How a better customer experience strategy can increase your customer retention.

The days are gone when consumers only had one or two buying options. Today’s customers can choose from a seemingly infinite number of physical stores and websites, which leaves you, the merchant, with no choice but to make your company more appealing than the rest. It turns out that enhancing and personalizing a buyer’s individual journey with your store is exactly what you need to do to inspire long-term loyalty to your brand.

Customer experience strategy defined.

The opinion that a buyer forms about your company depends on the complete set of goals, procedures, and practices that you put in place to run your company and interact with shoppers. A positive customer experience stems from the outcome of each strategy at each touch point, including the quality of the shopping journey, high-quality products, and customer service during all stages before, during, and after the purchase.

In a nutshell, your customer experience strategy should include.

• A review of your current customer approach to see what is working and what needs improvement.
• Developing a customer journey map that shows every touchpoint where the customer interacts with your company.
• Training your staff on updated practices and procedures.
• Finding out what your customers expect so that you can work to deliver it.
• Focusing on post-purchase customer care to determine what you are doing well and what needs further work. This is how your buyers will truly feel listened to.
• Gathering feedback from surveys, social media interactions, and personal conversations. Then make it a point to act on the input you have received.
• Tracking your performance. Your point of sale solution has a built-in reporting system that you can harness to gather and interpret trends such as sales, cart abandonment, and expressed satisfaction. Any updated marketing plan should take all of these factors into consideration.

How to create a stellar customer experience strategy.

When people feel appreciated and heard, they will develop an emotional connection to your company and the products you sell. Once they are satisfied and get what they need from you, they will have no reason to search elsewhere. But how do you go about creating this strategy?

• Put your empathy hat on, and develop personas for your most frequent customer types. Who are they? What are their priorities and preferences? What sales tactics and promotions appeal the most to them? Developing cohesive personas will allow you to meet people where they are in order to furnish them with the experience they want.
• Use social media, surveys, and conversations to drill down on what people really want. Then work to provide it.
• Define and express your company’s core values and mission. Then break it down into smaller segments with deliverables you can measure.
• Train your customer service staff to represent and express your vision during every interaction.
• Give customers several ways to communicate with you, including email, user forums, phone, and live chat. This will help them to get their questions or issues resolved quickly, reducing the chances that they feel abandoned by you after the sale.
• Use customers’ past shopping histories as well as general trends to further personalize the shopping experience.

Speaking of trends, the most important step may be to continue to adapt as trends change and buyer preferences evolve.

Your customers are your most valuable asset. When you truly put them first with a comprehensive customer experience strategy in keeping with your brand voice and vision, they will reward you with repeat purchases, outstanding feedback, and positive referrals.