How to Create Great CX to Improve Customer Relationships

black bulldog wearing tie and holding a magnifying glass to represent looking for the details that create great CX

How to Create Great CX to Improve Customer Relationships

Customer relationships impact the amount of business a company does. To have these great relationships companies need to create great CX. Here are some actions that help build the kind of customer experience that makes lasting, beneficial relationships.

Identify customer needs

Want to know what customers need? Ask them! Asking customers directly about their experience and expectations can help managers and teams gain insight into what they need from a product or service. Smart surveys are one way of doing this. Using gamification or entertaining methods of asking, along with intelligent timing of the ask, improves response rates. 

Social listening and behavioral analysis are helpful too. However, the data means little without knowing the reasons or a plan to apply it.

Take abandoned shopping carts. It’s good to know the abandon rate (Abandonment rate= purchases completed/opened carts). But that data is useless without the reason for those abandoned carts. Is it the extra costs? Requiring customers to open an account after they’ve filled their cart? Slow site loading? Behavioral data collection can help identify the key issues with the user experience giving customer service leaders a place to start fixing the problem. 

In addition, customer service managers should be aware of the three main types of customer needs: functional, social, and emotional. Knowing these different types of customer needs can help managers better understand how to meet them. 

According to an article from HubSpot, “Functionality is one of the most important customer needs you should consider when creating a product or service. Customers need your product or service to function the way they need in order to solve their problem or desire.” That includes the shopping experience. 

Conductor states that “customer needs are the named and unnamed needs your customers have when they come in contact with your business… Identifying and meeting these needs is essential for success.”

Establish Trust

Establishing trust with customers is critical for businesses to create strong and long-lasting relationships. According to research by Salesforce, “86% of customers say that trust is a factor in their decision to purchase from a company.” 

To build trust, businesses should create great CX and building an emotional connection with their customers is key to that.  Transparent business practices, rapid response to customer needs and follow up on feedback all help to build a sense of trust with customers.

Per CX expert, Shep Hyken, emotional connection with the customer is a key to their true loyalty, and stronger than price or convenience alone.  More and more, customers differentiate between businesses that share their values and those that don’t. It isn’t just carefully crafted promotional words, but an authentic voice backed up by matching actions that customers are looking for.

Encourage Agents to Share Knowledge

A quality customer relationship management (CRM) system is a key tool to collect data across sources. But remember that agents are one of the important sources of customer information. Giving agents a knowledge base to share these insights, and encouragement to do so, multiplies the power of that knowledge across teams.

An example of a company that understands the value of their customer service agents is Zappos. The online shoe and clothing retailer provides extensive training to its customer service team and encourages the sharing of knowledge and experiences among team members. By sharing insights and feedback, agents are able to provide a more personalized and empathetic customer experience. This approach has contributed to the company’s reputation as one of the best in customer service. 

With the right training and support, agents can become more effective, insights can be uncovered and issues can be quickly resolved, leading to creating great CX and brand loyalty.

Make Data-driven Decisions

Back to the data again. Data may sound cold and scientific, but collected intelligently and used strategically it supports the very human experience of customer service. Metrics without purpose have little tangible effect. 

Companies can gain valuable insights into their customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points through data. It’s using the data to fuel changes that improve customer experience that has the potential to result in greater loyalty and customer spend.

With the rise of big data analytics, companies can gather and analyze vast amounts of customer data from various sources like social media, surveys, and purchase history. Big data analytics across multiple channels provides service agents and customer experience leaders the kind of broad customer view that enables the contact center to be an effective part of sales and development.

Amazon uses data analytics to personalize recommendations for customers and improve their overall shopping experience, resulting in increased customer loyalty and sales. However, actionable data analytics aren’t just for Amazon-sized companies. All companies benefit from data-driven decision making.

AI driven tools, like CSAT.AI, reduce the historical manual labor of data collection. Automated QA and sentiment analysis give leaders and agents insight into what is working and what needs improvement.  

CSAT.AI provides a predictive CSAT score allowing course correction or improvement during the interaction. Plus, optional customizable surveys can be used to validate the CSAT score. 

How is your company creating great CX?