Imagine you’ve decided to start an auto repair shop, and you want to start generating business from the local community.
You would not be very successful if you led your messaging with a detailed, technical description of how car engines work and what can go wrong with them over time. This is because the average car owner doesn’t care about exactly how solenoids work or what specifically causes timing belts to fail over time.
On the other hand, if you’ve decided to start a mechanical engineering company and your target market consists of product managers who want to solve complex problems, the above-mentioned approach might actually work quite well.
The point here is to dig deep into the psychology of your customer. This might require some investment into market research, but the insights you’ll gain will pay big-time dividends over the long term.
Everyone wants to feel like they are seen, heard, and acknowledged. It’s as true in everyday life as it is in business.
Nothing dashes that feeling like being presented with a one-size-fits-all customer experience. It’s boring. It’s forgettable. And, it’s a great way to send potential customers to your competitors.
Instead, do everything you can to personalize the customer experience as soon and as often as possible so that your customers feel seen, heard, and acknowledged. After all, one of the most difficult challenges that consumers face is wading through the unending options available to them, just so they can arrive at the solution that personally suits them.
B2C audiences are much more tech-savvy that we give them credit for. B2B audiences are even more so. Don’t be afraid to integrate advanced technology to streamline the customer experience, but also be mindful of the risk of overcomplicating it.
Some great customer experience technologies to explore include:
For lead qualification and nurturing, a well-skinned chatbot can be highly effective. However, do not use a chatbot in place of human interaction if at all possible. And, do not skin the chatbot to appear to be a human, as customers will immediately see through it and they’ll go elsewhere.
The customer experience can be enhanced by using the customer data you already have to move them farther along the sales pipeline before they even engage with a salesperson. There are plenty of ways to use lead metadata to automate small tasks, bringing the customer closer to ‘buy’ and delighting them in the process.
A lot of customer experience technology hinges on the use of algorithms that dynamically generate a bespoke customer experience. One example would be an algorithm that learns what customers’ second and third purchases are and recommends those purchases to first-time customers after a predetermined time period.
If you’re not a whiz when it comes to the latest and greatest in technology, don’t worry. You don’t have to be an expert. That’s what trusted partners like Orogamis are for!
So many B2B and B2C companies spend all their time, money, and energy developing a customer experience that abruptly stops after a customer has been on-boarded or when a transaction has been completed.
This is a huge mistake. In virtually every case, the lifetime value of a customer will dwarf the value of their initial purchase, which makes it crucial to focus on what happens after the sale.
Smart marketers know that maintaining an engaging dialog with customers before, during, and after the sale makes the difference between a one-and-done buyer and a customer for life.
This means offering post-sale support, reaching out to them with questions about their level of satisfaction, educating them with thoughtful content, and more.
You could have the most desirable product or service on the planet, at a price that is affordable, and available for purchase quickly by your ideal customer—but if your buyer portal or website isn’t accessible or user-friendly, you’ll be dead in the water.
It’s important to delineate the difference between accessibility and usability.
Generally speaking, accessibility is the accommodation and navigability of your for users who may have a disability or limitation, like blindness or mobility issues.
The Americans with Disabilities Act has some great information related to website accessibility best practices. And, many website developers offer ADA compliance as part-and-parcel of their services.
Usability on the other hand is a component of the User Experience (UX), which necessarily involves how the customer interacts with your website, software, app, or other soft asset via a User Interface (UI).
Usability studies conducted using focus groups can reveal deep insights into what works and what doesn’t, giving you valuable information about what changes you can make to further enhance the total customer experience.
After so much research and investment into creating the ideal customer experience, it can be tempting to think that we’ve ‘arrived’, or that our customer experience is the best it could possibly be. However, this is a common trap.
You won’t know how you could be doing things better if you don’t reach out to your customers—the people who have a fresh, intimate understanding of your brand—and ask them for their feedback.
A Customer Feedback Loop involves, at a minimum, three phases:
These phases warrant their own individual strategies, and we could spend a lot more time discussing best practices for each of them, but for the sake of brevity, just know that gathering feedback, taking it to heart, and then acting on it is what truly matters to the ongoing evolution of your customer experience.
Sure, you could do a lot of what we’ve mentioned here on your own. And, you might even be successful with some of it.
However, nothing saves time, money, and resources quite like going straight to the source by partnering with a professional customer experience development firm that specializes in this discipline.
Orogamis isn't just such a firm. We are a Full-Experience growth agency with expertise throughout the growth framework, from the customer to the brand and back again.
When you’re ready to get serious about crafting the ideal customer experience for your business, we’ll be ready to engage with you. Keep us in mind, and contact us when the time is right.
