How do you turn a one-time customer into a loyal brand advocate? What's the difference between a consumer who buys a plane ticket from whichever airline is running a deal that day and the one who always flies, for example, with JetBlue? Why should brands pay attention to how customer experience leaders like Apple and Netflix communicate with their users?
The answer to all these questions comes down to one number: 5.7.
Customer experience (CX) leaders are generating, on average, 5.7 times more revenue than companies that fail to prioritize these efforts, according to Forrester. "Superior CX drives superior revenue growth in industries where customers are free to switch business and competitors deliver a differentiated customer experience," Forrester states.
Brands become CX leaders by personalizing engagement in a relevant, valuable, and entertaining way. Here are four guideposts for getting your customer experience right.
1. Help customers achieve their goals rather than simply buy your products
Personalization should serve a purpose for your customers other than just making a positive impact when the customer opens the app or other platform or touchpoint. The data you're collecting about your customers should help you learn what they want to accomplish and why, as well as what they're doing in the moment and which next action makes the most sense for each person.
Those personalization efforts might start with segmenting at the group level, but to achieve the best customer experiences brands need to whittle down their communications to a one-on-one level. Those birthday and friend-anniversary videos on Facebook, for example, hit a lot of the right notes on personalization: They're tailored to the individual viewer, they're relevant, and they're generally entertaining.
But once you've seen one, you've seen them all. The social network could push the usefulness factor of these videos by also including updates from friends or pages recipients follow, thus creating a more action-driven experience.
2. Engage with customers emotionally for a true customer experience—not just a user interface
Too often, marketers say "customer experience" when what they're really talking about is "user interface." An experience has an emotional factor and is built on perception; an interface does not. Emotion is a critical part of building the kind of relationship with consumers that spurs them to say things like, "I buy [the product you make] only from [your brand name here]."
Among various mediums, personalized video helps brands tap into the emotional ties with their customers. As the most compelling storytelling medium, video combines sight, sound, and motion to captivate viewers. When videos are personalized for the individual recipient, they can spark excitement, nostalgia, and a host of other emotions that ultimately lead to purchasing decisions.
