Exceptional customer experience has become a benchmark for brands to measure their success. However, the marketplace is changing at a furious pace and for their long-term growth; brands need to start putting a great emphasis on driving customer loyalty.
Customer experience has emerged as a top priority for brands to measure their success against their competitors and their overall growth. It has played a significant role in helping brands and enterprises keep their customer base intact while combating the COVID-19 crisis. But, as brands hope to evolve and strengthen their relationship with their customer base, they need to look beyond the customer experience efforts that only drive short-term results, and focus on those that can help them build long-term customer loyalty.
Cross-Organizational Support for Driving CX
As customer loyalty plays a crucial role in customer retention, sales and revenue, brands must execute a comprehensive strategy that invests in customers. This approach should integrate customer acquisition, retention, engagement, brand advocacy and customer value.
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Since doing this alone is not feasible for CX leaders, they must outline strategic CX objectives, its impact on loyalty and how it will help them to create a measurable value for customers and help them in delivering appropriate results for the brand.
Value Realization
CX leaders need to understand what value their customers will get after opting for their product or service. Though it sounds simple, as per experts, many brands still fail to understand its importance. As Sam Melnick, VP of Customer Success and Insights, puts it, “What drives the best long-term customer loyalty, at scale, is value realization. When you co-author what value means with your customer, it’s the best way to create long-term satisfaction.
“Look at the data and validate what people will pay for, where they’ll get value, and double down on that message throughout the entire customer experience. It creates clear transparency around what a customer is getting and develops a foundation of trust and loyalty,” he adds.
Build Communities
Brands that foster a sense of social community beyond just making transactions in terms of the products and services tend to build loyal followers. They need to develop strategies for investing and innovating their community platforms that will gamify their experiences, foster engagement across customers, and build champions who will act as the brand’s advocates.
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“On a more one-to-one basis, it’s still all about the human experience, and finding unique ways to connect with our customers,” says Sam Melnick, “For example, we’ve just had a great advocate who left his company after 7 years and our team recorded a video for him to say goodbye and say thank you for all of the joint work we’ve done together over the years. The more you can infuse true relationships into your customer base, the better job you’re doing as a CS organization.”
Keeping the Customer Journey Maps Up-to-Date
Brands should validate the customer journey map for delivering CX that enables them to drive loyalty. They should define how their potential customers can learn about their brand, products and services, how they will make transactions, and the best ways to get help when needed. Furthermore, they should consider their various stakeholders’ perspectives and push for greater collaboration on creating an effective and evolving customer journey map.
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