Mapping Customer Experience
TeleworkPH
Published: July 7, 2022
Getting into the customer psyche is the first step in mapping out customer experience.
Have you ever experienced checking out a new resort hotel and somehow felt that disconnect or inconsistency compared to how the brand made you feel via social media and email?
Not seeing through the lens of your customers and not making them feel that you get them is how many companies lose their customers to competition.
Did you feel ecstatic and gravitate instantly toward an aesthetic clinic’s FB and IG reels yet did not feel that same level of personal care and attention when you did your facial lift procedure with them? It’s disappointing.
You might even feel like you’ve been fooled all along with their branding and ads yet not get the expected outcome or experience you desired.
How the Giant Brands Do It
Giant brands like Nike, Apple, and Tesla get their customers from the inside out. These brands know their customers extremely well that they have designed a consistent and streamlined customer experience in all touchpoints.
They focus on making their customers feel like a million bucks every single time regardless of whether customers buy the cheapest iPhone or the latest Nike CryptoKicks NFT. Also, they care less about the price tag and focus on their customers.
While most businesses today are passionate about having the best of all features and services, the biggest brands we know focus less on promoting how great their products and services are and more on making their customers happy. Yes, it’s that simple.
Is there a magic bullet; a secret sauce maybe? A customer’s smile, recommendations, and satisfied feedback are the best advertising campaigns you can bank on to give you a steady pipeline of leads and sales for the long term.
A company that lives and breathes customer experience puts a great deal of emphasis on providing a seamless and enjoyable customer experience.
Customer Journey with YOU in Mind
So, if you happen to see a Facebook ad on a digital marketing course then you didn’t see that by accident. These social media algorithms homes into your buyer behavior and feed or target you with ads that appeal to you because you are in fact already actively searching for these products or services.
Your customer journey has been mapped out with you in mind. It’s all deep work from research to designing a customer experience that revolves around YOU.
Customer Experience (CX) is a key driver that allows your business to grow and thrive even in a highly congested industry.
Sure, there are many skin clinics in the area, with the same safe and state-of-the-art procedures and certified specialists BUT it’s easy to stand out when you know your customers well.
Stop Competing with Other Brands
Remember, it’s not about being the best brand; it all boils down to how your customers feel about you.
Are your customers happy about your products and services? Do you see an increase in word-of-mouth referrals or are they bolting out of your door?
So, hush, DO NOT compete with your competitors – learn from them.
What are they doing now that’s working for them? What are they not doing yet? Where are their lapses? Can you do better?
Focus on what you can improve. Go and beat your last great performance.
What is Customer Experience Management (CEM)?
From the first funnel touchpoint or when the customer begins to engage with your brand, there has to be a consistent and seamless customer experience right then and there. You have to deliberately research and mind-map the customer journey itself and reverse-engineer to process to get the results you need.
Mapping out customer experience can help you produce a friction-less and satisfying customer experience.
Customer Experience Management (CXM or CEM) refers to the process in which a business or an organization maps out every customer touchpoint or interaction aiming to meet or even surpass customer expectations to ensure happy and loyal customers.
Yes, you should be redundant on customer happiness. The main goal of CEM is optimizing customer interactions, nurturing customers, so the entire journey meshes with the customer’s perception of the brand and even overshoots expectations.
Top Pillars of Customer Experience Management
In an overly competitive business arena, you have to hypercharge CEM. Unlike customer service which focuses mainly on a specific interaction, customer experience is holistic or covers the entire customer journey which is a way to build a solid and mutually-befitting relationship with your customers.
Now, customer service is mission-critical to positively impact brand perception. Consistency in delivering helpful and responsive customer service ensures top-quality customer experience. Below are the top pillars that optimize customer experience for your business:
Know Your Customer (KYC)
Do you know your customers from back to front?
Customer experience isn’t one-dimensional. You can’t take a wild guess on CEM and expect to win hearts. Surely, brands who take time to get to know their customers can provide a memorable and fulfilling customer experience.
This is how you deliver a personalized customer experience that makes you the go-to brand in your industry.
Design a CX Strategy
Once you have a target customer avatar or buyer personal, you can start mapping the customer experience in different touchpoints.
Once the buyer persona is identified, it is crucial to define customer experience strategy, mug up, and map out the relevant touch points throughout the customer journey to better plan and organize how a brand will interact with the customers at each touchpoint.
Gauge Customer Satisfaction
How do you measure customer satisfaction? Getting feedback from customers will give you insights into how your customers perceive your brand. It is crucial to have the figures that help gauge customer satisfaction in real-time to quantify if your CX strategy works or would need tweaking.
A company of realtors may assume that their clients are having a hassle-free and seamless experience with getting a home or selling a property when in fact they’re not. You have to keep in mind what your customers love about the customer journey and take note of what you need to eliminate from the list.
Why Focus on Customer Experience
Switching from one brand to another is quick and easy now for many customers. It only takes one unhappy customer to spread the word and you can watch your business spiral way down. Focusing on customer experience will help reinforce the value of your brand without being pushy or salesy.
Customers Choose You
Providing your customers with a personalized experience shows that your brand cares. To this brand, you are not just one sale, your overall customer journey matters.
With many coffee brands out there, be the brand that people choose over and over again because you don’t just sell coffee, you sell experience.
Avoid Losing Customers
Did you know that it’s more expensive to attract new customers than retain repeat ones? Did you know that while you are thinking of starting a CX strategy for later, most of your competitors are beating you to it?
According to Forbes (2021), it’s relatively easy to switch to other brands in the digital world because there are so many alternatives around.
By investing in a CX strategy, it’s easy to win customers left and right like clockwork. But, the bonus with optimizing customer experience is that you get to retain lifelong clients who will never turn their backs on you for anything; not even a price increase.
Customers who enjoy the brand journey will never abandon carts or flee your brand. Hey, you won’t leave someone you love. The idea works the same way with customers who have fallen madly deeply in love with your brand.
Boost Brand Advocacy
Happy customers can’t help but spread the good news to others in their network. CEM improves brand satisfaction and brand loyalty.
It could be as simple as getting a phone repaired or replaced in an hour or less which makes people feel they can always count on your brand.
It can be a friendly smile and timely service from the restaurant waitress that make a world of difference to a customer. When it comes to customer service, it’s the little details that count most.
These little memorable customer experiences compound and result in happy and satisfied customers. Happy customers are the best advertising arm you can get for your business.
Boost Sales
Happy and satisfied customers are a keeper. They really want to be kept anyway because these customers are loyal to your brand.
This is where customer experience strategy comes into play. Make your customers feel so at home that they won’t trade it for any offer. With satisfied customers, your sales increase as well. With a well-planned CEM in place, you won’t ever have to worry about whether it’s a hit or miss this time around.
How to Map Customer Experience
Optimizing your customer experience strategy gives you that competitive edge even when you have exactly the same products and services as what the competition offers.
When you are able to map out customer experience all throughout every interaction, measure the results of your CX strategy, and test or retest it until you know what fits so well with your customers. Here’s what you need in mapping customer experience:
Channel Reach and Flexibility
Do you know where your customers hang out the most on social media? Are they active on LinkedIn or Tiktok? For your CX strategy to work, you have to know your market reach. Are you targeting customers in the right channels?
Companies will need to identify where their customers are and consider that when mapping out their CX journey. More so, you should also consider the different touchpoints or channels where your customers get to interact with your brand.
Unified and Personalized Customer Journey
Customer journey maps are never predictable which makes it beautiful. This unique quality makes it challenging for brands to deliver a consistent, personalized, and unified customer experience that customers will appreciate and enjoy with their brand interactions.
Omnichannel CX
Brands know for a fact that customers interact in different ways or multiple channels. Brand interactions may involve using email, mobile, social ,media, website, voice, or SMS. Customer preferences differ but it’s important for your business to be visible and felt in these channels.
To remain competitive, omnichannel CX can help your brand create a consistent, seamless, and palpable experience for your customers so they can easily switch in between channels and get the same familiar and enjoyable interaction with your brand.
Isn’t it About Time to Start Looking through the Lens of Your Customers?
Customer experience mapping does not just capture buying behavior but also the thoughts and emotions involved in the entire customer journey.
When you look at your brand through the lens of your customers, it’s easy to identify opportunities that might have been overlooked; thus enhancing the entire customer experience for your brand.
Customer retention comes easy when you soak in the mapping customer experience. Find out more on how we can create a solid and predictable pipeline of clients month after month for your business. Contact us today!
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