3 New Year’s Resolutions for Customer Experience Professionals

Every year, we make New Year’s resolutions, committing to them to varying degrees. Get in shape, read more, save money, the list goes on. Keep in mind, New Year’s resolutions aren’t just limited to things we want to change in our personal lives; they can also be aimed at businesses wanting to improve the customer experience.

In welcoming another year, we put our spin on common New Year’s resolutions and applied them for today’s customer experience professional. Here are three customer experience resolutions every brand should make.

Get in Shape

It’s no secret that many of us will purchase gym memberships at the start of a new year with goals to get in better shape. In lieu of biceps, brands will want to focus on the strength of customer relationships. For instance, you may be making gains by way of customer acquisition every day, but are you retaining those same customers?

Customer retention is a key performance indicator (KPI) of the strength of your customer relationships. According to NewVoiceMedia, 67 percent of customers will switch brands because of a poor customer experience. Develop stronger relationships with your customers to keep them coming back and wanting more. Provide personalized recommendations, offer customer loyalty programs, and even incentivize at-risk customers.

As you seek to build stronger relationships, don’t forget about the ones you have with your associates. Improving the associate experience can be just as important as developing the ones you have with your customers. Associate recognition programs, competitive compensation packages, and professional development are all ways to help keep your team members happy and motivated.

Read More

The New York Times Bestseller list may be calling your name in the new year, but we believe that customer feedback is a much more compelling read for brands looking to improve the customer experience. Customer experience professionals should make it a habit to consume as much feedback as they can from all different channels.

In deploying voice of the customer solutions like customer feedback surveys and net promoter scores, take the time to understand how customers think and feel about your brand. Don’t forget to sift through customer emails sitting in obscure info@yourcompany.com inboxes, mentions of your company or product on social media, and customer inquiries within online reviews.

This feedback can provide valuable insight into customer expectations and how customers perceive your brand. Leveraging sentiment analysis through the use of natural language processing can help automate this process and provide a more digestible overview of your brand perception (e.g., negative, neutral, positive).

In addition to customer feedback, reading up on what other brands are doing to improve customer experiences is another great way to stay up-to-date on the latest trends. Follow CX leaders on social media, and attend industry events to ensure you’re delivering the very best experiences to your customers.

Save Money

Whether you’re budgeting personal expenses or your department’s spending, money tends to be top-of-mind heading into a new year. Delivering first-class customer experiences isn’t cheap, and it can be challenging to find enough time and money to invest in optimizing every touchpoint or interaction. That’s where customer experience professionals will have to find creative ways to save money, time, and resources.

When conducting compliance audits, for example, travelling from location to location is one expense that can weigh heavily on a business’s budget. Of course, you want to ensure protocol is being followed, but outsourcing your internal audits to a third-party team can mean faster results, more dedicated focus, and a lower cost than using your own staff.

In addition to saving money, automating routine tasks, such as responding to customer queries, can be another way for brands to save time and better allocate resources. With the average customer wasting 43 days of their lives waiting on hold, AI chatbots serve as a great way for brands to provide faster responses while freeing up associates to focus on more pressing business matters.

Go from Good to Great

Despite the best intentions, most of us will abandon our New Year’s resolutions within the first month of making them. At the end of the year, you don’t want to be left saying, “I’m in the same place I was last year.” That’s why you need a partner that can ensure you stay on track meeting your customer experience goals.

When you partner with IntelliShop, we’ll take the time to understand your core values, needs, and goals to design customer experience solutions that can take you from good to great. Contact IntelliShop today to request a consultation.