of brand preference. Best CX strategies are the ones that provide flexibility in the product for greater choices.

A good example of such customer experience strategy best practices can be Amazon India’s marketing campaign: “Aur Dikhao” which perfectly highlighted the customer behavior of craving for more options and how Amazon provides you with such opportunities to explore more of everything!

7. Differentiate Through Customer Experience

Best customer practices require you to have your USP. This will be the one unique feature that you provide and excel at.

This is your edge to the competition and this is the reason why the customer must come back to you because no one can offer them what you offer.

And one catch here is that if you succeed at creating the best customer experience, you automatically create a USP for your brand.

For instance, Starbucks and IKEA are well known specifically for their best CX strategies and that is, in fact, their USP.

8. Build Trust To Gain Trust

Customers do not trust brands easily. They need proof of authenticity and reviews from people they trust to judge, whether or not, you are genuine. Customer experience strategy best practices require you to win customer trust by using transparency.

For example, provide proper price break-ups to let them know what they are being charged for. Highlight previous reviews by clients. Share your process with them.

Help them know what is there in your product. Share videos of product creation from scratch. Stand to your words from advertisements. These are some best CX strategies that when used in your customer experience framework can elicit the best customer experience.

9. Measure To Get Better

Even the best CX practices only work if you monitor their progress quantitatively. While creating some best CX strategies, you must also include ways to capture insights. This will involve gathering customer data. And you need to secure this data but use analytics to make sense of it.

Try to record who visits your website, how they reach there, how many clicks do your social media posts get, what is the open rate on your emails, which time of the day gets you the most traffic, what keywords rank your site links, etc. are all part of best CX practices.

10. Personalize Experience

Creating a feeling of oneness can be one of the best CX practices. Customers are tired of experiencing marketing efforts from infinite brands all day long.

And in such a flood of emails, messages, and notifications, what will help you stand out?

The answer is simple. Personalization!

The last one of the best CX practices is the ability to create custom marketing efforts for your customers.

Your emails, for instance, must address the customers by their names. Observe the customer experience journey carefully and at each touchpoint think of how to personalize it. Understand their pain points and be a solution for them.

For example, a customer inquiring about a particular model of a sports watch is interested in purchasing something sporty. At this point, you need to promote your sports watches and smart fitness trackers. Promoting analog watches to this user won’t make sense.

Final Words…

The list of best CX practices is never exhaustive. You can always go on adding newer tactics as and when you discover them. Meanwhile, these tried and tested ideas to improve customer experience can help you lead the marketplace by excelling at customer experience.

And remember, when it comes to Customer Experience, always keep your eyes and ears wide open. Spontaneity is the greatest virtue in CX.