How to personalize the customer experience
It’s been well established and confirmed that excellent customer service can provide numerous benefits to a company. By delivering a well-implemented and personalized customer experience, that business can almost guarantee that their customers will return over and over again.
Modern-day technology such as the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), automation, digitalization, data analytics, and even social media, among many others, have made it possible for companies to provide an instant, cheap, and accurate experience for its customers. It not only makes use of past data but can also predict and anticipate the wants and needs of their users.
In other words, providing a personalized customer experience is similar to having a face-to-face interaction but with multiple customers at a time, and most often than not, over a digital channel. It can bring together all the benefits of a small business, regarding customer care, and all the benefits of a large organization, concerning resources, creating a synergy that wasn’t possible until recently.
Below are three examples of how to achieve a great personalized customer experience.
Customer Feedback
It is without a shadow of a doubt that customer feedback is the bread and butter of every successful business. And the more recent and up-to-date that feedback is, the better. It was Elon Musk who once said that, “It’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”
These feedback loops are a great way to listen and learn from what your customers have to say. By taking a systematic approach to the issue and implementing various feedback gathering tools at most, if not all touch points, companies can get a real-time and precise image of the entire customer journey. When used effectively, you can optimize your customer experience to be as personalized as possible, all throughout your interaction.
Multiple Choices of Interaction
Today’s digital world and numerous mobile devices that go along with it have created an environment in which convenience and flexibility are highly sought-after. It means that customers expect that a business will always be there when they need it, regardless of the time of day or week.
To provide such a high degree of convenience and flexibility, you will have to employ a multi-channel approach to customer experience, otherwise, risk having your clients shift to a competitor that does.
We see our clients achieving this all the time with our real-time feedback solutions. Customers and students have multiple and easy ways to reach out to staff even if it’s after-hours or when they are using self-services like restrooms and vending machines. The result? Happier customers, hands down.
A Well-Implemented CRM
Even though customer relationship management (CRM) systems have been around for a while now, not everybody is using them to their full potential. In short, CRM manages business-customer interactions, as well as those with potential leads. By using data analytics and customer histories, they focus on customer retention and satisfaction as a means of driving more sales.
A CRM system also has several tools up its sleeve, such as the aforementioned real-time customer data, perhaps various interactive voice response (IVR) options, and automated response capabilities so that your customers know their request, question, or concern has been received. Moreover, as is the case with our MarketIT solution, you can share announcements promotions, special offers, and other marketing communications with your customers who opt-in via email or SMS.
CRMs can help your customer service reps provide more personalized responses to the people they come in contact with and that goes a long way in delivering an exceptional customer experience.
Conclusion
In short, technology helps with your customer experience by personalizing it following every customer’s wants and needs. Gather real-time feedback at every touch point for a comprehensive picture. Use multiple channels for interaction and use your CRM system to help your reps perform better. While this list here is by no means exhaustive, it will, nevertheless, set you on the fast track to an effective, personalized customer experience.
