Why CX is the X Factor?

Whenever someone is caught up in a life crisis and they do not know which path to choose, most often, the first advice that is given is to take a few moments to calm down and reflect - who they are, what is important to them, and what they would like to identify as their purpose in life. When someone has no ambition or is confused about their goal, they are told to think of things that bring them either great joy, or peace and follow that path - to go on a journey of self-discovery.

How is this relevant to a business? Well, just like that confused individual, businesses sometimes do not understand why they are stuck in a rut. What are they lacking? What is that X factor, or that “something special” that they are missing? 

The answer is CX, or Customer Experience.

MSMEs are known for their customer experience. The one feature which differentiates them from bigger businesses is their ability to add that personal touch to their service. They know their customers by name, and build the relationship over time. 

However, customer experience is not something that always remains the same. Like any relationship, it changes with circumstances, age and environment. Today’s customers have more choice, less time and even less patience with long wait times. They’ve also evolved in the way they want to interact with a business - shopping is just not a task anymore, it has become an experience. You may have a great product at hand or offer the best price, but if your customer experience during or after a sale is weak, don’t hope to retain or attract new customers. 

Now you may ask, what does tech have to do with CX? The keyword here is data. Understanding who your customer is and what they want - before and better than they understand it themselves, is what a successful customer experience strategy is about. This happens when you employ efficient data management software. Let’s look at what you gain when you apply such technology to create a satisfying customer experience:

1. Convert market opportunities to reality 

We know what a customer gets out of a great customer experience. But, how does that help your bottom-line? For starters, in a market where consumers are spoilt for choice, delivering superior service to your customer is what helps you stay ahead of the competition and build loyalty. 

An intelligent data management software uses technologies like Artificial Intelligence to develop a systematic approach to understanding the overwhelming amount of data that you gather as a part of sales - this can be anything from personal profiling (name, age, gender, city, education) or company profiling (size, type, sector, region), queries, reviews and feedback, service requests and escalation, etc. When AI makes sense of this data, the in-built analytics will help you build customer profiles so that you can know what customers exactly need, and match your service to those expectations.

2. Build customer trust and loyalty

In this digital era, providing a personal experience is actually easier, as technology does this job for you - it makes every customer feel special and attended to. Machine Learning and smart automation, apart from AI and data analytics allows you to create a relationship based on the customers preferences. For eg., some customers may like to be called on the phone to receive updates about their order, while others may prefer an email or SMS. Some would like to visit a physical store, while others may want to complete the entire purchase process online. With these technologies, you can offer a wide variety of services, and expand the way you engage with your customer and ultimately build customer trust and loyalty - all of which translate to steady increase in sales.

3. Creating future ready business models

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that businesses, especially small ones, are fragile. The question of what will come tomorrow always hangs dangerously close. No business can thrive, let alone survive, in such a tense situation. The solution is to build a bigger customer base and take your market outside the small geographical limits you set when you first started. 

You may be a small local business, but with the right tech, you can go global, and even understand the needs of your customers in countries that may completely be foreign to you. When you deploy a technology that works well with the other arms of your business - inventory, supply and customer relationship management, you can sell anywhere in the globe and shock proof your business. 

In the next blog, let us take a deep dive into some of the solutions that come under customer experience. For more information, visit this link.