CX is the new buzzword that gets salespeople in a titter. CX is the tag the industry uses to talk about Customer Experience, that elusive and all-important thing that describes whether a customer has a good or bad buyer journey.
At its core CX refers to how satisfied customers are with how they felt during their journey with a company. Obviously the better a customer feels about their treatment the more likely they are to use the product or service again, continue using it or refer it to others.
This makes CX a massively important consideration for the buyer's journey and beyond. But how can a company affect the CX and keep it front of mind?
What buyers want from CX
Respect their time
Much of figuring out how to give great CX is figuring out what you would want in their shoes, and no one likes feeling like their time has been wasted. Buyers nowadays have more on their plate than ever, so they want the things on their “To Do” list to be easier to do than ever before.
From a CX perspective, this means designing brand interactions that are easier and more concise to save time for the buyer. Finding information should be a breeze to limit frustration. Support services also need to be easy to interact with.
Be prepared
Buyers want to feel like the customer service (CS) representative knows what they’re talking about and understands their specific situation. This means personalised engagements that bring value every step of the way and are personally tailored and relevant to each stage of their buying journey.
Be responsive, but patient
Every problem a buyer has is an urgent problem for them, and companies need to respond to it with this in mind. Customers don’t want to wait for a response; they measure response time from companies in hours, not days. Solving problems and corresponding with customers quickly is crucial to make them feel important.
Conversely, while they want to be replied to quickly, they don't want to feel hounded or badgered for their response. They measure their response to a company in whatever metric they want, and CS teams need to know when to push and when to back off and let the customer answer when they want.
Keep it simple
The best experience is the one that doesn’t add a pile to an already stressful workload. Keep things simple for customers to make their experiences easier, and they’ll appreciate it.
Top tips to give the best CX through each stage of the buyer journey
Make a personal connection at the beginning of the journey
Set yourself apart as being personally invested in first-degree connections to make buyers feel seen and valued from the beginning.
One way of doing this that's blowing up is sending voice notes on LinkedIn.
The feature’s been around for a while but is finally getting picked up as a fun way to send a 60-second message touching base with connections. Some blogs have even done their own tests to see how effective it is, coming to see that they have a 40% response rate and a 20% success rate to get to the next stage, all from sending a quick voice clip.
Another version of this is sending intro videos through Loom or Vidyard. Vidyard has found that 62% of viewers will watch a business video all the way to the end if it’s less than 60 seconds long, making it a great and interesting way to reach out to buyers.
Prepared and interesting discovery calls
This call, when buyer and seller "discover" if this business might be a good fit for them, gets the ball rolling on the rest of the journey. The ideal discovery call is 10-30 minutes (long enough to have a good conversation but not long enough to require a bathroom break) and features insightful and thoughtful questions.
But most importantly, a seller listens more on this call than they speak. The ratio of listening to talking should be 60% listening and 40% talking. You’re listening to discover the buyer’s pain points and how you can resolve them. Leverage that Zoom mute button to practice your active listening and create a real connection with buyers.
Getting palatable information post discovery calls
There’s a delicate balance between making all the information available and sending a nightmarishly long email chain with web links, product pages, PDFs and information packs. Make consuming the information they need as easy as possible with easy-to-use platforms.
Trumpet has made this a snap by providing a way to create microsites that have all the top-line information. Everything is easily available in a quick summary, with the option to delve deeper if the buyer wants. This saves their time and attention span and shows the personal touch they crave.
Onboarding in fun and interesting ways
Product training is a crucial part of the process that most people dread because it’s been traditionally dull. Don't send an hour-long demo that will feel like a mountain to climb around all their other work. Chop demos into snackable 5-minute videos, complete with a progress bar to show them how many have left. This indicates that you value their time.
Trumpet gives you an easy way to do this, providing a way to tick off each action as they go, keeping communication open between buyer and seller without the pressure of emails back and forth. Empower customers by giving them ways to onboard autonomously.
Customer success
The customer journey never ends, or at least it shouldn't if you want customers to continue enjoying your product or service. Ongoing attention and empowerment to your customers and how they experience your brand is crucial to keeping them as customers. This is where the CS team takes over.
Having the right tools and processes available to the CS team so they’re empowered to support customers can make all the difference in how customers continue to experience your company and brand throughout the rest of their journey. Methods to support customers are as varied as the customers themselves, but a few have proven very popular in uplifting customer journeys.
Answering customer’s questions faster
No one likes sending an email and just crossing their fingers, hoping they’ll get a response from the company this decade, and nothing makes people cringe like being put on hold and not knowing when it will ever end.
To combat these cringey experiences, companies should consider embedding chatbots into their websites that allow for direct contact. These are run on AI and streamline the process for customers to feel heard without adding staff. Companies like Intercom offer this as a dynamic option that feels like customers are talking to a real person. This personal-seeming touch can make all the difference.
Improving customer-to-company communication
Another popular option that thinks outside the box and makes customers feel like they’re being treated as real people is making customer service teams available on Slack.
Providing dedicated Slack groups where customers can freely chat with CS representatives opens lines of communication up wide and humanises the company. It's not just a cold email sent out into the void with the hope that something comes back; it’s a whole team on a Slack chat that can address customer concerns in a real conversation.
Making feedback social
Social media has shown us that people like to feel heard and love the opportunity to feel like others agree with their opinions.
Companies like Canny provide feedback pages where customers can leave suggestions about what they would like to see and can have these suggestions upvoted by others who would like to see the same.
This kind of engagement is worth its weight in gold because it really gives customers ownership over their experience. We’ve all had a thought or two about what we think a company could do better, and with social feedback tools like this, customers feel empowered to make a difference in their experience.
