Offering a good customer experience is table stakes in 2015.
A recent Forrester (News - Alert) Customer Index showed that companies with a strong focus on customer experience had a 43 percent gain in performance, while those that failed to focus on outcomes had a drop in performance by 33.9 percent.
That’s a big swing, and many firms are failing at the customer experience game.
Here are five common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to customer engagement.
1. Not capturing email addresses through social media
Interacting with customers on social media is par for the course in 2015. Many businesses have wised up to this fact. Yet, somehow, far too many businesses play the reaction game and leave the interaction on social media to the consumer. Businesses need to use the opportunity to start a relationship with the customer, and that means capturing an email address at some point during the social media interaction.
2. Not creating digital content to engage customers
Helping customers and keeping the brand front and center in their minds requires work. Specifically, it requires generating helpful content that both promotes the products and services of the business, and also delivers value to customers and potential customers. This can and should take the form of blogs, social media posts and expert advice on forums.
3. Not seeking brand ambassadors
A good customer experience usually includes a good community around a company’s products and services. The key to a good community is having a loyal corps of brand ambassadors, enthusiastic consumers who both use and love your products. Cultivate these people, and they will both boost sales and create a good community for other customers using your products and services.
4. Not collaborating with other departments within your company
Good customer care requires integration among all parts of a business, both to seize opportunities and to deliver knowledgeable support to customers. To have good customer support, businesses need to share with all departments what they know about the customer.
5. Not leveraging analytics
Understanding customers requires knowing them. Analytics makes it possible to discover their preferences and habits, yet far too many businesses take a light approach to crunching customer data. Big mistake.
Adjusting practices to avoid these five mistakes can be hard. But cloud services can help. Services such as TeamSupport can quickly up the customer experience game for a business by bringing departmental collaboration, unified ticket management and analytics to a business, among other benefits.
The customer experience matters too much to ignore.
Edited by Maurice Nagle