9 Proven Customer Experience Strategies Unveiled

Nestled in a quiet corner of the city, "Whimsy & Wonder" is a bookstore run by Emily. She is a bibliophile, so she turned her passion into a career. With a deep knowledge of books, she already has an advantage over others, but it’s not the only thing that makes Whimsy & Wonder stand out.  

Emily also has a great business mind and understands the importance of great customer experience (CX). She has trained her staff on how to behave with visitors and what things to notice whenever they come. Moreover, Emily has taken care of many minor implementations as well.  

One of these implementations is the ambiance of the place. Whimsy & Wonder has a proper seating arrangement with other amenities, unlike other bookstores. Sarah, who first came to Whimsy & Wonder two months back, is now a regular customer. 

The reason is that on her very first visit, she was greeted by the staff and navigated to the books she wanted personally by a staff member. After her few visits to the store, every staff member knows her well and her preferences. This gives Sarah a sense of being special, and she keeps promoting Whimsy & Wonder among her friends. 

This story of a small bookstore represents how important customer experience management is. So, let's continue the story with nine ways to create an unmatchable customer experience.  

9 Essential Ways to Improve Customer Experience Management 

Casting Magical Experiences for Visitors

No matter what business you are running, to establish yourself as different from others, providing a distinct experience is important. However, to make it possible, a vision for it is important, and what's more, is to parcel this vision throughout the organization as Emily did. 

Knowing Her Readers

Emily knew the importance of learning about the people who entered her store. That's why her focus was on understanding the preferences of readers, their reading habits, etc. Simply put, it's about knowing your customers through various factors like age, background, where they come from, etc. It will help you segment your customers into different profiles and better understand their needs and wants. 

Emotionally Connecting with Her Visitors

A strategy that Emily often employs is to connect with her visitors emotionally. For example, her customer once returned a book he had leased for a few days. But while getting the book back, Emily saw that the bookmark had been put 10 pages before the book's ending. She concluded that the reader probably had not completed the book, so she handed it over to the reader and asked him to complete it without charging any extra cost. That's how emotional bonds are made, lasting longer than any other experience. 

Listening to Every Feedback 

Whenever a customer has to say something to Emily, she stops whatever she's doing and listens carefully. In the world of business, it's called real-time feedback capturing. However, for an organization, it may not be possible to engage with every customer's feedback personally. But there are ways to do it for businesses. You can use tools like NPS surveys, follow-up e-mails and even calls from customer representatives. These tools will help you gather insights from customers after every interaction with them, like with the product, delivery, or customer service. 

Training her Team Members

As the place's owner, Emily knew she couldn't be present everywhere. So, she decided to train her employees with a framework that leaves no space for errors. When you run a business, it's important to do that to maintain the customer experience at every single interaction with the customer.

But it doesn't end there; you should monitor customer service operations, like assessing call recordings. It'll help you see the employees' performances so that you can work on them individually.

Taking Employees' Feedback Frequently

Emily has decided to get feedback from her team annually. So, the time came, and from the team of 15 employees, she got only 2 pieces of feedback. However, instead of seeking pride for it, she knew something was wrong. So, she scheduled a monthly meeting this time, and the picture changed. She got multiple feedbacks, most of which were important to act on. 

An employee is not a machine that'll set a reminder for every feedback to recall after 11 months. So, if you want to get better employee feedback, you should make it frequent. If not regular meetings, you can use tools to gather employee feedback. 

She Measures Her Efforts

While Emily's efforts are great, she wants to measure them to know if they are worth it. In the case of Emily, she measured it through the increase in sales, profits and customer satisfaction.

However, as an organization, you can use NPS for customer satisfaction and other metrics to identify the ROI of your efforts to enhance the customer experience. 

Personalizing Experiences

Emily has focused on personalization from the very start. She and her staff mostly get in exchanging talks with the customers. It helps them to know what a particular customer likes, such as the genre of story they read, the type of book they want, Etc. As a result, they never fail to recommend books that align with their customers' preferences. 

In the business world, it is known as personalization, a trend today. But why is personalization important? 

According to research, 60% of consumers become repeat customers when they get a personalized shopping experience. For businesses, 89% of marketers state that campaign personalization leads to a positive ROI, which is important for a successful campaign. 

Personalization in a business is brought with the help of data that you can collect through surveys or in exchange for offers. But there's a thin line between personalization and data breach, which you should take care of. 

She's Making the Experience Seamless

She succeeded in running a store with her efforts, which was her first passion but is now her career. However, what she knows is that retaining this experience is a must. Till now, everything is good, but there's something left. What's it?

It's the shopping experience. That's why she has put extra attention to making the shopping experience well. From roaming between the aisles of books to checking out with them, she doesn't want her customers to wait anywhere unnecessarily.

As a business, you need to understand the importance of seamless experience. Everything should sync with all the channels you provide them to shop with you. 

For example, if a customer has added something to his/her cart from your website but later decides to shop through the app, the item must also be there in the app's cart. The same goes for tracking, contacting customer service, etc.  

The End of the Tale 

Emily is running her store successfully and continues to grow. She has understood the importance of customer experience management, which helps her improve the customer experience in every state. 

So, from this tale of Emily and her bookstore, there's much to learn and implement. From implementing strategies to providing training, everything plays an important role. But you may wonder what is achieved by doing all this. 

Be it Emily or you, by putting efforts into CX, you can foster loyalty, advocacy and a deep sense of connection with your customers. All this ultimately leads to an increase in your business, making it more profitable, stable and ever-growing.