For individuals in marketing and business, acquiring customers often overshadows a crucial element for growth: customer retention. Across industries, the typical monthly churn rate hovers around 5%, which might not seem significant initially. However, when compared to growth rates, especially if your business considers a 5% monthly growth noteworthy, maintaining a churn rate below 5% becomes essential for actual revenue gains from that growth.

While churn is unavoidable, the key lies in retaining as many customers as possible. Without a robust influx of new customers, a 5% monthly churn can severely impact your revenue. This is where customer experience comes into play. Studies indicate that 86% of customers are inclined to spend more for an enhanced experience. Therefore, a superior customer experience throughout their journey can not only boost sales but also elevate your average selling price, minimize churn, and even open doors for upselling to content customers. This article will delve into five strategies for building a robust customer experience strategy and enhancing the customer experience, irrespective of your business type or industry. These five strategies encompass:

1. Collecting feedback and NPS scores
2. Utilizing customer surveys
3. Personalizing every interaction
4. Nurturing a positive company culture and employee satisfaction
5. Prioritizing customer education throughout their journey Let’s explore these strategies.

Defining a Customer Experience Strategy

Before delving into the five strategies, let’s define a customer experience strategy. Customer experience (CX) encompasses every interaction a customer has with your business—from pre-purchase experiences through marketing avenues to post-purchase interactions and retention efforts. A customer experience strategy is a structured approach to crafting a seamless, positive experience for customers across all marketing channels and interactions with your business.

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Five Strategies for Building a Customer Experience Strategy

Employ these strategies to construct a remarkable customer experience strategy.

1. Gather Feedback and NPS Scores

Our initial, and arguably most crucial, strategy for enhancing customer experience involves gathering feedback and NPS scores. Improving your business processes, products, customer service, and marketing becomes nearly impossible without understanding your standing with existing customers. NPS, or Net Promoter Score, serves as a guiding star metric for customer satisfaction. It measures the likelihood of your customers recommending your products or services to their peers (in other words: get you more business). NPS relies on a simple survey question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” Based on the responses, customers are categorized into three groups:

• Promoters (score 9-10): These represent highly satisfied customers and brand advocates.
• Passives (score 7-8): These are moderately satisfied customers who might or might not recommend your company.
• Detractors (score 0-6): These customers are dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend your company.

Your total NPS score is determined by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. Scores can vary from -100 to +100. What constitutes a good NPS? Bain & Company, the creators of NPS, suggests that an NPS score exceeding 0 is good, above 20 is excellent, and above 50 is exceptional. Anything surpassing 80 falls within the top percentile. While NPS provides a valuable benchmark for gauging customer experience, it remains a single metric and lacks detailed insights into areas requiring improvement. For a deeper understanding, incorporating customer surveys is essential.

2. Leverage Customer Surveys

Surveys help identify (and subsequently improve upon) both positive and negative patterns within your customer service, ultimately influencing customer satisfaction. Customer experience often suffers from a one-sided approach. Between marketing and sales, it’s easy to dedicate 95%-100% of the time informing customers about your business and products. Surveys, however, initiate a two-way dialogue with your customers. They provide an anonymous platform for customers to share honest and invaluable feedback, which would be otherwise difficult to obtain, allowing for meaningful enhancements.

An example of a straightforward and effective customer satisfaction survey. Consider these simple methods to leverage customer feedback surveys for gathering feedback:

• Website pop-ups. Tools like Hotjar (or any effective pop-up tool) can create simple banners asking customers for suggestions to enhance their website or brand experience.
• Email surveys. Distributing surveys to customer inboxes through basic email marketing campaign or post-purchase follow-ups is an excellent way to connect directly with customers and ensure substantial feedback.
• In-app or in-product surveys. For SaaS businesses or those with mobile apps, asking customers for feedback within the product about desired features is invaluable.
• Customer service follow-ups. After resolving issues, encourage your customer service team to request feedback on the customer’s experience. There’s no incorrect way to ask for feedback–the key is consistently providing customers with avenues for honest assessment of your service.

3. Personalize Every Touchpoint

It might seem counterintuitive, but a significant portion of customer satisfaction is shaped before a customer even interacts with your product. While customer service addresses concerns and the product team uses feedback for improvements, what about the initial email sent to a customer as a newsletter subscriber before their purchase? Was their name included in the subject line? Did the sales representative personalize the demo based on the customer’s needs, highlighting relevant features?

Investing in understanding your customers yields long-term rewards. This underscores the importance of personalization. Customers should feel valued and understood from their very first interaction with your brand. This establishes a positive foundation for the relationship and instills a sense of trust, even when challenges arise (which they inevitably will!). From your landing pages and email copy to your website chatbot, order confirmation emails, and beyond, investing the time to personalize each touchpoint throughout the customer journey will foster customer loyalty and advocacy.

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4. Cultivate a Strong Company Culture and Employee Satisfaction

Adapting based on customer feedback and NPS scores can be challenging, but what’s even more demanding is recognizing the significant impact of company culture and employee satisfaction on customer satisfaction and the overall customer experience. Regardless of the measures taken to provide an exceptional customer experience, if your employees’ experience is lacking, they won’t be equipped to deliver the level of service needed for success.

Prioritizing employee satisfaction often translates to positive customer reviews. Cultivating a strong company culture starts with leading by example. Company leaders play a vital role in embodying and shaping the desired culture. They should consistently demonstrate the values and behaviors expected of employees, take ownership of mistakes, and readily recognize employee achievements. Defining and emphasizing core values aligned with your mission is also crucial. Communicating these values to employees and ensuring their understanding of how their work contributes to them ensures that every customer interaction upholds the organization’s standards. Lastly, prioritize Hiring when hiring. Selecting candidates who possess the necessary skills and align with your company’s values can save considerable trouble in the long run.

5. Educate at Every Step of the Customer Journey

Just like personalization, education should be embedded at every customer touchpoint. Few things contribute to churn more than a customer who makes a purchase before they are ready, fully understand the product, or know how to use it effectively. While closing a sale is positive, creating a lifelong customer is far superior. Educating customers throughout their journey ensures that each customer acquired contributes significant lifetime value. Consider these statistics:

Source Effective product education can take various forms, such as:

• Comprehensive blog posts detailing how your product addresses common customer pain points.
• An active YouTube channel, support community, or forum where customers can learn, troubleshoot issues, and receive guidance on using your product effectively.
• A sales team committed to educating prospects through personalized and informative demos, instilling confidence in the product’s ability to improve their lives.
• A readily accessible and up-to-date list of learning resources on your website. These examples, though not exhaustive, demonstrate the significance of nurturing informed prospects and minimizing churn. Collectively, they lay a strong foundation for customer satisfaction.

The Foundation of a Successful Customer Experience Strategy Lies in the Details

This brings us to the conclusion of this post. The common thread running through each strategy is effort. A successful customer experience hinges on the dedication to making customers feel valued and understood. While it requires investment, implementing changes that shape a positive customer perception of your business will limit churn, foster growth, and pave the way for scalability.