Growth is something every organisation is keen to achieve always by all means on its path of business; it has undertaken. Making successful businesses is a dream of all entrepreneurs who set out on such a journey and sustaining & growing established businesses too for the men at the helm of running them. Any business only grows through a continuous improvement in its customer base, which in turn grows with the continuous build-up of trust, loyalty, liking, preference, and attachment to the brand. And to a substantial extent, communication plays a key role in achieving this.
Some companies may be offering great customer service, but still, their customer experience may not be up to the mark, something directly reflecting into and affecting their sales growth. Since both being two completely different issues, customer service addressing a narrower part of the overall customer experience doesn’t become the sole driver of the trust factor that a brand enjoys.
Customers globally are found to be willing to shell out more if they get a better experience from any brand. Now, this experience for the customers has to be across the numerous touchpoints the brand encounters in reaching out to the customers. From a news report in a media to visibility in social media space to the audio-visual communication in television or other media channels and then moving to the look and feel of the product/service being offered, pricing, and actual consumption experience, all of them have to offer a seamless customer experience.
It is very easy for customers to switch to another brand if they miss out on a great experience or even encountering an occasional unpleasant one at any one touchpoint among the numerous ones of any brand. In today’s fiercely competitive business environment, delivering a great customer experience not only becomes a challenge for the companies but also becomes a part of their corporate strategy of retaining the existing customers and acquiring new ones.
Issues can be many as far as customer experience is concerned. As small thing as a complicated purchasing process in today’s “fast world” can put off new customers. With social media and the internet, when everything happens at a super speed, even the customers make impulsive and quick decisions, any delay in having the transaction completed through an online channel, sowing seeds of poor experience among the minds of customers. Speed of response is critical for any business these days, whether in creating an initial association or building upon it through future interactions.
Everything boils down to having a great understanding of who your customers are, how they behave in given situations, what they think about your brand and its competition, why they choose one brand over the another, what is their emotional connect to your brand, how openly and transparently they share feedback about your brand vis-à-vis competition. How much insights you have about them etc., eventually helps you in establishing a great customer experience.
In today’s times of fierce competition customer expectations also keep increasing day by day as new and new offerings are on the table to choose from for the customers. So, knowing your customers well and that too in a continuous fashion becomes the key to deliver a great customer experience. Analytics and insights into customer behaviour on a sustained basis allow brand communicators to deliver the right message at the right place and at a right time.
Customer surveys, targeted studies, research projects, and keen observations of customer behaviour can help to find gaps between customer expectations and experiences. As long as the right messaging can address all aspects of any brand including the feature of product or service, its packaging, quality, and pricing, etc., the brands increase their ability to deliver a great customer experience.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Praveen has been closely associated with many national and international events related to cinema for children, art and culture. He has a well-rounded experience that cuts across all key sectors of PR & Corporate Communications.
He started his career with URJA Communications, an advertising agency specialising in technology brands, where he was instrumental in developing the PR division. Post this, he had a stint with Horizons Porter Novelli, a global public relations consultancy. Thereafter, he was heading the IT & Telecom division at Clea PR, a leading Indian public relations and communications company followed by a fairly long stint with Omnicom Group agencies viz. TBWA\India and Brodeur India.
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