Customer Experience Advice from World Leading Experts
Looking for some customer experience guidance? What better way to polish up your knowledge than to hear from some of the world’s leading CX experts. Folks who have been there, tried and tested and refined their CX strategies to lead some of the world’s most successful service brands to the top of their experience game.
1. Don’t Overlook the Power of Customer Compliments & Complaints
“Listen to the compliments and the complaints. Take them seriously. Be out and about… Leaders should be on the ground. Don’t just sit up in your office and think things are going well or that you don’t need to question things. – Tricia Griffith, CEO of Progressive Insurance
2. Always Put Yourself in the Customer’s Shoes
“Everyone from the CEO down to the contact center agent should know what it feels like to be a customer”. – Blake Morgan, Customer Experience Futurist
Map your customer journey and ask yourself at every touchpoint what could be done to relieve the customer of pain points and frustrations and make their experience personal and engaging.
3.Invest in the Frontline
“I really don't think that managers are understanding that we need to be investing in these people [frontline employees]… So as CX practitioners, we need to change that mindset and change management and tell them that this is a revenue generator”. – Jerry Campbell, Director of Customer Workflows, ServiceNow.
It’s a simple equation: EX → CX → Loyalty = Growth.
4. Customer Retention > Customer Acquisition
“It’s more important to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones because it’s more expensive to acquire new ones than to replace the ones who have left. So how do you keep the customers who are already with you? It’s by delivering a great experience on the product”. – Frank Boulbon, Chief Revenue Officer at Verizon
In fact, research shows that acquiring a new customer is 5 times more expensive than retaining the ones you already have. Furthermore, when you nurture existing customers by providing an excellent customer experience, customer acquisition comes organically through referrals, online reviews and positive word of mouth.
Source
5. Focus on Convenience
“Convenience is the ultimate customer experience”. – Shep Hyken, Customer experience expert and author of “The Convenience Revolution”.
Our world moves fast. Customers are not only expecting awesome experiences, but they’re expecting absolute convenience – that’s meeting customers where they are, t, with exactly what they need and at the right time. Any moments of friction or frustration will cause customers to look at alternative providers.
.png)
6. Create a Customer-Obsessed Culture
“Create an internal company culture that obsesses over your customers” – Ross Simmons, CEO of Foundation
If you want your frontline teams to deliver consistently awesome experiences, you need to bake customer-centricity into your culture. One of the easiest ways to do this is to weave as much customer feedback through your day to day operations. This way, teams are always on top of what matters most to their customers, and can create experiences that truly resonate.
Another expert that knows a tonne about creating a customer-obsessed culture is Frontline Experience Summit guest, Charles Ryan Minton. Read more about his tips for creating a culture where employees thrive and customer service is alive here.
7. Get Feedback to the Frontline
“When we fail to get feedback to the people who need to act on it, or fail to use it to celebrate their strengths, all the amazing insights and learnings within customer feedback go to waste!” – Wendy Miller, Senior VP of customer success at Ruby.
We couldn’t agree more with Wendy. Collecting feedback isn’t enough. You need to close the feedback loops and ensure it’s reaching the right people in order to extract the most value from it.
8. Make a Service Promise & Stick to It
“Your brand thrives or dies based on whether or not your experiences deliver on your brand service promises.” – Bruce Temkin, Experience Management Visionary.
Need some help with setting your service promise? Check out this blog post next.
9. Always Find a Way to Say YES! To Customers
“Find a way to always say YES! to customers through 1) making friends first 2) focussing on what you can do 3) offering a variety of options and 4) getting creative” – Christine Trippi, CEO Wise Pineapple.
For a detailed breakdown of this advice, check out Christina’s presentation at the Global Frontline Experience Summit here.
10. Follow Up on Survey Responses
“While the survey itself is important, I would argue following up on each response is more important. Talking to customers to get the input behind their score can reap far more benefits than the number itself.” – Chris Wong, NZHL
Beyond following up and talking to customers, utilizing feedback to coach your frontline teams and guide your wider business strategy is what will set you apart from your competition.
Looking for more advice from experts? Get access to hours of videos and interviews with business leaders from the most customer obsessed businesses in the world here.
