5 Essentials of Customer Experience Management

There are times when your customers complain of delayed service, miscommunication, no one taking responsibility for a mistake or long wait time for getting their issues resolved. Customer experience management is vital for planning and organizing the things that count for a pleasant customer experience. It will help you in understanding your customers’ expectations and come up with solutions for impending issues that your customers are likely to encounter. Having empathetic and emotionally intelligent staff onboard will help you in managing the customer experience more meticulously since understanding the customers’ mindset and relating to their situation is the first and foremost element of customer experience management. Have a look at the five essentials of smart customer experience management!

Put Yourself in the Customers’ Shoes

Without knowing and understanding your customers’ needs, expectations and state of mind you cannot really offer them the very best. So the first thing that you need to focus on while managing the experience is to put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Understanding your customers’ expectations would help you modify the experience accordingly. If you have a diverse customer base, do a bit of research on their demographics and psychographics. This will give you valuable information that can be used to understand their buying behavior. Knowing your customers’ preferences would give you an added advantage, you can work on making your service more prompt, better, personalized and friendly.

Accept Your Mistakes and Fix Things in Minimum Time

A positive and helping attitude is vital for managing customer experience. For instance if you own a home accessories store and a customer walks in with a defective product, instead of giving excuses such as, “ it is the salesman’s fault or let me forward your complaint to the concerned department”, own your mistake and apologize for it. You should teach all your customer service staff to take responsibility for things and be proactive in resolving issues. A customer should not be made to wait for an annoying time when it comes to a complaint or an issue. A really bad customer experience can be turned into a memorable one if you have the right attitude and willingness to set things right.

Communicate with Your Customers Proactively

Taking the lead in managing your customers’ experience involves interactive communication. Keep your customers posted about any changes in your business hours, prices and store locations. Send them e-mails before your new product launch. Inform them about your upcoming ventures, sales, discount deals and other offers. If there is a service issue, you should let your customers know beforehand. Managing the experience based on your customers’ feedback would get you more happy and contented customers. Ask your customers about their shopping experience with you and take their suggestions for improving it, this way you will be able to enhance it for new and existing customers.

Keep a Track of Your Social Media Pages

Your customer experience management should include keeping a check of your social media pages regularly. There would be customers talking about the flaws of your service all over social media without notifying you that they left unhappy. For instance, a customer posts on your Facebook page that the CSR was rude and he/she left without buying anything, you can rectify that negative customer experience and check on your staff’s attitude. Keeping a track of the comments and tweets on your social media profiles is important for evaluating your brand’s image. Moreover, social media channels can be utilized in building personal connections with customers and improving PR.

Make Yourself Available to Customers at all Times

If a customer wants to make changes to his/her online order and has to fill a form and wait for hours until someone gets back to him/her, that customer is not likely to shop from such a brand again. Customers prefer easily accessible businesses, so that they can talk about their concerns and share their thoughts whenever they want. For effective customer experience management you need to make yourself available to your customers around the clock. You should give your customers the convenience to contact you anytime whether they want to know about the features of your new product, change their appointment time or delivery location. Efficient customer support is likely to make the experience memorable for customers, so make it an essential part of Customer Experience Management.