Transforming into a customer-centric organization doesn’t happen overnight. A customer-centric culture must be cultivated and sustained to deliver consistent, memorable customer experiences. Here are our 10 customer experience (CX)Opens a new window tips to help you instill customer focus in your organization.
Many leading organizations take pride in being customer centric. And why not? It is the customer experiences that drive customer satisfaction, customer retention, recommendations, enhanced brand image, and revenue.
Also Read: Customer Experience Examples to Inspire a Culture Shift in Your OrganizationOpens a new window
We list 10 customer experience (CX) tips that will establish customer centricity as the core philosophy of your organization and help create a customer-focused environment across your company.
1. Establish Customer-Centric Values
The golden rule is to establish that as an organization, you need to follow customer-centric values. Start with the goal in mind. Identify what customer experience should look like for your customer, and then chart out the path to meet this goal.
Instill empathy as a value among your employees. Empathy is the ability to understand the customer’s needs, identify the emotions and reasons behind those needs, and respond effectively to solve their problems.
2. Ingrain Them into Your Culture
Once your core philosophy on customer experience is established, you need to drive awareness and articulate your philosophy of putting customers first. Organize training sessions for new hires and refreshers for existing employees, disseminate these values using posters and banners to ensure that customer experience is given priority.
3. Prioritize Customer Satisfaction
Customers keep your business running and are the most important stakeholders in your business. When it comes to addressing customer issues, employees should prioritize customer satisfaction above everything else. This may mean revising schedules, occasionally sacrificing profits, or rescheduling meetings to manage and/or respond to customers.
4. Share Ownership
Everyone is in charge of ensuring CX success — leaders, management, executives, technical, marketing and sales teams, all have to shoulder the responsibility to deliver consistent and enhanced customer experiences.
David Clarke, Global Chief Experience Officer at PwCOpens a new window , said in an interview with MarTech AdvisorOpens a new window , “The reality is that everyone owns CX – everyone has a role to play in delivering superior CX. It’s not something that you can budget in a silo, the product strategist needs to own it, the technologist needs to own it, and the sales team owns it too.â€
5. Hire for Customer Values
The employees who run your day to day operations have a significant impact on how customers perceive your brand. When hiring, evaluate prospects for their skills, attitude, customer orientation, and personality that sync well with your culture. Here’s the time to check for empathy and people-centricity.
Pro Tip: Hire people, not ‘resources’!
Also Read:
Top 5 Retail Customer Experience (CX) Strategies for 2020Opens a new window
6. Listen to the Voice of Your Customer
Facilitate customer interactions to gather feedback, reviews, and suggestions to improve services and products. Enable interactions between employees and customers to identify their successes and challenges.
This will enable your team to bond well with the customer and understand customer requirements better.
7. Empower Employees
Organizations need to empower employees to go above and beyond the call of duty to serve the customer better. Employees should be empowered to make on-the-spot decisions to exceed customer expectations and not feel restricted by policies. Arm your employees with tools, guidelines, and the space to solve customer problems.
For example, ZapposOpens a new window employees have the freedom to provide solutions to customers, in any manner they deem appropriate, like partial or full refunds, free exchanges, gifts, free expedited shipping, etc.
8. Create a Positive Employee Experience
An empowered employee is a happy employee. When you expect your people to deliver, it is important to treat them well. In fact, it is crucial to equip them with the right tools and technology to drive more delightful customer experiences.
David Clarke believesOpens a new window , “Great customer experiences begin with great employee experiences. If employees have the leadership, environment, and tools they need to be happy and productive, they’ll create and do things that delight your end customers. This is true from the back-end developer writing code, a UX designer, all the way to the associate who is greeting and interacting with customers in a storefront.â€
9. Measure Customer Outcomes
You can’t deliver better, when you can’t measure.
As an organization, you should be able to measure the impactOpens a new window of your customer experience efforts, and link customer success to employee incentives and compensation programs. When employees have personal stakes in customer satisfaction, they will be better aligned to deliver better customer experiences.
10. Reward and Celebrate Customer Success
When an employee goes the extra mile to exceed customer expectations, acknowledge, recognize, and reward them. Recognition and reward will serve as the motivation for everyone to continue and do better in the future.
If customers find extra value to your services, celebrate it and share the success story to appreciate and inspire your employees.
Also Read: What is Customer Experience: An A to Z GuideOpens a new window
Concluding Thoughts
Being product focused and sales-driven is important, but customer focus should be a priorityOpens a new window for leadership as well as employees. It’s wise to establish customer centricity and customer empathy as core values. Align to leaders who espouse and practice these values in the organization and empower employees to deliver enhanced customer experiences.
What are your top customer experience tips for a customer-centric organization? Tell us on TwitterOpens a new window or LinkedInOpens a new window or FacebookOpens a new window ; we’re always listening.