Ways to Improve CX
Written by Support EXP
The customer experience should always be top of mind for every business.
If you’re looking to improve your CX, we’ve put together some suggestions that you can implement into effective strategies for your business.
Key Takeaways:
- Don’t lose good customers by providing sub-par Customer service.
- Lack of frontline training for employees, misaligned expectations, and inconsistency in service will all hinder CX.
- Improve CX by evaluating specific pain points, improving frontline skills, and taking your customers seriously.
The Impact of a Poor Customer Experience
Why should you prioritize creating a good experience for your customers?
First and foremost, a terrible customer experience drives people away and tarnishes your reputation with others.
A poor customer experience has ripple effects beyond losing one customer—it damages your brand reputation overall, making others less likely to try your products or services.
The reverse, however, is also true—when you improve CX, you’ll find happier customers who are more likely to recommend your company to others, boosting your brand reputation.
Common Causes of Poor Customer Service
Knowing poor customer service significantly impacts your business, it’s crucial to pinpoint causes and improve CX in this area.
Here are some common causes of a bad customer experience, along with tips for avoiding them:
Lack of Frontline Skills
Customers with concerns may never get beyond the first phone call with a customer service agent.
Making this call a good experience is essential, but many bad customer service experiences happen because frontline employees aren’t well-trained and lack the resources to support a positive customer journey.
Disconnect Between Customer Expectations and What Is Actually Delivered
Another common cause of customer dissatisfaction is a disconnect between what customers expect and what they get.
This is often caused by overpromising, especially in advertising. Ultimately, it’s better to under promise and overdeliver, so your customers are pleasantly satisfied with their experience.
Inconsistency in Service Delivery
Make sure service is streamlined across customers. That way, you won’t find angry customers wanting the same benefit someone else received.
Communicate your policies clearly to employees to ensure everyone hears the same story, and if one customer gets a benefit, you might need to extend it to others as well.
Ways to Improve Your CX
Besides troubleshooting common issues, what are some concrete ways to improve CX?
While the options are nearly limitless, here are some helpful areas where a slight improvement will go a long way!
Target Specific Areas of Friction
The customer experience covers a broad area, ranging from browsing your products and services to customer service after a purchase.
Rather than trying to work on every area at once, consider identifying and addressing specific areas of friction.
You can collect customer survey data to pinpoint these problems and discover common issues.
You should look for emerging themes and target the most common issues based on the results.
Provide Resources for Learning to Improve Frontline Skills
Frontline call agents are vital, as they may be the only personal interaction a customer ever has with your brand. Focus on helping them be their best by providing resources and ongoing training.
Give them clear and concise answers to common questions, have them practice various scenarios, and ensure they have plenty of training time, so they’re knowledgeable and up to date on your company.
Another area to focus on is additional call center training on how to address various scenarios. For example, a chain of command for escalating issues they don’t know how to resolve.
Make sure customer service agents prioritize making each problem their own and finding a solution.
Be Responsive to Customer Concerns
Nothing frustrates a customer more than the feeling that no one cares.
Ensure you empathize with a customer’s experience by staying responsive to their concerns.
Offer the appropriate solution and use closed-loop feedback to follow up with the customer to verify the solution helped them.
When customers feel heard and valued, they’re more likely to connect with your brand and buy from you again, even if they were initially contacting you about an issue.
Improve Your Customer Experience
It’s essential to improve your CX to maintain a good brand reputation and keep yourself from losing valuable customers!
Fortunately, there are plenty of options to help you troubleshoot common customer experience concerns and create a better environment for your clients.
Make sure you identify areas of friction and focus your efforts accordingly, work on keeping your frontline skills top-notch, and stay responsive to customer concerns.
With the proper customer experience management, you’ll be able to retain happy customers who keep coming back and sharing the word with others!
Are you looking to improve CX for your business, but you’re not sure where to start?
The experts at Support EXP can recommend the best CX solution for your business.
Reach out below to learn more.