Customer Experience (CX) has become a hot topic these days.
There has never been a time when businesses were more focused on customer experience than they are today.
Truth is, most people do not get attached to brands because they offer great products or value for money, but because they love how they make them feel.
Customer loyalty is no longer based on price or product quality but on the personalised experience brands craft for their customers.
So, if you want to keep a pulse on what your clients want and take your business to new heights, it’s time to make the customer experience a top priority.
In this post, I’ll explain what customer experience is and share some nifty tips to help you take it to the next level.
Table of contents:
- What is personalised customer experience and why does it matter now more than ever?
- 5 effective ways to deliver a hyper-personalised customer experience
1. What Is Personalised Customer Experience and Why Does It Matter Now More Than Ever?
Customer Experience (CX) is a key marketing concept that boils down to the customers’ holistic perception of their experience after interacting with a brand throughout all aspects of the buyer’s journey.
Customer experience is emotional. Plain and simple.
When a customer interacts with a brand, they may experience an array of emotions. These emotions can be either positive such as bliss, joy, satisfaction or negative such as irritation, loathing, or contempt.
Brands looking to keep a finger on their customers’ pulse have shifted their focus from customer satisfaction to building emotional connections with customers.
As a business owner, your goal is to build positive emotional connections with customers and use personalisation to make the buyer’s journey frictionless.
Evoking negative emotions during your customer experience can lead to lost revenue and opportunities. A bad experience is quickly driving customers away. For example, a PwC study reveals that one in three consumers (32%) say they would leave their favourite brand after just one bad experience.
On the other hand, a study conducted by Epsilon has revealed that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from brands offering personalised customer experiences.
So, to acknowledge consumers’ emotions and improve customer experience, you need to put a special focus on personalisation.
Personalisation is a surefire way to make clients remember you. In an era where consumers look for hyper-personalised and individualised experiences, no one will remember an average, lacklustre experience with a brand.
But what exactly is a personalised customer experience, and why does it matter so much?
Put simply, personalising your customer experience means delivering services and products tailored for your customers’ specific needs. Think, for example, at Netflix and how it uses browsing data to create personalised lists of recommendations. Or, think of how Amazon delivers personalised product recommendations to customers.
Providing a personalised customer experience has become a vital success factor in business. Here’s why:
- With so many choices available, consumers are less forgiving than ever. Moreover, consumer patience for poor customer service is wearing thin as the Covid-19 pandemic has often been cited as a reason for out-of-stock products, record phone waits, shipping delays, etc.
- In the age of agility and real-time responsiveness, customers’ expectations are higher than ever. As a result, they have a much lower tolerance for friction in the experience they have with a brand.
- In an oversaturated market, consumers have become accustomed to getting what they want. That’s why they’re shifting to brands that are able to recognise their unique and personal needs and deliver personalised experiences.
- While consumers are bombarded with standardised advertising campaigns and mass communications, well-targeted, personal messages have the power to increase trust and credibility. Most of the time, impersonal communication is annoying customers and driving scepticism.
Personalisation allows you to tune into your customers’ specific needs and build a meaningful bond between your target audience and your brand.
That’s why providing a highly personalised customer experience helps you generate more leads, increase conversion and retention rates, gain a competitive edge, and get much closer to your ideal customer.
So with that being considered, let’s explore some quick and easy ways your small business can deliver a hyper-personalised customer experience.
2. 5 Effective Ways to Deliver A Hyper-Personalised Customer Experience
If you want your business to reach new heights, use the following steps to adopt a personalised approach to customer experience.
All of these strategies go beyond simply personalising emails (though this is still an essential marketing practice that makes your emails more relevant to customers).
- Know your customers’ history
Knowing your customers’ history is key to providing them with an outstanding customer experience, leading to lifelong customer relationships and increased sales.
When a loyal customer contacts a small business, your receptionist should know who they are and have an idea of why they’re calling.
Customers will appreciate not having to provide information concerning past purchases and recurring issues every time they get in touch with your business.
While for large enterprises it is quite challenging to know each customer’s history (even if they integrate tools designed to keep a record of every interaction), this goal is more than achievable for small businesses.
With a virtual receptionist, you will always have a cheerful and knowledgeable local voice on the other end. A professional receptionist will always remember your customers’ details and past history and provide a hyper-personalised customer experience.
- Showcase the human side of your brand
Want to build an emotional bond with your audience and deliver a personalised customer experience? Then focus on showcasing the human side of your brand.
After all, people want to connect to other people. They feel more comfortable doing business with humans, not faceless brands. According to a Sprout Social study, 70% of consumers feel more connected when a brand’s CEO is active on social media, allowing them to learn more about the people behind that brand.
That’s why you need to give life to your brand by putting a human face in your marketing campaign.
Even if you’re operating remotely like many businesses these days, you can allow your customers to get an “inside look” into your company. For example, you can use a virtual office to take your audience behind the scenes and bring an extra human element to your marketing.
Professional office space helps you show yourself in your “personal” element while working, even when running a business from home.
Remember, when using behind the scenes shots, make sure you strike the right balance between the human side of your brand and professionalism, as your video content will be online forever.
- Personalise your content and social media ads
Did you know you can personalise your content and social media ads based on your customers’ interests and past interactions?
As consumers have content coming at them from every direction, this strategy is becoming increasingly important to develop personal relationships with your audience.
With the right tools in place, you can personalise the content you offer or recommend to your website visitors. These tools are designed to build a profile for each visitor based on data such as geolocation, consumer behaviour (e.g., site browsing history, product interest, etc.) and firmographics (e.g., company size, industry, etc.).
Once these tools have built a profile for each visitor, they will recommend pieces of content that best meet visitors’ needs and interests.
You can also use website visitor data to generate more engagement and leads on social media with personalised retargeting ads.
This strategy allows your target audience to see personalised ads based on their purchase history and preferences.
- Implement customer feedback and reviews
Consumers expect brands to listen to them and respond to their reviews.
In fact, asking for and accepting customer feedback is a great example of personalisation in customer experience (not to mention that honest feedback is first-hand advice on product improvement).
Showing that you genuinely listen to and value your audience’s opinions helps you build long-lasting customer relationships and gain valuable brand ambassadors.
Generating customer feedback to create a seamless, personalised customer experience isn’t rocket science.
In addition to survey forms and live chat, you can use review platforms to gather customer feedback.
Typically, customer feedback on social media and review platforms isn’t solicited. These reviews and ratings are meant to support other consumers to make the best purchase decisions.
However, these reviews are equally helpful for showing your customers that you care. That’s why you need to craft personalised responses for each review, whether it’s positive, neutral, or negative.
Even if someone writes a scathing review on your business, don’t panic! When bad reviews pop up on your radar, you have the chance to use them to your advantage. You can find out how to turn negative customer reviews into marketing wins in this post.
- Recognise and reward loyalty
Do you know who your loyal customers are? And if you do, what is your strategy for recognising and rewarding their loyalty?
Though personalisation is important at all stages of the buyer’s journey, your loyal customers need a little bit of extra love.
Recognising and rewarding your customers’ loyalty is essential for an outstanding, personalised experience with your business.
Rewards can range from gifts, loyalty card schemes, or giveaways to more creative ways to show your customers you appreciate them, such as inviting them to a product trial or taking them for a day out.
However, traditional loyalty programs won’t make your customers feel truly valued. According to The Drum, one of the biggest global media platforms, 75% of consumers stop engaging in loyalty programs because they consider the rewards insignificant.
Here is where personalisation comes into play. Today, loyalty programs need to offer something unique and special that meets customers’ specific needs and interests.
For example, you can let customers choose their preferred rewards. Or, you can personalise your loyalty programs according to target groups (e.g., teenagers, women with children, etc.).
Conclusion: In today’s market, where consumers are spoilt for choice, personalised customer experience is a meaningful differentiator.
When done right, personalised customer experience will give you a clear leg up on the competition and make your business stand out from the crowd.
Want to put customers in control of their journey and access more services that allow you to deliver a hyper-personalised, up to par customer experience? B2B HQ has everything a small business needs to grow exponentially, build a loyal client base, and provide unique customer experiences. Feel free to contact us anytime to chat about your needs. We’d love to hear from you!
