Why Customer Experience is the Hot Theme for 2022
Customer experience software experts, Zendesk, say that 2022 is the year of customer service-led growth. Why? According to their blog, the pandemic has made customers more discerning than ever with over 60% saying they will defect from a brand after just one bad experience!
It’s critical for future growth and success that businesses prove they are still able to show up and perform well for their clients, despite the possible knock-on effects of the pandemic disruption. Customers are looking for reliability, consistency and thought, especially for the finer detail.
For the purposes of context, customer experience is about the full journey that your clients go on when doing business with you. Customer service is a smaller part of that and refers to the actual human-to-human contact aspects.
But what has this got to do with CRMs?
As it happens, a lot. I am always keen to point out that my favourite CRM, CapsuleCRM, is a ‘contact’ relationship management system and, as such, it can track and prompt you to deliver a consistently high standard of service to your clients. Consistency is key here.
Customers’ expectations are high but over 50% of them reported that the customer experience felt like “an afterthought” in most cases. They want things to be easy, to be able to contact you when they need to and to have a choice of touch points, so they feel nurtured throughout their experience of doing business with you. If your standard processes prompt you for each contact or touch point, there’s far less chance of your clients thinking they’re an afterthought, and there’s no limit to the amount of attention you can heap upon them.
In fact, relationship management is bread and butter for CapsuleCRM. Using Case Tracks (check out tip #6 in this video), you can tailor every individual client experience by including regular check ins as well as the deliverables that you are contracted for. And, if you want to go another mile further, individual ad-hoc tasks (check out tips 7&8) can add to this, maybe even to wish them a Happy Birthday.
Forbes reports that improving customer experience will be a major focus for businesses in 2022, saying that this could be one of the main ways brands compete for market share. The theory that sits beneath this is based on building trust and Forbes predicts a rise in investment in customer experience tools from firms delivering service-based business especially.
Getting personal
Personalisation is predicted to be a strong trend and one which is necessary to achieve excellent customer experience scores.
Forbes suggest firms need to go further than marketing emails with names at the top and they suggest thinking about acting on ‘micro-moments’ (think back to those ad-hoc tasks on Capsule) which provide an opportunity for trust building, or even selling, during a window of opportunity that may last just seconds.
According to customerthink.com, a US-based online community of business leaders, nailing your customer journey is a must-do for 2022. This means thinking not just about how you attract clients and what your pipeline looks like but extending this ‘mapping’ throughout the experience of doing business. Retention is key here as global competition hots up.
Luckily Capsule also allows you to set up Opportunity Tracks, not linked to existing clients but which can cover a general requirement, for example, to nurture prospects. As well as helping to draw people down through your sales pipeline, these can be used simply to build relationships with your ideal clients before an opportunity is even identified.
And finally…
For those of you running growing businesses, I’ll leave you with this thought.
Customer experience may sound as though it’s an outward-facing topic but getting it right could also impact your ability to attract and retain top talent as your organisation grows.
Stateside, two thirds (66%) of Gen Z’s said that most of the companies they do business with need to improve their customer experience. They grew up in a world that is more connected than ever and they’re not afraid to set their expectations high.
They judge the brands they want to work for by their customer and employee experience reputation and see them as a mirror of one another which means the ambitious business owner needs to do the same!
If you’d like to get to grips with your customer experience journey; explore using CapsuleCRM to improve your customer experience; or, just to improve the organisation and running of your business, please get in touch. You can call 01635 592020 or email hello@blakeconsultants.co.uk
Who Am I?
I have been working with CapsuleCRM for over a decade and helped many clients increase revenue, reduce costs, make the most of their contacts, manage their pipeline and deliver great customer service. Capsule is an excellent way to capture your leads and clients once you’ve identified them using your avatar.
I can design and install the perfect bespoke version of Capsule to meet your needs. Capsule really is a great solution for consultants and service based business owners, and when it is integrated with Mailchimp and Xero you have really solid foundations in place to grow your business.
I’m always happy to have a chat – you can contact me at julia.blake@blakeconsultants.co.uk and sign up to receive my Growth Hack Bulletin too.
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