It often astounds me when I have a negative customer experience with a brand I love. Outside of when I’m in a shop, the only time I usually engage with my favourite brands is because I’ve bought a product from them and it needs returning or I’ve had an email to say I need to renew my service and so I have a genuine reason to engage with them outside of my original purchase.
In the marketing world we talk about two golden words ‘acquisition’ and ‘retention’; the strategy of attracting and retaining new customers via striking campaigns, engaging content, beautiful products, and innovative marketing communications – yet how many brands are guilty of placing a full stop at the end of a customer journey once a purchase has been made?
Retention is often assumed if a customer enjoys using the product but how many brands consider the after care service? I know, for example if I’m looking to renew my Sky subscription, a poor communication experience with their Contact Centre or lack of relevant, appealing renewal promotions in their retention campaign to me will significantly impact my judgement as to whether I remain a loyal customer or shop elsewhere.
The customer experience your brand delivers can also be integral to the efficiencies of your business. Do you need to send three letters followed by an email, a telephone call with six ‘press XX’ options and a follow-on direct mail piece to every customer that needs to renew their Sky subscription? More than likely not. As a brand have you spent enough time strategically reviewing and streamlining your customer experience journey against trackable results? Again … questionable.
Speaking to Adexchange recently who are specialists in streamlining a brand’s customer journey, it sounds like the ABC of good marketing. 1) Define your customer journey 2) Determine the right channels for communication 3) Establish the right tone and style of your customer journey.
Adexchange highlight the importance of reducing your costs and transforming the customer experience by streamlining your service channels. This can include anything from redesigning each customer journey, to simplifying inefficient dialogues across more than 30 languages including IVR, email SMS, social and surveys. The bottom line? All results delivered should be measurable.
Top 3 tips to improve your Customer Experience Journey
- Keep it simple
Streamline your customer communications for every key scenario to make customer contact with your brand simple and hassle-free. If you have an IVR system (e.g. “Press 1 for new contracts”, “Press 2 for renewals”) make it simple for customers to navigate with minimum actions required by the customer to achieve their desired outcome.
- Make it intelligent
Know who your customer is? What they have purchased? How long they have been a customer? What’s their preferred way to communicate e.g. social media, text, email? If you already have the answers to these questions then use this information! Information is key to building strong customer relationship management. If a customer is treated as an individual rather than one of the masses they are far more likely to engage with you and more importantly, stay with you.
- Ensure language is accessible
Even if your brand roots are in the UK but you’re increasing your customer base across new territories, chances are a proportion of your customer base speaks a different language to your brand’s native tongue. If this is the case, ensure your communications are multilingual. With so many translation services now available, once you have established your customer communications script, ensure it’s available in the languages of your core customers. Ok you could argue that English is a universal language but you’ll connect more with your customers if you can demonstrate that you genuinely care about their relationship with your brand.
If you think streamlining your customer journey should be at the top of your priorities, speak to our chums at Adexchange today to see how they can help you deliver a seamless customer experience.
