Having a great product at the right price simply isn’t enough. Whether you’re working in a B2B or B2C space, customers expect responsiveness and customized care. According to research from Salesforce, 63% of consumers and an even higher number of B2B buyers (76%) expect companies to understand their unique needs and personalize service. The growing demand for fast, personalized service makes sense with more tech tools than ever available to track and segment buyers, gather feedback and create actionable insights.

Delivering for your customers — and your company — however, will involve not only a careful look at your customer experience (CX) software solutions but the human processes around them.

USING TECH TO LEVERAGE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

Great CX isn’t just about giving customers the right information or space to “vent.” It’s about collecting feedback and making real adjustments based on it, all in the name of delivering a smooth and seamless customer experience.

One of the best ways to collect this kind of information is by embedding opportunities for buyers to connect to the company, such as social media responses, chatbots and surveys, throughout the customer journey. These feedback requests should be integrated in a way that doesn’t interrupt whatever the customer was doing, whether chatting with a customer representative agent or interacting with a product or app.

At this point, however, simply asking for feedback from the customer usually isn’t enough. While surveys and similar methods are good for correcting past problems moving forward, customers want solutions to their current quandaries and recommendations that are personalized to them. 

One of the ways that organizations do this is by collecting, organizing and analyzing predictive data. This information, such as purchase and support history, can be used to understand a customer’s relationship to your company, the kinds of products or services they may need in the future and their level of satisfaction. The most effective organizations use technology that can blend customer data across departments to provide customers tailored solutions.

In addition to looking at the products and practices around gathering data, make sure your solutions are delivering feedback to the right people. Great CX needs to transcend departments. Ensuring everyone is on the same platform and can access feedback when they need it is key. This will most likely mean investing in a cloud-based solution (if you haven’t already). Large swaths of your workforce are potentially working remotely — cloud solutions give you added flexibility so that employees can access important data while working away from a central server.

Overall, customers expect an omnichannel experience. They want to be heard and feel like their needs are being addressed. The right technology and processes can make this attainable.

EXAMINING YOUR CULTURE

Effectively navigating new technology isn’t the only way to improve the customer experience. New solutions will only get you so far without buy-in across your organization. While most may obviously focus on customer service staff, it’s important to ensure everyone from the marketing team to upper management is embedding the customer experience into everything they do.

Much of this begins at the top — where trust in information-gathering tools is often limited, impacting key decisions. According to McKinsey’s Feb. 2021 Quarterly, Only 4% of CX leaders believe that their measurement system enables them to effectively calculate the ROI of a decision.

This perceived lack of information is creating hesitancy in decision making. Only 13% of CX leaders reported being confident their organization can take action with CX issues in the near future. With consumers demanding instant response and frictionless experiences, the inability to quickly adapt is a major liability.

While the right technology can go a long way toward establishing trust throughout your organization, focusing on company culture can also be important. Are products being designed based on customer feedback? How is sales data being used to understand the customer? If your organization isn’t able to answer these questions, there’s a good chance you should be looking at how to better share information across departments.

The best customer experience strategies include a careful review of both your CX software solutions and human processes. If done right, your organization can take steps toward gathering more feedback from customers and ensuring that it is actually seen and utilized by the right people. The results? Happier customers who stay loyal and boost sales.