What is customer experience?
Customer experience (or “CX”) refers to the overall interaction a customer has with a company and its products. It’s shaped by everything from the customer service provided, to how easy it is to use the product, to how quickly assistance is provided when needed. It can also encompass elements such as brand loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement. Ultimately, a good customer experience leads to increased sales and customer retention.
Why is customer experience important?
Customer experience is important for businesses because it impacts everything from customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value, overall revenue, and loyalty to advocacy.
Positive customer experiences result in customers returning to a company to make repeat purchases, while negative experiences can make it tough to win customers back.
Additionally, providing a positive customer experience increases the likelihood of customers recommending a company to their family and friends, which will help businesses tap into new audiences and build a strong brand reputation.
Best practices for creating a positive customer experience:
- Develop a customer-first culture.
- Create engaging, meaningful content that’s personalized to your customers’ shopping habits and interests.
- Adopt a cross-channel or omnichannel marketing approach to give customers a consistent brand experience, regardless of where and when they choose to interact with your brand.
- Focus on providing excellent customer service, and streamline processes to reduce Time to Resolution (TTR).
- Monitor social media channels. Actively engage with customers in comments sections, and respond immediately to queries and complaints.
- Collect feedback regularly to assess customer satisfaction levels and identify areas of improvement.
- Offer rewards or discounts as incentives for customers who are loyal to your product or service.
How can you track your customer experience?
An abstract concept like customer experience might seem difficult to analyze, but with the help of surveys, you can identify key metrics that reveal how customers feel about your business, including:
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
: Measures customer satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 5.Net Promoter Score (NPS)
: Measures customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend a product or service on a scale of 0 to 10 .Time To Resolution (TTR)
: Measures the amount of time it takes for customer support to resolve an issue.
To gather data on these metrics, send your surveys to current customers, or incorporate them into your customer loyalty strategy by rewarding customers who complete the survey with points, discounts or unique prizes.
If you have a large brand presence on social media, you can use Social Listening Tools to collect data on what your customers are saying about your brand and products.
Customer experience vs customer service — what’s the difference?
Customer experience and customer service are related, but there are important differences between the two.
Customer service is a specific department or team within an organization that provides support to customers for product and service inquiries.
Customer experience, on the other hand, refers to the entire process of interacting with a company — from the initial purchase to post-sale support.
While customer service attempts to resolve customer issues as quickly and efficiently as possible, the focus of CX is to craft a positive overall experience for customers.
Leading brands choose Emarsys to power their customer lifecycle
Emarsys helps leading brands like PUMA, Pizza Hut, and Nike connect their sales, product, and customer data, enabling them to deliver better customer experiences and drive customer lifetime value.
