With the explosive spread of the Internet and smartphones, it is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire new customers due to changes in consumer behavior and changes in the business market.
As a result, customer experience continues to receive increasing attention.
In this article, we will introduce the basic knowledge and importance of customer experience, as well as the benefits and efforts necessary to improve it, starting with the question “What is customer experience?”
What is customer experience?
First, let me introduce what “Customer Experience” is. Customer Experience means “customer experience” or “customer experience value” when translated into Japanese. Simply put, a customer user, a regular consumer, initiates contact with a company or brand. This term refers to the experience, value, and various benefits that customers receive during each process (customer lifecycle) that occurs in a series of transactions, from the beginning of the contact point to the final destination.
Please keep in mind that Customer Experience is sometimes abbreviated as “CX”.
In recent years, with the development of the Internet environment and the explosive spread of smartphones and tablets, we are seeing a diversification of consumer and purchasing behavior among customers. In addition, as the business market changes at a dizzying speed every day with the passage of time, it is becoming more difficult than ever to develop new customers and secure stable repeat customers, which is a problem that companies and marketers are faced with. For this reason, many companies and marketers are now paying increasing attention to the field of
digital marketing
.
If companies and marketers are trying to improve the customer experience, it is important to provide valuable information at the right time that customers are interested in and want to know. When providing business and services, it is extremely important to always look at the customer/user perspective and maintain good one-to-one communication.
Why customer experience matters
As mentioned above, consumer users initiate contact with companies and brands. Customer experience refers to the experience, value, and various benefits that customers receive during each process (customer life cycle) that occurs in a series of transactions, from the beginning of the contact point to the final destination. Masu.
[Example of customer experience]
- In addition to delicious coffee, the cafe offers a pleasant customer service style, interior atmosphere and background music, and a relaxing time in the cafe’s pleasant atmosphere. Providing valuable time such as
It is characterized by the fact that it refers not only to things, but also to the level of satisfaction that produces “emotions” that enrich the soul.
What is behind the focus on customer experience?
From here, we will explain what lies behind the focus on customer experience.
In recent years, it is thought that the development of the Internet environment and digitalization due to the explosive spread of smartphones have had an impact. The rapid digitalization of customers and users is having a major impact on the business market in many ways. Additionally,
the purchasing behavior
of general consumers is becoming more complex year by year, and the points of contact between companies and customers are becoming more diverse.
From the time the purchasing behavior model was established until now, the era of the purchasing behavior model can be broadly divided into four periods.
- mass media era
- internet age
- SNS era
- content marketing era
In the era of
mass media
, advertisements from companies were received unilaterally by an unspecified number of people. With the spread of the Internet and smartphones, the number of users of SNS has rapidly increased, and in recent years, marketing has become increasingly popular, providing content with information about the services and products consumers are looking for, nurturing the needs of potential customers, and leading them to purchase. A purchasing behavior model for the era of
content marketing
is emerging.
[Changes in the relationship between companies and customers and users]
-
As the use of
search engines
and SNS tools becomes more active, there will be major changes in customer users’ purchasing and search behavior. Customer users have changed from a “passive system” in which they wait for companies to send out information, to actively acquiring the information they want on their own.
- Due to the influence of digitalization, by the time a company has contact with a customer, the selection and comparison of products and services has already been completed, and the purchase is completed using the Internet environment. There are cases like this
-
By utilizing
owned media
and SNS tools operated by companies, customers and users themselves can proactively disseminate information on services and products, allowing them to interact directly with companies and increasing communication.
Companies now need to differentiate themselves from their competitors more than ever before, and customer experience has become a key part of that differentiation.
Benefits of improving customer experience
In order to differentiate yourself from competitors who offer similar services and products, you need to improve your customer experience and grow. We will specifically introduce the benefits of improving customer experience from a marketing perspective.
Customer user reviews can be expected to increase the number of potential customers.
The benefit of improving the customer experience is that the number of potential customers who are referred by customer users’ word of mouth increases.
Customers who have had a good impression after getting and experiencing the products and services provided by a company may say, “I want to share with others the greatness of the products provided by this company or brand,” or “I want to share with others the greatness of the products provided by this company or brand.” They may feel positive emotions such as, “I want many people to know about my attentive and heartfelt customer service,” and try to take action based on those emotions. It is said that positive information is spread by spreading awareness through word of mouth and sharing information using SNS tools.
Rather than companies and marketers communicating the merits of their products, positive information sent by customers and users is more believable than promotions sent by companies, and has a positive impact on a larger group of potential customers. Probably.
Effective for branding
Improving the customer experience also brings benefits such as effective
branding
. By continuously working to improve the customer experience over the long term rather than in the short term, companies can gain favor and attachment from many customers to the products and services they provide. By making steady efforts, a certain number of customers will grow into a fan base.
As the number of customers who become fans increases, brand and company awareness increases, and a favorable impression continues to be built, which leads to differentiation from competitors and sales growth among existing customer and user groups. It is effective in acquiring new customers.
Acquire repeat customers
When customers and users who become fans of a company or brand grow to the point where they feel satisfied that “I’m contributing to the brand by purchasing a product” or “This service is supported by us,” it will take a long time. This increases the possibility that they will stay close to your company or brand as a repeat customer without leaving your product or service over a period of time.
In order to operate a company without fluctuations in sales and to continuously obtain stable profits, it is extremely important to acquire and have repeat customers. An effective customer experience will lead to an increase in expectations that “I want to continue purchasing products from this brand in the future,” and will greatly contribute to the growth of customers and users into fans. By gaining as many fans as possible, you will definitely gain repeat customers who will naturally purchase your products without having to spend money on advertising.
How to improve customer experience?
In order to improve the customer experience, it is necessary to thoroughly investigate customer user
needs
and implement measures at each phase.
Here are some concrete ways to improve your customer experience.
Understand and manage critical customer user data
Digitalization in recent years has made it possible for companies and marketers to collect and accumulate a large amount of data about their customers and users. The valuable information you collect from potential customers, prospective customers, and existing customers is rich in customer needs that can be directly linked to improving the customer experience.
It is possible to improve the customer experience by appropriately understanding and continuously managing various data about customer users, such as their individual attributes, behavior history, purchasing behavior, and purchase history.
Analyze collected data and create customer journey maps
In order to effectively utilize the needs of customers and users in marketing, we must thoroughly analyze the data we have collected about customers and users and thoroughly understand their behavior history. A “
customer journey
map” exists as
a framework
that can help in cases like this.
A customer journey map is a chronological visualization of the behavior patterns that a target customer or user would take, including their thoughts and feelings.
Customer journey maps play an important role in providing the right customer experience without missing the most appropriate timing at the touch points that occur between customer users and companies. It is important to clearly define what kind of experience you want your customers to have at each point of contact that occurs.
You can download the customer journey map template for free from the page below on this site, so please feel free to use it. The first page is a sample, and the second page is a sample. Since it is in PowerPoint (PPTX) format, you can edit the sample text on your computer, or you can erase the text, print it, and write by hand.
Share values and guidelines within the company
In order to improve the customer experience, it is extremely important to create an environment in which all staff involved have the same values, are facing the same direction, deepen their understanding of policies and objectives, and operate as a whole organization. It may seem simple, but it is a difficult problem when running a company, and I think there are still many companies that have not put it into practice yet.
For example, we ask specific questions such as “When, at what moment, and what kind of value do we want our customer users to experience?” or “What should we work on to implement that plan?” Let’s clarify the course of action, values, objectives, etc. and share them throughout the company.
Evaluate the results achieved and repeatedly make improvements.
Customer experience is characterized by the fact that it is difficult to see the results. As a result, it is difficult to understand the current situation and conduct accurate evaluations, making it difficult to make early improvements. We recommend setting goals and KPIs for each point of contact with users that occur, and determining the effectiveness of each phase. Commonly used KPIs tend to include average number of page views, customer acquisition rate, and
rate.
summary
In this article, we have introduced the basic knowledge and importance of customer experience, as well as the benefits and efforts needed to improve it, starting with the question “What is customer experience?”
Why not aim to make your customers repeat customers, improve customer satisfaction, and acquire new customers and improve your brand image, which are key to further growth of your company or brand, through customer experience initiatives?