What goes into building an outstanding CX Strategy?

Exceptional CX is the foundation of business. This statement holds more merit now than ever due to the COVID-19 crisis. Almost overnight, consumers were pushed to change their daily routines, consumption patterns and how they interacted with brands.

It became crucial for companies to keep a real-time pulse on changing customer preferences and redesigning their digital channels to match their customers’ needs. Those who successfully built capabilities for the fast-changing consumer expectations were forerunners, leaving the others behind.

As we inch towards normalcy, creating and maintaining exceptional CX will be the cornerstone to business success. This brings us to the question: What does it really take to build an outstanding customer experience?

A perfected omnichannel

Today’s customer expects to receive personalised services for all their purchases. A single customer journey would involve multiple channels such as social media, applications, websites, pickups, and retail, amongst others.

For example, during lunch hours at the office, David, an Australian marketing manager prefers checking nearby cafes on the internet and making a reservation before heading to the restaurant to either pick up or dine at the eatery. While an Aussie working mom, Linda, adds essential grocery items to her online cart and places an order on the mobile app, ready for curbside pick-up.

With multiple touchpoints involved before making a purchase decision, companies are pushed to ensure a satisfactory overall experience across their online and offline channels. The failure to do so will result in customer fallouts and disloyalty.

An excellent employee experience

There is an undeniable connection between employee experience and customer experience. A business can not improve its CX without focusing on its employees and the way they perform their jobs.

Employees also leverage these digital touchpoints regularly as a means to better service the consumer, thereby it’s important for them to understand and feel comfortable using them. A  recent study by IDC  also found that “85% of respondents agree that an improved employee experience and higher employee engagement translate to a better customer experience, higher customer satisfaction, and higher revenues for their organization.”

It is critical to ensure the company’s digital toolkit is easily understood and used by employees, along with ensuring a healthy work environment, so as to deliver great customer service. If the employees suffer, the customers will also suffer, ultimately leading to a deteriorating ROI for the company. Therefore, top organisations consistently work towards enhancing their employee experience.

Scaling user experience (UX) across the organization

Scaling UX in an organisation means all internal stakeholders are apprised of the user experience and understand its nuances. Everyone in the company, from sales executives to designers to product managers to C-level executives, must be able to easily access UX insights.

Companies that provide quality CX recognise that a great UX is a key differentiating factor in today’s competitive market. These enterprises should also understand the importance of making every employee aware of customer pain points and delights. In time, this proves beneficial in understanding the customer roadmap and then translating customer experiences from in-person to digital.

For example, when a person shops at a retail outlet and is guided by the sales associate while purchasing products, they may end up purchasing more items than they’d do while shopping on the app. To ensure that even the people who create these online experiences understand the psyche of selling in person, it is compelling that they have the same understanding of the customer journey.

Finally, understanding the ever-evolving customer behaviour

To attain outstanding CX, it is vital to understand the dynamics of customer behaviour.  Within a short period of time, the COVID-19 crisis upended consumer behaviours and beliefs. In order to successfully handle future challenges, companies need to dig deeper into understanding their customers’ rapidly changing behaviour and preferences.

Let’s understand how consumer behaviour has changed with regard to shopping for clothing items: When a customer comes across the need to purchase clothing items now, he/she will quickly browse online and check the varied products rather than visit a retail outlet. Brands are compelled to re-look into their customer habits and provide online options to pique their customers’ interests and sustain their businesses (As per reports, 4 in 5 Aussie households are shopping online at some point in the year) Consumer expectations will continue to evolve rapidly and also differ from person to person. It is essential for businesses to have an answer to the ‘why?’ behind the shift. This will not only help in creating great CX practices but also build