In today’s day and age, customer experience plays a pivotal role. As a matter of fact, it is becoming even more important than customer service! In this blog, we’ll be covering 5 points on which you’ll have to focus to optimise your customers’ experience with your brand throughout all channels!
With customisation becoming increasingly popular, all businesses should start to foster very close relationships with their customers by engaging more with their target audience and making sure that they do indeed remain relevant.
By paying attention to the following five important factors, your business will be able to stay on top of its communication with its customers via different channels to offer them a seamless experience.
#1. Formulate a mission statement
Identifying your business goals (and actually writing them down) remains one of the most effective strategies. An effective mission statement should be actionable and quantifiable (in other words, you need to be able to assess whether or not you have achieved a specific goal).
#2. Be open, honest and proactive
If you want to deliver a great customer experience, it is not good enough to respond to situations only after they have happened. This means that you will have to create expectations by communicating openly with your customers. You should, for example, make sure that there is no confusion about your contact details or business hours by clearly listing your contact details on all the different platforms.
What’s more, for omnichannel communication to be effective, you need to respond promptly. That being said, be very careful with automatic replies as the goal is to make your replies sound more personalised. You might not be dealing with your customers in person, but that does not mean that you should not try to foster more authentic relationships.
The reality is that you will make mistakes from time to time. Though to improve the customer experience, it is key that you do not try to sweep anything under the carpet, but instead take responsibility. Your business will become more trustworthy in the eyes of your customers when you admit to issues like items that are out of stock or unplanned.
#3. Strive for uniformity
Consistency goes hand in hand with communicating openly and acting proactively. In order to keep your customers happy, you need to make sure that you share consistent content via all the different platforms. Although a promotional email and Facebook ad do not look the same, there should still be some clear form of continuity and sense of connection across the different channels. In short, you want to create a seamless experience for your customers.
However, to market on multiple channels is not as easy and calls for impressive skill! You are faced with the challenge that you need to share all the important points, yet keep in mind the characteristics and subtle differences of each platform.
#4. Stick to your promises
Your unique selling proposition (USP) should be communicated to your customers regularly. By doing this, you can emphasise to your target market what it is that sets your business apart. If your mission statement lacks practical value and you cannot act on it, it will not be of much use to your business.
Which goals have you identified for your customer experience? Give thought to these objectives and create strategies that will help you to carry these out on all the different channels.
As mentioned earlier, every channel might not operate in the same way, but your target audience should still be able to identify essential elements of your mission statement on every channel. In other words, the basic message should still be the same even though it will be communicated a little bit differently.
#5. Make your customers number one
The last factor is about who your business should place first. The answer: your customers. As your customers’ needs prompt your business in a specific direction, you should ensure that they remain at the centre of the customer experience.
It does not have to be difficult! Simply make sure that they feel like your business actually understands them and their needs and try to create more authentic relationships between your staff members and the customers.
It will be quite clear to your customers when your business does not appreciate their support. So, make sure that your mission statement communicates to your staff members that the customers should be their priority which will help your employees to make the right decisions.
Omnichannel Marketing vs. Cross-Channel Marketing
As a beginning marketer or advertiser, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the different terms you might come across. For some, the line between Omnichannel Marketing and Cross-channel marketing can get quite blurry. While both terms have to do with reaching your audience through the use of different channels or mediums, they are in fact, two separate marketing strategies!
Cross-channel marketing focuses on setting up a strategy that will target an audience across different devices and platforms (i.e. running campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Google simultaneously), while thoroughly taking the interactions between these touchpoints into account. This is all necessary to provide (potential) customers with the optimal experience throughout the entire customer journey.
If you want to learn more about the customer experience and journey, check out this blog!
Wrapping up
You cannot grow your small business if you cannot retain your customers. In order to keep your customers happy and get them to support your business time and time again, you need to ensure that the customer experience is positive and that they can expect the same experience, irrespective of the channel.
There might be subtle differences between the channels, but by prioritising your customers, you will build a loyal customer base. So, make sure that your mission statement and communication are at all times geared towards your target market.
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