7 Ways Your Business Can Improve the Customer Journey

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – (Bill Gates, Microsoft)

This quote from Bill Gates is an accurate representation of just how significant customer journey is in determining the success of a business. It is a critical concept that could easily make or break a business, even an already established one. Let's dive into what exactly customer journey is and why it is so crucial in today's world.

What is the Customer Journey? Why is it Important?

Customer journey is a term that collectively refers to all the various interactions that a customer has with a business or organisation. It is the summary of a customer’s experience (CX) — right from the first contact with the business up until a purchase is made. Let's take a look at why a customer journey is as vital as CX for any business.

Research has shown that up to 86% of individuals are willing to pay higher prices for the same product if the customer experience is excellent. A CX is one of the key brand differentiators, alongside pricing or product offerings. This is a clear indicator that no business can afford to ignore the customer journey moving forward.

Ways to Improve Customer Journey

To make the most out of the benefits of a good customer journey, consistent effort is required. You will often need to make improvements and collect customer feedback. According to a study, only 1 in 26 unhappy customers actually complain about their grievances. The rest simply walk away from the business, losing the chance to get their customers back.

However, there is no need to worry. We have provided the following effective ways you can overhaul and significantly optimise the customer journey you are currently offering.

1. Establish a clear customer experience vision

The best way to assure a consistent and fulfilling customer journey is to adopt a clear set of values or ideals to determine how you engage with your customers. These values will drive your efforts to improve customer experience and make it easier for everyone who is a part of your organisation to apply them in the way they approach their respective tasks.

2. Know who your customers are

Getting to know your customer base helps improve the customer experience. This knowledge will help your organisation better relate to and connect with your customers effectively. This then leads to reduced misunderstandings and ensures fulfilling and hassle-free customer journeys.

3. Focus on building deeper relationships with customers

Nothing will keep your customers happier than showing them that you care about providing the best experience possible. Small gestures such as sending out birthday discounts or making policy exemptions in exceptional cases will entice customers to form an emotional connection to your brand and will keep them coming back for more.

READ: How to Gain Loyal Clients and Reduce Churn Rate

4. Use smarter ways to collect feedback

The days of relying on feedback forms and telephonic surveys to gather customer feedback are long gone.

What makes a good customer journey are real-time feedback mechanisms. Another way on how to improve customer journey on website is to look into AI-powered chatbots and click-tracking services, automated e-mail marketing, or live chat surveys. These will help you get a much better understanding of how your average customer thinks and behaves in comparison to traditional surveys.

Real-time feedback mechanisms also give your customers the impression that you are quick to resolve concerns and that you really care about their experience with your organisation.

5. Act on customer feedback, not just complaints

As already mentioned, only 1 in 26 customers actually make the effort to let you know what went wrong in their customer experience. Therefore, it becomes essential for you to act on all feedback that you collect and proactively try to improve the customer journey. This allows you to foresee problems before they arise and avoid losing customers.

6. Personalise the experience wherever possible

The power of personalisation can never be understated, and due effort must be devoted to personalising customer experiences wherever possible. Be it through attractive and customised packaging, or offers and discounts tailored to a customer's needs. Personalisation will help you develop stronger customer relations and build a loyal and grateful customer base.

7. Make the most of out of social media

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and more collectively have billions of users. These avenues hold massive potential to help businesses improve their customer experience and form better relationships with their customers.

As stated in point number 2, it is important to know your target market so you can easily figure out which social media platforms to target and focus on.

READ: The Ins and Outs of Creating a Successful YouTube Channel

It’s all about consistent effort

While there is no specific formula to make your customer journey flawless, the best thing to do is exert dedicated effort to better understand your customers and be able to give them what they actually want.

Aside from these aforementioned pointers, make sure that you have the correct analytical tools to measure your progress as you make changes to your customer journey. These ideas to improve customer journey will help you stay on top of the optimisation process and prevent unwanted results.