The automotive industry is in the midst of a huge transformation. It’s driven, in part, by product innovation. Advancements in electric vehicles are leading to increased adoption, and concepts that were once pipe dreams—such as connectedness and autonomous vehicles—are becoming a reality.
At the same time, we’re seeing a massive shift in the way consumers want to browse and buy vehicles. Automotive brands need to understand customers’ needs and preferences, and then adapt accordingly, to deliver outstanding experiences that win and retain customers. Data is foundational to achieving these goals.
Let’s take a closer look at how integrated CX platforms, and AI-powered tools in general, enable automotive brands to deliver intelligent, bespoke experiences that successfully attract, convert, and retain customers.
Hyper Personalized Experiences for Every Car Shopper
Each car shopper has unique needs and preferences. They expect brands to understand them in turn, and then use those insights to deliver ultra personalized experiences, communications, and offers. Delivering these ultra-personalized experiences to every customer, every time, can seem like an impossible task; AI not only makes it possible, but achievable at scale.
Integrated CX platforms, powered by AI, pull customer signals from various sources, such as purchase history, past engagements, surveys, ratings and reviews, and social media interactions. Collectively, these signals provide a 360-degree view into each customer. Auto brands can tap into these insights to deliver personalized experiences throughout the entirety of the purchase journey.
With integrated CX, automotive brands have insights to understand:
What happened: Descriptive insights describe what has happened. For example, let’s say a customer purchased a specific vehicle five years ago—and has returned to the dealership for 10 service appointments. Perhaps they wrote a positive review about their dealership experience. Recently, they’ve started spending more time on the business’ website and engaging on social media.
Why and how it happened: Diagnostic insights enable automotive brands to understand the reasons behind a customer’s behavior. Then, they’re better equipped to deliver experiences that align with that reasoning.
What will happen in the future: Predictive customer analytics leverage data to make predictions about a customer’s future behavior. For example, an organization can analyze purchase history and other interaction data to make a prediction about when a customer will be in the market for a new vehicle. When automotive brands can anticipate customers’ future needs, they’re better positioned to proactively address those needs.
Automotive brands that leverage integrated CX to deliver personalized experiences will be better positioned to capture shoppers’ attention—and win their business. In fact, personalization is proven to drive bottom line results. Research from Deloitte found that 69% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that delivers personalized experiences.
Outstanding Online Buying Experiences
It’s no secret that e-commerce continues to grow. Insider Intelligence predicts that global ecommerce will grow 9.4% this year, reaching $6.876 trillion. To put this in perspective, over 20% of retail sales are expected to happen online.
We’re also seeing an increase of consumers purchasing products online that were traditionally purchased in brick-and-mortar locations—vehicles are one example. A recent survey from PwC found that 64% of automotive dealers believe online sales will comprise 20-40% of all sales by 2030.
There are many reasons why more consumers are willing to buy vehicles online, with convenience topping the list. Yet, one of the clear advantages of shopping for a vehicle in-person is the ability to ask questions and get personalized recommendations.
AI Enables Brands to Bridge This Gap
Automotive brands can deploy chatbots to interact with automotive buyers throughout the purchase journey. These chatbots can answer customers’ questions at any hour of the day. This is essential, as 77% of consumers expect instant engagement when they contact a business. By addressing purchase blocking questions in real-time, automotive brands can boost shoppers’ confidence—and their likelihood of making a purchase.
In addition, chatbots can deliver personalized recommendations to car shoppers based on existing customer data and any additional data that’s collected during the chat. For example, a chatbot can recommend a specific model with added features that address the needs of the customer.
Conversational intelligence tools can be developed to address many different types of customer queries. However, there will always be situations where human involvement is required. Chatbots can identify these situations—and ensure customers are routed to an employee that’s equipped to handle the situation. That means customers will get their questions and issues addressed quickly, which will boost satisfaction.
Optimized In-Person Experiences
A growing portion of consumers are open to purchasing vehicles online. But that doesn’t mean that car dealerships are a thing of the past. The majority of consumers still buy cars in a physical car dealership. A survey from J.D. Power found that 85% of car buyers visited a dealership during the purchase process. Per research from Progressive, some of the top reasons for visiting a dealership location include:
The ability to do a test drive
The ability to compare vehicles in person
Habit (it’s the way I’ve always done things)
Many shoppers leave the dealership leaving less-than-satisfied. Automotive brands must work to optimize in-dealership experiences. Collecting and analyzing feedback is key to understanding customers’ pain points—and then working to alleviate them.
Collecting customer feedback certainly isn’t a new concept. Even before the growth of ecommerce, many car dealers asked their customers to share their feedback by completing surveys and comment cards. Today, many automotive customers are willing to share their feedback. But they do so in different ways.
Seamless Experiences Across Channels
As we’ve already explored, consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with purchasing cars online. When it comes to car buying, it’s often not a question of online vs. in-dealership. Instead, many consumers do both.
Imagine a consumer in the market for a vehicle. They start the purchase journey by researching their options and asking questions online. This approach is common. An analysis from Google and comScore states that twice as many vehicle buyers start their research online, opposed to a dealership.
Automotive brands must ensure consumers have seamless, connected, and personalized experiences across all channels they use. Consumers expect this. Per Salesforce, nearly eight in 10 (79%) expect consistent interactions across departments.
With integrated CX platforms, brands can effectively and efficiently synthesize and analyze data across channels to understand a customer’s behavior and intent. InMoment’s integrated CX platform is the highest rated in the market for this end.
Fostering Loyalty by Delivering Ongoing Value
There’s an old adage that retaining a customer is less expensive than acquiring a new one. But retaining automotive customers can be challenging, as they aren’t as loyal as we’d like to think. Consider the fact that in 2022, 37% of new vehicle buyers bought a brand they’d never owned before. This is up from 31% the prior year. Optimized experiences foster loyalty and repeat business. However, those experiences must extend beyond the sale.
Automotive brands can leverage AI to deliver outstanding post-sale experiences that foster loyalty. For example, brands can engage with customers to let them know when it’s time for routine maintenance—which can be scheduled via chatbot. Customers can also pose maintenance-related questions via chatbot and get instant answers.
In addition, automotive brands can use AI to analyze signals indicating a customer may be in the market for a new vehicle. Then, the brand can proactively engage with the customer to meet their needs.
A Final Word
We’ve only just scratched the surface of AI’s massive potential. Yet, it’s already completely transforming the way consumers engage with auto brands, and the world in general. With integrated CX providing a holistic view of the customer base, auto brands can tailor their products, services, and experiences to exactly what their customers want.
The auto brands that follow this blueprint will remain at the forefront of the industry.
References
Mckinsey & Company. The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying/). Access 1/16/24.
Salesforce. State of the Connected Customer Sixth Edition. (https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/state-of-the-connected-customer/). Access 1/16/24
Deloitte. Embrace meaningful personalization to maximize growth. (https://www.deloittedigital.com/content/dam/deloittedigital/us/documents/offerings/offering-20220713-personalization-pov.pdf). Access 1/16/24
Insider Intelligence. Ecommerce growth worldwide will pick up before tapering off. (https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/ecommerce-growth-worldwide-will-pick-up-before-tapering-off). Access 1/16/24
Forbes. Global Automotive Market: Predictions for 2024. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2024/01/11/global-automotive-market-predictions-for-2024/). Access 1/16/24
J.D. Power. 2022 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Study. (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2022-us-sales-satisfaction-index-ssi-study). Access 1/16/24
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
The hotel industry took a major hit during the pandemic, but the aftermath was even more curious. So much time locked inside caused a massive correction. Out of nowhere, citizens were flocking in droves to distant lands, as travel by plane, sea, and car surged.
The coming year is no exception, as consumers across the globe plan to make travel a priority, despite ongoing economic uncertainty. According to a recent report, 81% of consumers plan to travel the same amount or more in 2024, compared to 2023.
Hotel guests have lofty expectations for excellent experiences; they also have feedback data coming at them from all directions. It’s a common struggle to effectively analyze this data, and then leverage it to optimize their customer experience (CX) efforts. This is where integrated CX comes into play.
What is Integrated CX
Integrated CX platforms unify customer feedback signals from a multitude of feedback signals (listed below), blending them into a cohesive whole. Utilizing AI, this system organizes and deciphers the collected data, and makes sense of it thereafter. This method represents a novel and comprehensive strategy for an industry that, for many years, has predominantly focused on survey data, offering a limited perspective.
Here are some of the main feedback signals:
NPS
Surveys
Call Center Data
Reviews
Social
Insights/Spotlight
Integrated CX platforms have the power to interpret these varied, disparate signals into a unified view. Hotels can then leverage these insights to elevate guests’ experiences before, during, and after their reservation.
Let’s take a closer look at how integrated CX and other AI-powered tools are shaping hotel experiences—and how the best hotels and resorts are leveraging this winning combination to provide intelligent, customer-centric experiences that grow sales and foster loyalty.
Hyper Personalization for Every Traveler
Modern consumers have an overwhelming amount of choice across all product and service categories. Generic, one-size-fits-all communication and experiences aren’t an effective way to reach them. Instead, 71% of consumers expect personalization from the businesses they choose. What’s more, they expect brands to adapt to as their needs and expectations inevitably evolve. Hotel customers are no exception.
Each traveler is different, with unique needs, preferences, and motivations for travel. Hotels must work to understand their customers’ preferences and use those insights to deliver tailored experiences throughout the journey. Integrated CX makes this a reality.
Integrated CX consolidates customer signals from a whole host of sources, including transaction history, reviews, surveys, website activity, and social interactions (among others). These signals give hotels and resorts a 360-degree view of each customer, which can be used to fuel ultra-personalized experiences. Research from Salesforce found that 61% of customers say most companies treat them as a number. Hotels can set themselves apart from the competition by strategically leveraging integrated CX and AI to fuel personalized guest experiences.
Real-Time Service, Any Time of Day
In the past, consumers would book a hotel by working with a travel agent or picking up the phone. That’s no longer the case. Instead, a recent survey from Statista found that 72% of consumers prefer booking travel online.
Consumers are using their mobile devices to browse and book hotels. They’re engaging with hotels from any number of channels, including web browsers, mobile apps, messaging channels, social media, and review sites—among others. They expect instant engagement—any time of day. Today, AI-powered digital assistants or chatbots enable hotels to meet these expectations.
After the stay, hotels can leverage AI-powered chatbots to collect customer feedback and resolve outstanding issues. Chatbots can be an effective tool for enrolling guests in loyalty programs, increasing the chances of repeat business.
Intelligent Digitized Experiences
Hotel guests expect an experience. Friendly service, clean linens, and delicious food and drinks—the givens. But increasingly, guests also want outstanding digitized experiences—whether they’re researching their options, in the middle of their stay, or reflecting on their experience. Upon arrival, many want a mobile check-in experience, which allows for speed and convenience. During their stay, guests may use their mobile devices to get guidance on where to eat and things to do
AI-powered bots can help customers find the property that best suits their needs. Bots can also answer questions and provide information on things like availability, rates, and amenities that build customers’ confidence—and their likelihood of booking.
Guests can also use a hotel’s mobile app to get personalized content and recommendations during their stay. For example, they may find restaurant and attraction recommendations, based on their past interactions and feedback they’ve shared with the hotel brand.
Streamlined Operations and Experiences
Hotels have long collected guest feedback, transitioning from paper surveys and conversations at the front desk to digital channels. However, the prevalence of surveys has led to “survey fatigue,” especially among younger generations like Gen Z. These guests are less inclined to fill out surveys but are actively sharing their experiences on travel review platforms and social media.
This shift in feedback channels presents both an opportunity and a challenge for hotels. The feedback, whether direct or indirect, contains valuable insights for enhancing guest experiences and operations. The main obstacle is the nature of the feedback—a mix of structured and unstructured data, making it difficult to compile, analyze, and derive actionable insights.
AI Has Its Shortcomings, Too.
While AI holds the potential to revolutionize guest experiences in hotels, it brings with it significant challenges. The need for personalization in customer service requires an extensive collection of data, posing privacy concerns. Hotels must balance the use of AI with the responsibility of keeping customer data secure. A misstep in handling this data can severely damage a hotel’s reputation.
Moreover, the intricacies of AI, such as its potential for bias and inaccuracy, add another layer of complexity. The workings of AI systems like ChatGPT can be opaque, and their recommendations may not always be reliable. With the widespread use of AI in various sectors, the risk of data misuse and breaches increases.
In light of these challenges, the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer highlights the growing importance of trust in brand relationships. Consumers are more likely to engage with and stay loyal to brands they trust. For hotels, this means prioritizing ethical AI practices and data security to build and maintain this trust. Successful navigation of these issues is crucial for harnessing the benefits of AI while ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty.
A Final Word
AI has only recently hit the “mainstream”, but it’s already transforming the hotel guest experience. This will only continue as the technology evolves.
Hotel customers expect top-tier, personalized experiences at every touchpoint. While these enterprises have a plethora of data and customer feedback at their fingertips, it’s not always easy to analyze and leverage it. Integrated CX platforms, powered by AI, enable hotels to not only analyze this data, but identify opportunities to use it to improve CX.
In the coming year, consumers are prioritizing travel. However, they have plentiful options when it comes to hotels. The hotels that thrive will be those that deliver intelligent, AI-driven CX throughout the customer journey that’s personalized, yet secure.
Mckinsey & Company. The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying/). Access 1/19/24.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
In the rapidly changing consumer market, the highest customer-rated Integrated CX company, InMoment, took a bold and proactive approach. On Thursday, January 25th, we hosted the “Changing The Game” event in Austin, TX—a crucible for innovative ideas and game-changing strategies to address the consumer market in 2024 and beyond.
The event brought in senior leadership from analytics, CX, insights, and VoC programs from 44 different brands, all with the common goal: sharing how integrated CX is making groundbreaking changes to their companies, customer experiences, and the market as a whole.
Dive in with us as we share key takeaways from our panels—Integrated CX: Listening Differently, ROI: Measuring Success Beyond NPS, and Reimagining CX with AI— andsee how some of the biggest brands in retail, auto, hospitality, B2B, and consumer goods are reshaping their interactions with customers and setting new standards in their respective industries.
Major Hospitality Conglomerate Masters The Art of Engagement
At the heart of one of the biggest dining, entertainment, and hospitality conglomerates in the nation lies a balanced approach to customer feedback: they’ve mastered the art of both reactive and proactive engagement.
What’s particularly remarkable is that their expansive operation of over 600 locations and reviews is managed by a lean team of two.
By responding to over 95% of negative reviews, their company guarantees that customer concerns are not just heard but addressed; the art of engaged, active listening. This reactive approach is complemented by their proactive strategy of acknowledging and responding to positive feedback—something that businesses often overlook.
Responding to both positive and negative feedback can’t be overstated enough. Studies have shown that companies that engage with customer feedback can see up to a 5-10% increase in customer retention rates. It lets customers know that there’s a human behind your brand, and you’re open and receptive to changing your processes if inefficiencies are continually being called to attention.
Engaging with positive and negative feedback consistently, across a vast number of locations, shows that scalability is possible with a small team if the approach is thoughtful and customer-centric.
Worldwide Furniture Retailer Redefines Comfort through Integrated CX
One of the biggest companies in the furniture space is pioneering a future where relaxation meets technology. They’re reimagining ‘dad’s recliner’ into a modern-day relaxation experience. By merging AI with their products, they’re crafting personalized experiences that evolve with the user.
McKinsey’s Global Survey on artificial intelligence has reported that businesses adopting AI can see a significant improvement in their performance, with some sectors witnessing profit increases of up to 20% attributable directly to AI. This isn’t just in industries like tech or finserv—this tech is breaching every market.
Their story exemplifies that the utilization of AI can keep any business competitive and relevant by modernizing their approach. Companies like theirs can meet current consumer expectations while anticipating future needs, securing a leading position in innovation and customer satisfaction.
Major Tech Company Takes a New Angle on NPS Scores
One of the biggest, multinational tech companies in the world is utilizing every available feedback signal—reviews, call center transcripts, social media, and many more—to benchmark against the competition as well as to ensure a balanced view of feedback and signals across different areas of their own company.
A Harvard Business Review study found that a 12-point increase in NPS leads to a doubling of a company’s growth rate. This approach, especially when applied alongside other feedback mechanisms, offers a comprehensive view of customer and employee satisfaction, enabling businesses to fine-tune their offerings and internal culture. This holistic understanding of feedback signals ensures companies stay ahead in competitive industries by maintaining a pulse on both customer loyalty and operational efficiency.
Through their comprehensive analysis of various feedback signals, they’ve created and maintained a distinct differentiation in their CX program apart from the competitors in their industry. Their detailed assessment offers deeper insights into customer loyalty and competitive positioning in the tech industry, ensuring that they have a complete and actionable view of both their business and the market as a whole.
Top Car Manufacturer Provides a Human Touch in the Digital Age
One of the leading car manufacturers in the world spoke on a compelling narrative of human-centric customer experience.
Amidst the digital transformation, they emphasized personal touches, like writing thank-you notes to employees. Emphasizing the employee-customer link has done wonders for their business, where appreciated employees are more engaged and happy at their jobs, which ultimately affects their customer interactions.
The ability to offer personalized experiences is a critical differentiator for brands, particularly those where customers are dealing with high-cost, heavily-considered purchases such as automobiles and luxury goods. Personalization goes beyond mere customization of products or services; it encompasses understanding and anticipating the unique needs and desires of each customer, forging a deeper connection.
A study by Epsilon found that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences. This statistic underscores the importance of a human touch in creating meaningful customer interactions. Brands that master the art of personalization significantly enhance loyalty and a competitive edge. In the context of high-value transactions, it can be the deciding factor that tilts the scales in a brand’s favor, with a higher probability of both a sale and a lifelong customer.
Mobility Industry Expert Reshapes Customer Experience
The journey of one of the big three in the car rental space evolved from traditional survey methods to dynamic feedback systems. Their focus on swift personalization reflects a deep understanding of modern consumer desires.
A study by Salesforce revealed that 76% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. In this context, their company’s strategy reflects an acute awareness of modern consumer demands, emphasizing the importance of agile, responsive customer service frameworks that cater to individual needs.
They prioritized employee well-being alongside customer satisfaction, emphasizing the importance of nurturing a growth-centric ecosystem. Their transformation signifies a broader shift in their identity, from a holdings company to a mobility company, attuned to the nuanced needs of today’s consumer.
Energy Leader Finds AI at the Forefront of Customer Service
A key player in the U.S. energy sector focused on how AI is revolutionizing how call center operations are managed and optimized, particularly in the processing and comprehension of call transcripts.
InMoment’s toolkit excels in extracting meaningful data from these transcripts, which are often unstructured and varied. The algorithms sift through the data, identifying key themes, customer sentiments, and specific queries, unifying them in a holistic view. This process involves not just transcribing words, but also understanding the context and nuances of each conversation.
Going a step further, their AI-powered predictive analytics have been at the forefront of interpreting and extrapolating on data in real-time, helping brands gain a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving marketplace.
It goes beyond data analysis by setting the foundation where decisions are anticipated, and deeper understanding of current trends helps mitigate future risk. The strategic use of this technology to inform decision-making processes is an advanced approach to business strategy.
As a result, what was once a simple record of customer interactions becomes a rich source of insights, allowing for a deeper understanding of customer needs and experiences.
With AI assisting in call center operations and making systems more optimized, they’re not just retaining loyal customers but also setting a new standard in an industry with historically poor customer feedback mechanisms. Their approach reflects a deep understanding of the need for efficient and personalized customer interactions in the coming decade.
Footwear Retailer Utilizes Unstructured Data as a Training Tool
One of the largest sneaker retailers in the country was one of the earliest adopters of Spotlight, by InMoment. This AI-powered CX software captures and analyzes all customer feedback signals to deliver stronger, more actionable customer experience insights. Like the company mentioned in the previous section, this retailer is also using this tool to pull unstructured data from call transcripts, and taking strategic actions based off of the analyzed data.
According to IBM, 90% of all data generated by devices such as smartphones, tablets, and connected vehicles is unstructured. The untapped potential of unstructured data is staggering. Leveraging AI to analyze this data, companies can significantly enhance their understanding of customer experiences, leading to more informed decisions and better-aligned strategies.
By using real customer complaints as part of their training, this company ensures that their employees are well-informed and empathetically aligned with customer needs. This approach is a brilliant use of data to enhance customer interactions.
A New Era of Customer Experience
The InMoment (integrated) Experience | Changing The Game was more than a gathering of industry leaders; it was a showcase of the future of customer experience. Each brand, in its unique way, demonstrated that innovation, whether through technology, human touch, or the combination of both, is key to staying relevant and creating customer experiences that drive loyalty.
As these brands continue to push the boundaries, they’re not only changing the game for themselves, but setting new and revolutionary standards for consumers. It marks the dawn of an era where innovation transcends tradition, compelling the entire industry to follow suit or risk obsolescence. They’re not just leading the change–they’re becoming the change—inspiring a future where excellence in CX is not an aspiration but a given.
Ready to revolutionize your customer experience strategy? Discover how InMoment’s integrated CX solutions can empower your business to listen differently, measure success beyond traditional metrics, and reimagine customer interactions with the power of AI.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Customer experience management (CEM) involves overseeing and improving the interactions between a business and its customers. The best CX management software understands and addresses customer needs, preferences, and feedback. They aims to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Effective CEM strategies can lead to increased customer retention and positive brand perception.
Did you know that 92% of CEOs agree that customer experience (CX) improvements have a direct impact on their bottom line? It’s clear that a customer experience program is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
The process of choosing the best customer experience management software can be tricky and extensive, so there are some things you need to keep in mind as to find the perfect CX partner for your business.
Benefits of Customer Experience Management Software
Delivering consistent, memorable experiences is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Consumers are more likely to become repeat customers if they have great experiences. But, in order to achieve this, you need an actionable customer experience strategy. That is where customer experience management software comes in. Customer experience management (CXM) software offers several benefits for businesses aiming to enhance their customer interactions and satisfaction such as:
Improved Customer Satisfaction: CXM software helps businesses understand customer needs, preferences, and expectations. By addressing these effectively, businesses can enhance overall customer satisfaction.
Enhanced Customer Loyalty: By consistently providing positive experiences, CXM software contributes to building customer loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to become repeat customers and advocates for the brand.
Reduce Customer Churn: According to research by PwC, customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for products or services from companies that offer a better customer experience. Additionally, research by Temkin Group indicates that companies that excel at customer experience have a 16.9% advantage in customer retention rates over companies that provide a poor experience.
Personalized Interactions: CXM software allows businesses to collect and analyze customer data, enabling personalized interactions. Personalization enhances the customer experience by delivering relevant content, recommendations, and offers.
Brand Differentiation: Providing an exceptional customer experience through CXM software can set a business apart from competitors. Positive experiences contribute to a positive image, and improved brand reputation management, which aids in differentiating your brand in the market.
Employee Engagement: Happy and engaged employees are more likely to provide better customer service. CXM software can also contribute to employee satisfaction by providing tools and insights to enhance their ability to serve customers effectively.
How to Choose the Best Customer Experience Management Platform
Choosing the right customer experience management is a critical decision for businesses aiming to elevate their customer interactions. A robust CXM platform can significantly impact customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business success. But, choosing the right partner for your business is a complex process. In order to ensure you choose the right vendor, there are some preliminary steps you need to take.
Look at Third-Party Evaluations
When evaluating CXM platforms, it’s essential to consider third-party evaluations and industry reviews. Independent research firms like Forrester and Gartner provide assessments, such as the Gartner CX Magic Quadrant, that provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of different platforms, helping you make an informed decision. Look for reviews from reputable sources, industry analysts, and customer experience experts. Assessments often highlight features, scalability, integration capabilities, and overall performance. By leveraging third-party evaluations, you can gain a well-rounded perspective on the platforms you’re considering, ensuring that your choice aligns with industry standards and best practices.
Look at Customer References
Another crucial aspect of selecting a CXM platform is examining customer references. Real-world experiences from businesses similar to yours can offer unparalleled insights into the platform’s practicality and effectiveness. Focus on understanding how the platform addressed their specific needs, the level of support provided, and any challenges faced during implementation. Customer references provide a firsthand account of the platform’s performance in diverse business environments, aiding you in making a decision that aligns with your unique requirements.
For example, if you are looking for an example of how a customer experience platform helped a large organization put loads of data into one place, look no further than Foot Locker. Foot Locker utilized InMoment’s AI technology to gather data into one place, and sort by sentiment so that customers with negative experiences could be contacted and prevented from churning.
Look at Their Integrated CX Offering
When considering a CXM platform, it is important to choose a partner that will allow you to do more than one thing. You don’t want a partner who can only do surveys or contact center optimization, you want a partner who will give you an end-to-end look into the customer journey.
That is why Integrated CX is so important. Integrated CX allows you to bring in data from multiple sources into one central location. From there, you can uncover holistic insights that lead to data-driven decisions.
10 Questions to Ask CX Companies
When in discussions with your top CX companies, it is important that you delve deeper into their specific product offerings and understand how they go about supporting their customers. You want to ensure that you have a dedicated partner that will help you reach your goals, not just a platform that you will be left in the dark with. In order to do so, make sure you ask questions that will allow you to make an informed decision on a vendor that will work best for you.
1. What Percentage of Your Total Customer Base Relies on You for Enterprise CX Programs?
When you’re looking for a partner in business, you want them to be an expert in their field. This holds true for customer experience, yet some major companies only dedicate a small percentage of their resources to CX expertise. For example, some major companies claim to specialize in CX, but really the vast majority of their business is devoted to market research. For great customer experience, pick a vendor that is 100% dedicated and will not be distracted by other ventures.
2. What Percentage of Those Customers Have Been With You for Over Three Years?
Some vendors will tout big numbers of clients, but the information that really matters is how long those clients have been with the company. With a strong partner, you get what you were promised and clients are more likely to stick with them longer. Get past the smoke and mirrors and find the right vendor by asking about client longevity.
3. How Many of Those Customers Exceed 1 Million Interactions with You?
If you’re an enterprise, you want to differentiate those who say they can handle a large program with over a million responses and those who are just running a small research survey at
a big company. So how do you tell? Some companies will charge extra with “custom pricing” for responses over 1 million, which highlights their high cost of business and limited experience. You want a partner who doesn’t blink at 1 million.
4. Who Specifically Will Provide Implementation and Strategic Consulting Services?
Continuing the point from the previous question, it’s one thing to claim to be collaborative, but another to have a blueprint for partnership. Ask who specifically will be helping you implement your technology and help you map out your CX strategy to pick out the vendors who walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
5. How Often Will Those Resources Be Available to Us? At What Rates?
Strategy sessions and check-ins are vital to a healthy partnership with your CX vendor. Though they’re vital, many vendors charge extra for the bare minimum amount of sessions. It’s best to clarify that these partnership best practices are included in your contract, rather than an add-on that will cost you more than a pretty penny.
6. Will We Be Charged for Survey Responses? Why?
Some major vendors in the CX industry do not charge you as you’d expect. They don’t charge you based on the number of surveys you send or other elements, but by the number of survey responses you get. If you’re thinking this seems backwards you’d be right, especially seeing as the number of survey responses you’ll get is difficult to estimate going into a contract.
7. What Happens if We Over or Underestimate Our Responses?
When you sign a contract with a vendor who charges based on the number of survey responses, there is a high probability that you will overestimate and therefore pay more money for services you don’t need. However, these companies do not offer any refunds; in fact they charge steeply if you overestimate. Weed these vendors out to make sure you aren’t backed into a very expensive corner.
8. Are We Subject to Any Parent Company’s Policies and Contracts?
This question is especially relevant due to recent acquisitions across the CX landscape. Now more than ever, it’s important to know if you’re partnering with just the technology vendor or if you’re signing something that makes you beholden to a parent company’s interests and policies. Ask this question to clarify if your vendor is working for you or for their parent company.
9. Can We Review the 24-month Product Roadmap?
Crafting a roadmap for your initiatives is necessary to not only get the quick wins you need, but to set long-term goals. However, not even CX professionals can see the future. There will be unexpected events that may necessitate adjustments to your roadmap, yet some vendors don’t allow tweaks to the plan. Clarify this with your vendor to make sure your program is future-proofed.
10. Which Customers Can We Speak to Verify Your Responses?
Strong partners create strong advocates. It’s as simple as that. Ask prospective vendors if you can speak to current customers and the best of them will refer you to an advocate that will be more than happy to tell you about their experience.
How Customer Experience Management Started
At its simplest, customer experience management is a broad term that refers to evaluating and managing a customer’s every interaction with a brand. Though many companies have taken strides to provide great customer experiences for many years now, the idea of customer experience management as its own science or discipline really didn’t come about until the early 2000s.
That’s about when advancements in technology allowed customer experience to go from being an abstract goal to something more quantifiable. Suddenly, companies everywhere could use the internet to track site visits and other metrics, opening up a whole new dimension to the idea of caring for customers. If these elements were quantifiable, that meant they could be managed. And if they could be managed, then perhaps they could be meaningfully improved to create a bolder, more human, and more invested relationship with every customer!
Though today’s conversation focuses on customer experience management, it’s important to remember that this technology and science doesn’t ‘just’ apply to customers. Many brands also use tune experience management tools to their employee experiences. The idea with this approach is to create a better workplace culture, reduce employee churn, and create the same kinds of fundamental relationships with workers that brands aspire to build with customers.
Customer Experience Management’s Early Days
Now that they were armed with the technology needed to evaluate a lot of customer experiences in little time, companies turned their attention to the next frontier of feedback collection: digital surveys. Surveys had, of course, been around for a long time, but mailing them out or publicly soliciting customers to take them on the spot was expensive and produced inconsistent results.
Suddenly, though, these companies had access to newly developed survey deployment technologies and, before too long, tools that allowed them to build their own questionnaires. Both approaches, combined with email, suddenly made sending massive numbers of surveys directly to customers much simpler and much more cost-effective. Surveys thus became a cornerstone of customer experience management, a role they still have to this day!
Customer Experience Management’s Continued Evolution
With these new survey tools, methods, and partnerships in hand, brands rolled up their sleeves and got creative in the pursuit of feedback. Whether it was promising a free soda upon survey completion or a discount the next time customers came in, countless organizations spent the 2000s attempting to gather as much feedback as possible.
At this point, the terms “customer experience” and “customer experience management” weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now. Rather, a lot of organizations and the vendors that provided survey tools used phrases like “brand protection” to describe why it was important to adopt an approach like this. Over time, though, the term “customer experience” became a mainstay of this discipline, and terms like “customer experience management” soon followed. Because of the employee experience approach we mentioned earlier, it’s common nowadays for this science to be referred to simply as experience management (XM).
The Rise of Big Data Within Customer Experience Management
Once organizations got their feet wet building surveys, analyzing data, and figuring out how to incentivize customers and employees to respond, they had to take the next step in the customer experience management journey: making sense of feedback. No small task, especially when the field was in its infancy, but both brands and experience vendors were determined to make sense of all the feedback they were receiving.
This was about the point that the term “big data” entered the experience conversation, and it became a bylaw of experience programs throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. Having a ton of data was suddenly all the rage, and organizations spent a great deal of time and money gathering mountains of it in pursuit of better customer experience management. Frankly, there was no tech or business problem that a lot of brands thought they couldn’t solve just by throwing data at it.
However, this is the part of the story where the customer experience management revolution ended up stalling out for a lot of brands. They’d gathered lots of data, yes, but what a lot of these brands and the vendors that partnered with them didn’t quite grasp at the time is that big data alone cannot solve your business and customer experience problems. Nonetheless, big data remained the north star of many experience programs, which, frankly, is why a large number of them failed.
Customer Experience Management Hits a Plateau
After it became apparent that simply gathering data and feedback from surveys didn’t bridge the gap to actually fixing problems, the next step for customer experience management vendors and their clients was figuring out how to, well, fix problems. These brands had business challenges, and they had big data. What did building a connection between the two end up looking like?
The truth is that, whether back in the day or right now, a lot of organizations still haven’t quite figured that out. You might say that brands should simply take a look at their data and infer solutions from there, but for many companies, their big data is literally too big to make that idea feasible. There’s simply too much noise and no easy way to find signals in it. Or at least… that was the case until relatively recently.
Going Beyond Customer Experience Management
Until the last few years, one of the biggest bywords of customer experience management was basically to gather as much data as possible and hope that brands could use it to adequately react to customer and employee complaints after the fact. This philosophy played out in the form of customer experience teams who kept their data siloed or vendors who offered entirely reaction-based and DIY solutions without much customizability or human expertise.
At InMoment, however, we believe that the experience management story should be an Experience Improvement (XI) revolution. As you’ve seen by now, while data and metrics are certainly very important, just having a large pile of them doesn’t actually translate to solutions for business challenges, customer relationships, employee retention, or countless other experience factors. Successful customer experience management demands much more.
From Customer Experience Management to Experience Improvement
There are a few factors to bear in mind for making a difference with your customer experience management. The first is to remember that truly great experience management doesn’t start with gathering data; it starts with figuring out which tangible business goals you need your program to accomplish. We call this designing with the end in mind, and it’s a strategy that will make your data so much more manageable than older approaches aimed at gathering as much of it as possible.
This strategy will also result in much more relevant customer sentiment, which is key to understanding what they love (and don’t love) about their experiences with your brand. You can then apply this heightened understanding toward meaningful transformations within your business and its associated customer journeys, realizing that success in the form of those goals we mentioned earlier (retention, acquisition, saving costs, etc.).
That idea of being selective with your data, as well as proactively sharing the data you do gather, feeds directly into the very best elements that effective customer experience management and Experience Improvement have to offer. More accurate personas, better defined marketing segments, better touchpoint evaluation, and knowing what your customers want before they themselves do are but a few perks to this approach.
InMoment as a CX Partner
InMoment has best-in-class NLP capabilities and has the highest user ratings of all Voice of the Customer companies according to Gartner Peer Insights. Schedule a demo today to see what we can do for your business!
PwC. Experience is everything. Get it right. (https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consumer-intelligence-series/future-of-customer-experience.html) Accessed 7/29/24.
REPORT
InMoment Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Text Mining And Analytics Platforms, Q2 2024
InMoment’s platform and personnel have been recognized by Forrester as “major players in the text mining and analytics market.” With a platform proficient in text mining as a way to pull insights from customer feedback, and a team determined to add value and improve business performance, InMoment is leading the charge in the text mining and analytics industry.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
AI has rapidly evolved from a concept to a crucial tool in retail, allowing retailers to deliver personalized experiences through data-driven insights. However, this transformation also introduces challenges, such as balancing personalization with privacy and ensuring transparency to maintain consumer trust.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) was no more than a vague, abstract concept for the vast majority of people until recently. Today, AI has gone mainstream, infiltrating both our personal and professional lives.
While still in its infancy, AI is transforming the way businesses across all sectors and industries engage with their customers. Retail is one industry that’s experiencing major disruption.
How Retail Companies Can Use AI to Improve Customer Experience
Retailers have no shortage of data, but they often struggle to make sense of disparate sets – much less identify ways to leverage that data to optimize the customer experience. Integrated CX platforms, powered by AI, have the ability to analyze and interpret these vast, disjointed data sets. Retailers that strategically leverage these platforms, and other AI-powered tools, are better equipped to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey.
Let’s dive into the role of AI and integrated CX in shaping retail customer experiences – and how this winning combination is empowering retailers to deliver intelligent, outstanding experiences that attract, convert, and retain customers.
Ultra-Personalized Experiences for Every Shopper
In the world of retail, generic, one-size-fits all communication and experiences were once the norm. A retailer would air a commercial on TV or run an ad in a magazine – and cross their fingers that it would resonate with at least a portion of viewers.
Today, generic experiences no longer cut it.
Retail consumers expect, and sometimes demand, experiences that are tailored to their unique needs and preferences. What’s more, they expect a brand to keep pace as their needs and preferences evolve over time.
Integrated CX platforms, powered by AI, unify customer signals from a myriad of sources, including historic transactions, different types of surveys, reviews, social media interactions, and more. Collectively, those signals provide a complete, 360-degree view of each customer. Retailers can tap into this holistic view to power ultra-personalized experiences for every customer.
Efficiency Across All Touchpoints
The way consumers interact with retailers (and want to interact with them) is evolving. During the pandemic, this evolution accelerated.
Browsing and buying in a brick-and-mortar store was once the default, but today, is far from reality.
They’re engaging with brands via mobile browsers, apps, messaging channels, and social media—just to mention a few. They expect instant feedback–-whenever and wherever a need arises.
AI-powered chatbots allow retailers to deliver the instant engagement consumers expect. These chatbots and virtual assistants are equipped to handle all sorts of inquiries—whether the shopper is just starting to explore options or has already made a purchase.
If a shopper is early in the purchase journey, an AI-powered chatbot can answer questions and provide personalized recommendations based on previous transaction history (if known) or on the customer’s answers to a few basic questions. Some chatbots also allow customers to quickly make a purchase right in the chat. After a purchase is made, virtual assistants provide order updates and help resolve any issues that may arise.
Conversational AI tools can help retailers deliver seamless, connected interactions. They can accurately determine when a customer’s inquiry requires the assistance of a real human—and can then transfer them to the right person for the task. This cuts down wait-times, which is a top frustration among consumers.
Analyzing Feedback to Optimize Experiences
Customer feedback has always been key to optimizing retail CX. That’s nothing new.
Traditionally, surveys were the primary way for collecting customer feedback. Make no mistake: surveys are still valuable. However, many consumers are facing “survey fatigue”, decreasing their likelihood of engagement. Retailers need to diversify their feedback mechanisms.
Consumers leave plenty of signals (feedback) across these platforms—some direct, some implicit. But many retailers struggle to decode this hodgepodge of both structured and unstructured data.
Integrated customer experience platforms, using AI, empower retailers to amalgamate diverse datasets. All those customer signals are translated into actionable insights that will improve CX and increase customer satisfaction and retention.
AI Presents Retailers With New Challenges
AI is improving the way retailers interact with their customers. By and large, this is a good thing. However, AI does present some unique challenges to retailers.
One key challenge is balancing personalization and privacy. Retail consumers have come to expect personalized experiences, wherever they are on the shopping journey. Of course, such experiences depend on data. Retailers must ensure their customer data – and their use of AI to analyze it – is safe and secure.
When it comes to AI, there are three additional, major concerns:
AI Operates as a “Black Box”: To the average person, the ins and outs of AI are largely a mystery. For example, there’s usually no visibility into:
Which datasets are being used
Where the data comes from
Which algorithms are being implemented
As such, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to discern how a specific recommendation or decision was made.
Bias is Common: In the world of AI, inherent biases are rampant. This can lead to skewed or biased outputs.
There is Risk: In today’s world, AI is everywhere. It’s woven into the fabric of our personal and professional lives. People are leveraging AI for just about everything, from creating a household budget to drafting professional correspondence to finding a spouse. The sheer volume of data being channeled into public spaces introduces risk.
Consumers are loyal to retailers they trust. Retailers must be laser-focused on earning and preserving the trust of their patrons.
Though it’s tempting to go “all in” on AI, retailers, and everyone else for that matter, must do so responsibly. Retailers must recognize the challenges presented by AI – and then work to address them. In addition, retailers must prioritize transparency to foster consumer trust.
A Final Word
Though it’s a relatively new technology accessible to the public, AI is already transforming the retail customer experience.
Retailers have a wealth of data available to them to fuel better experiences. Integrated CX is integral to making sense of data from disconnected sources—and shedding light on opportunities to act on those insights.
Retailers must make it a priority to use AI ethically and responsibility in order to preserve customers’ trust. In today’s competitive marketplace, the most successful retailers will be those that create intelligent, personalized AI-driven CX, that are safe, private, and secure.
See how InMoment is leading this charge with its award-winning, integrated CX platform.
References
Mckinsey & Company. The value of getting personalization right—or wrong—is multiplying (https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying/). Access 12/20/23.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
In the dynamic world of hospitality, the ability to manage and enhance the guest experience often spells the difference between those who win and those who get left behind. With today’s travelers raising their expectations while being exposed to a seemingly unlimited number of hospitality solutions, it is critical that operators deliver experiences that reflect the lives of their customers.
What is Guest Experience?
Guest experience refers to the overall impression and satisfaction that a guest has during their interactions with a hospitality brand or establishment, such as hotels, restaurants, resorts, and attractions. It encompasses every aspect of their stay or visit, from the booking process and arrival to the accommodation, services, and departure.
A positive guest experience involves going beyond basic customer service. (More on this later.) In hospitality, factors that contribute to the guest experience include personalized attention, efficient service, cleanliness, ambiance, health, wellness, and safety, and the overall atmosphere of the establishment, among others.
Operators today should strive to exceed guest expectations and create memorable guest experiences to encourage repeat visits and positive word-of-mouth recommendations. By understanding and anticipating the needs and preferences of your guests, you make them feel valued and ensure that every touchpoint in their journey contributes to positive and enjoyable experiences.
The Importance of Guest Experience Management
Guest experience management is vital for hospitality brands looking to build a positive reputation, foster customer loyalty, achieve competitive differentiation, and ultimately drive long-term success and profitability.
Guest experiences impact reputation. Positive experiences build a favorable reputation, while negative experiences can harm it. With the prevalence of online reviews and social media, managing and enhancing guest experiences is crucial to maintaining a positive brand image.
Positive guest experiences lead to higher customer satisfaction levels. A memorable and positive guest experience drives customer satisfaction and fosters customer loyalty. Happy customers are more likely to choose the same hospitality brand for future stays or visits, while also recommending the brand to others, contributing to repeat business and long-term profitability.
Guest experience differentiates your brand. With travel consumers exposed to seemingly limitless hospitality solutions, providing an exceptional guest experience helps differentiate your brand from competitors.
Guest experience management drives data-driven decision-making. It often involves collecting and analyzing integrated CX data, which can be valuable for gathering actionable insights, making informed business decisions, improving service offerings, and tailoring experiences to meet customer expectations.
The Difference Between Guest Experience vs. Customer Service
You may be wondering, “What is the difference between managing the guest experience and delivering customer service?”
Traditionally defined, customer service is the act of taking care of your guests’ needs by providing service and assistance before, during, and after their requirements are met. This is provided, for example, by the receptionist at the front desk checking in hotel guests upon arrival; the tour operator explaining the historical or cultural significance of landmarks in a local area; or the sommelier giving detailed advice about which wines pair best with which dishes.
Many think of customer service as the act of reacting and responding to guests at certain points of contact: a hotel check-in, a tour, or a restaurant visit. It is often transactional in nature and focuses on meeting immediate needs or resolving issues.
The guest experience encompasses all these touchpoints and is part of a larger strategic effort in which customer service plays a crucial part.
A single point of contact doesn’t determine the guest experience. It encompasses the entire customer journey — through processes, policies, and people. It can include the guest’s initial awareness or discovery of your brand and can begin long before they set foot in any of your property locations. This means that all interactions and touchpoints the guest has with your brand are considered.
Guest experience isn’t a department. It’s a core value that should involve everyone in your organization, from the C-suite to the front-facing staff. Every team or department, from marketing and sales to front office, customer support, and after-sales, has a stake in managing the guest experience.
Guest experience management isn’t reactive. You don’t wait for a phone call, an email, or a slew of negative reviews to resolve the guest’s problem or meet their requirements. The premise behind guest experience management is that operators become truly proactive and intuitive, with the goal of seeing through guests’ eyes and better understanding their needs, wants, and expectations.
Key Trends Impacting the Guest Experience in Hospitality
Hospitality is a dynamic industry and new trends continue to emerge, raising expectations in a way that forces operators to rethink boardroom strategies, marketing and sales processes, and business models. Here are some key trends that are currently shaping the guest experience in hospitality.
A Multi-Channel Strategy is Essential
To validate their booking decisions, travel buyers are navigating multiple digital channels to conduct research and find solutions that are suited to their needs. These include online travel agencies (OTAs), social media, mobile apps, and brand websites. Deal-seeking behavior is also on the rise due to the cost of living crisis and record-shattering inflation rates.
A multichannel strategy is therefore essential for hospitality brands looking to reach a broader audience and maximize reach and visibility. Today’s consumers expect seamless and convenient interactions across multiple channels. A multichannel approach allows your organization to meet these expectations and provide guests with the flexibility to engage through their preferred channels.
Each channel should also provide an opportunity for you to collect valuable data about guest behavior, preferences, and booking patterns. By integrating data from multiple channels, you can gain insights into customer trends and make data-driven decisions to improve your marketing and service strategies.
Guests Want More Tailored Experiences
More tailored and personalized experiences, from customized room preferences to targeted offers, are a growing trend in the hospitality sector. Today’s travelers appreciate options and flexibility, choosing providers and operators that go the extra mile to make their stay unique.
Tailored experiences can also create a sense of exclusivity, with things like VIP treatments, exclusive access, and special privileges for repeat guests contributing to a feeling of being valued.
To meet these expectations, a growing number of brands are leveraging customer experience analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to understand guest preferences and deliver tailored services.
There’s an Increased Demand for Local / Regional Experiences
The rise of the independent traveler means that guests are seeking both extreme personalization and unique, authentic local experiences. Guest experiences that give back to local communities or support the local economy are in demand, as are niche properties, staycations, and holidays and retreats that integrate attractions and activities within the local community where the business operates. More travelers than ever are also drawn to properties that reflect the local character and charm.
This is why hospitality brands are incorporating local elements into their services, from locally inspired decor to partnerships with local businesses for unique guest experiences. Operators are also focusing more on local and hyperlocal sourcing, establishing close partnerships with farmers, artisans, producers, and suppliers.
Guests are Focused on Health, Safety, and Wellness
While health, cleanliness, and hygiene have always ranked among the top factors for travelers when choosing a hotel property, it has risen to the top of the list in the post-pandemic landscape. When making booking decisions, guests are researching sites that specifically offer cleanliness and safety information.
This means that operators should double down on efforts to ensure that guests feel safe, secure, and clean. Beyond simply meeting compliance requirements issued by authorities, your company should work to respond to guest expectations amidst heightened sensitivity around cleanliness and safety.
Wellness is also a significant focus, with hotels offering amenities like fitness facilities, healthy dining options, and wellness programs. Some brands are incorporating spa services, mindfulness activities, and sleep-focused amenities to deliver a better experience for guests.
How to Measure Guest Experience
You cannot manage something you aren’t measuring. Hospitality brands can measure the guest experience using these common approaches:
Guest surveys and feedback forms: Implementing surveys allows guests to provide direct feedback on their experience. To gather both structured and unstructured feedback data, your team can use Likert scales, open-ended questions, and the Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey methodology.
Online reviews and social media listening: Tracking reviews as well as mentions and comments from social media platforms provides a valuable source of unsolicited feedback, which operators can analyze for common themes, areas for improvement, and high-impact issues impacting the guest experience.
Employee feedback: Gathering feedback from employees who directly interact with guests can offer insights into the guest experience and areas that may need improvement.
Operational metrics: Monitoring and managing metrics such as check-in/check-out times, room cleanliness, and service response times should help you identify areas where operational efficiency can enhance the overall guest experience.
Customer experience metrics: Connecting feedback data and operational metrics to customer experience KPIs such as NPS, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) lets your organization achieve a more complete and accurate view of the guest experience.
Loyalty program engagement: The level of engagement guests have with your loyalty program will also help you look into repeat bookings, member satisfaction, and redemption patterns in order to gauge overall loyalty and guest satisfaction.
By combining insights from these various sources, hospitality brands can get a more comprehensive understanding of the guest experience and make data-driven decisions that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
How to Enhance the Guest Experience: Best Practices
Learning how to enhance the guest experience is essential for attracting and retaining customers. Here are some best practices applied by today’s top hospitality brands.
Improve Guest Communication
Effective communication plays a crucial role in shaping the overall guest experience. It can enhance guest satisfaction, foster loyalty, and contribute to positive reviews; meanwhile, poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, dissatisfaction, and negative feedback. Throughout the customer journey, ensure that you’re sharing relevant information with your guests to make their visit or stay as comfortable as possible.
Pre-arrival: Information about amenities, policies, and local attractions enables guests to plan their visit and enhances their overall experience.
Check-in: Smooth and efficient check-in procedures contribute to a positive first impression. Welcoming and friendly communication sets the tone for the guest, making them feel valued and comfortable.
Problem Resolution: Handling guest complaints or issues quickly can turn a negative experience into a positive one, and helps demonstrate your commitment to guest satisfaction.
Post-stay: Seeking feedback through surveys or follow-up emails allows guests to express their opinions and provides an opportunity for your company to address any concerns.
Map the End-to-End Guest Journey
Customer journey mapping allows hospitality brands to gain insights into guest behavior, preferences, and pain points at each stage of their interaction with the brand. Understanding how guests navigate their journey provides valuable information for improving services and anticipating needs.
Mapping the customer journey also helps identify various touchpoints where guests interact with the brand, both online and offline. This includes pre-booking research, booking processes, on-site experiences, and post-stay interactions. Recognizing these touchpoints allows brands to optimize each stage of the journey. With a customer journey map, you can pinpoint areas that may need improvement or innovation to enhance the overall guest experience.
Embrace Digital Transformation
Hospitality consumers demand tools that simplify and streamline the entire booking or buying process — from research and planning, through engagement, to the post-sales phase. This makes it critical to invest in smart technology that will better engage consumers and make every part of the customer journey pain-free.
Undergoing a digital transformation should help streamline your operations, reducing wait times and improving the overall guest experience.
Having free Wi-Fi for guests isn’t enough. Investment areas you can focus on include digital and contactless services (like contactless payments, voice control, and biometrics); mobile check-ins; smart home devices in rooms; AI-powered chatbots on your digital properties; virtual tours that recreate a digital environment for consumers to picture themselves in; and instant messaging channels that direct guests to management for any questions and issues. For larger chains and enterprise-level organizations, deploying a local listing management solution should also help maximize your visibility and support your brand’s multichannel strategy.
Personalize the Guest Experience
Personalization plays a significant role in meeting the diverse preferences and expectations of travelers. It also fosters a sense of loyalty among guests. When a company consistently delivers personalized services and memorable experiences, guests are more likely to choose the same brand for future stays, leading to repeat business and long-term loyalty.
Examples of tactics used to personalize the guest experience include:
Optimizing your local business listings and refining your marketing content based on guest personas
Providing options to specify room preferences
Giving personalized welcome letters and amenities
Creating targeted offers and promotions (for example: emailing guests with their membership details, unique vacation ideas, or personal offers that are in line with their preferences and expectations)
Curating local experiences and recommendations
Incorporating voice-activated assistants in rooms
Personalization is impossible if operators don’t have the ability and the means to relate to and understand the needs of their guests. To address this, you can implement technological tools like a customer relationship management (CRM) or customer experience management (CEM) solution, which analyzes big data to create highly customized one-to-one interactions between the guest and the host at scale.
Leverage Guest Experience Surveys to Capture Insights
Guest experience surveys help your team capture valuable insights essential to improving your brand, products, services, and overall customer experience. Organizations that can distribute surveys and solicit feedback efficiently also often have a more complete understanding of their guests and can more easily measure satisfaction and loyalty.
The challenge is to move beyond simply collecting data. As part of your strategy, consider investing in a Voice of the Customer program or guest experience software to ensure you are hearing your guests and extracting rich, meaningful insights from their feedback.
Invest in Online Reputation Management
One of the most important aspects of guest experience management in hospitality is your ability to build a strong brand reputation and respond to online reviews and customer feedback. People are drawn to brands that know how to respond to negative reviews, promptly answer phone calls and emails, and proactively join conversations on social media. Online reviews are especially important:
94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.
53% of guests expect management to respond to negative reviews within 7 days, but 63% say that a business has never responded to their review.
45% of consumers are more likely to choose an operator that knows how to respond to negative reviews.
If a guest wrote a 5-star review or gave your team a nice compliment via email, take the time to say thank you. If the feedback is negative or the review came with a low rating, acknowledge the guest and work quickly on resolving any issues related to their experience.
Power Your Guest Experience Management with InMoment
The future of hospitality is bright for customer-centric operators, restaurants, and hotels that are demonstrating a commitment to managing the guest experience. With InMoment, the leading provider of Experience Improvement solutions, you can adapt to meet evolving expectations, leverage experience data from every touchpoint, and power your guest experience program. Schedule a CX demo to learn more about how InMoment can help elevate your guest experiences.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Managing the B2B customer experience is a key growth strategy for organizations across a wide variety of industries. For good reason: delivering great customer experience (CX) leads to increased loyalty, lower churn, more referrals, positive word of mouth, and higher-value customers.
B2B (business-to-business) transactions often involve ongoing relationships and partnerships. Effective customer experience management helps build and maintain strong, long-term relationships by meeting the needs and expectations of your business customers consistently.
What is B2B Customer Experience?
B2B customer experience can refer to the interactions and overall relationship between a business and its business customers. It may also refer to a digital benchmark: your customers’ interactions on your website, mobile app, or software dashboard. The B2B CX may also refer to a company’s ability to respond to customer questions and cases.
Given these various interpretations, we can define the B2B customer experience as the cumulative impact of all interactions and experiences between your business and your business customers, at every touch point across the entire customer journey.
Why is B2B CX Important?
The B2B customer experience is a crucial aspect of building and maintaining successful and long-lasting relationships in the business world. Organizations that strategically allocate their resources to strengthen their customer experience focus stand to gain an edge over the competition.
Great customer experiences foster loyalty. B2B customers are more likely to continue doing business with a company that consistently delivers value, meets their expectations, and provides excellent service. Loyal customers are also more likely to recommend the business to others.
Great customer experiences help your brand achieve differentiation. In competitive B2B markets, where products and services may be similar, customer experience becomes a key differentiator. A great customer experience can set your company apart from competitors and help you win and retain clients.
Great customer experiences bolster your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). When customers are satisfied and engaged, they are more likely to make repeat purchases, upgrade services, enter into partnerships with your company, and explore additional offerings over time.
Great customer experiences improve brand reputation. If you consistently deliver positive experiences, your brand is more likely to be seen as reliable, trustworthy, and customer-centric. This positive reputation can attract new customers and partners.
Ultimately, a positive B2B customer experience contributes to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and the potential for long-term partnerships and repeat business. It goes beyond individual transactions and focuses on building a strong foundation for ongoing collaboration.
What are Some B2B Customer Experience Examples?
Here are some examples of how B2B companies are applying tactics designed to improve the customer experience:
CRM platform HubSpot utilizes chatbots to connect with customers and encourage open communication. The chatbots automatically help users find responses to their questions and discover helpful content like help center articles, blogs, and resource pages.
Social media marketing platform Hootsuite leverages InMoment to make the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology central to its operation. By utilizing the in-app customer feedback software tool, Hootsuite can prioritize CX improvements that will have the most business impact and have been able to triple its Net Promoter Score.
Transport and business services brand FedEx launched a single external newsletter to streamline its communication with customers, instead of sending out multiple emails from various departments within the organization. This helped break down silos and made things simpler not only for FedEx’s customers but also for each of the company’s internal teams working together to deliver meaningful information and valuable content to customers.
Software company PandaDoc uses multiple surveys to monitor customer sentiment and improve product experience. The company also acts on insights from customer feedback in order to understand and improve the skills of its support agents, enabling them to become better at serving PandaDoc customers.
Every time a customer buys its cloud storage suite, tech company IBM assigns specialists to help with onboarding and setup. This gives customers a hassle-free experience at a critical stage of their purchase journey. Additionally, IBM specialists educate customers with tutorials, expert advice, recommendations, and best practices to foster long-lasting relationships.
High-tech industrial company GE operates customer experience centers to showcase the company’s capabilities. Customers can visit these centers to see GE’s manufacturing systems in action and discuss a personalized plan with the company’s CX representatives.
How Does the B2B Customer Experience Differ from B2C?
B2B CX strategies are often inspired by best practices in B2C customer experience management. However, there are key differences and nuances between the two due to the nature of the relationships, the complexity of transactions, and the unique needs of each type of customer.
Decision-making: B2B transactions are often characterized by a more complex decision-making process involving a group of decision-makers within the business, and the sales cycle may be longer. Relationship-building and addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders are crucial in B2B interactions.
Customer relationships. In B2B transactions, business customers often seek long-term partnerships, and the relationship extends beyond individual transactions. Personalized service, understanding the client’s business, and collaboration are key elements.
Customization and personalization. Unlike B2C products and services, B2B offerings usually present various options for customization and personalization in order to meet the particular needs of the business customer.
Support and service. B2C customer support often focuses on scalable solutions, such as online chat, email support, or call centers, to address the needs of a larger customer base. In B2B, customer support tends to be more hands-on and personalized, with dedicated account managers, CX representatives, and specialized support teams.
Similarities Between B2B and B2C Experiences
While your B2B and B2C customers might differ, your B2B client is a human who spends a lot of time on B2C sites such as Amazon. They’ve come to expect consumer-level digital experiences at work and play. Therefore, there has been more consumerization of B2B customer experiences. Here are 12 ways to “consumerize” B2B customer experience:
Freemium or trial access. Appcues found 90% of users want to try a product for free. Can you design a lite but still valuable-to-the-user version of your product? If so, this can be a great lead-generation channel. Give marketing adequate development resources and let them run it.
Fully digital. There’s no need for interaction with a live person to access and use the product. Users expect the app to understand their goals and take them step-by-step through the process to meet their goals.
Intuitive setup and use. No user wants to have to read an essay on how to get started; it should be one step clicks without confusion. There’s no need to look for what they need, no need to be trained by an admin — it’s right there.
Quick time to value. The user wants to do their job faster, easier, and better — make that happen quickly before they find another option.
Easy connections to existing tech. While you’re focused on the individual end-user, don’t forget your app needs to fit into the organization’s workflow, speeding time to value and allowing your power user to advocate for your app. Also, realize that while one user may need everything your app does, others just need to know the results. Make sure your app links to the app others work in the most. If others need the data from your app to work in Slack, then offer a single-click integration to send the data from your app to Slack.
Simple vs. feature-laden. Keep the interface as decluttered as possible, so it’s easy for users to find what they need. Visual clarity poses a challenge for feature-laden platforms, so design with a bias toward simplicity. And remember, there will be light users who don’t want to have to figure out, once again, how to run a report. You still need all the features for those power-user admins, but you must also prioritize the light user’s experience.
Mobile. The more people who adopt your app, the more mobile users you’ll have. While you don’t have to design to be mobile-first, you can offer a simplified version of your desktop platform, keeping all the features someone on the go will need when they’re away from their office.
Easy to share. People work on teams for the most part and shared apps help complete shared work. Make it easy for your power user to evangelize and share your product within the organization with a one-click invitation.
Real-time issue resolution. Digital is fast, and users expect to solve any problems encountered in real time. Offer help right in the product through a chat function. No one minds AI if it resolves their issue — they just want it handled now.
Easy to review. Purchase decisions today reflect the power of the end-user. Decisions are made based on word of mouth and 3rd party review sites, so make it easy for your promoters to evangelize for you. Use in-app surveys to identify your happiest customers and then automate the review to link to AppStore or G2 once the survey is completed.
Seamless upgrade to paid. The freemium or trial offer will demonstrate value. When more functionality is required, make it an easy click to the premium product version.
Customer feedback. Build improvement and growth into your product by asking for feedback right in the platform and mobile app. Your buyers and end-users expect you to be optimizing your product, so make it easy for end-users to give feedback in the moment through simple NPS, CSAT, and CES micro-surveys.
How Has the B2B Customer Experience Evolved?
The evolution of B2B customer experience has been influenced by various factors, including advancements in technology, changes in buyer behavior, and shifts in business practices. Here are some stats that reflect some of the ways CX has changed for B2B brands today.
B2B companies that offer a customized eCommerce experience tend to outsell their competitors by 30%.
Mobile ordering in the B2B sector has surged by 250% since the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting a notable transformation in digital practices within the realm of professional procurement and purchasing.
100% of B2B customers want self-service options for at least some parts of the buying process.
Buyers increasingly look to B2B companies as thought leaders and strategic partners, with 84% of B2B executives saying it is very important to lean into their new positions as trusted thought leaders.
52% of B2B buyers say the buying cycle for new purchases has gotten longer, proving that the B2B customer experience journey is more non-linear than ever.
B2B CX continues to change as companies adapt to new technologies and expectations. Successful B2B companies recognize the importance of staying agile, customer-centric, and responsive to emerging trends in order to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
How to Improve the B2B Customer Experience: Best Practices
Improving the B2B customer experience involves a combination of strategic planning, effective communication, and a customer-centric approach. Here are some best practices to improve B2B CX.
Create an Integrated CX Approach
In the B2B world, customers use a wide variety of channels to interact with your brand. However, the data most companies collect stays in those channels, and it is analyzed independently of the broader experience.
To improve customer experience, your organization must adopt an integrated CX approach so that you can unlock valuable insights from all sources of customer data, then take action and drive measurable outcomes for your customers. This means collecting and connecting CX data from every touchpoint and channel for a complete view of the B2B customer journey, then navigating and interpreting that data to understand where to focus for the highest impact for your customer and for your business.
Collect Customer Feedback
Invest time in understanding the unique needs and pain points of your B2B customers. Conduct surveys, interviews, and regular feedback sessions to gather insights into their challenges and expectations.
Using information from unsolicited feedback, companies can gain valuable insights into how to improve their brand, products, services, and overall customer experience. B2B companies that are able to monitor and manage customer feedback also often have a more complete understanding of their customers, and can easily measure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Common sources of customer feedback include:
Customer feedback surveys
Comment cards
Emails and phone calls
Focus group discussions and roundtables
Online reviews and ratings
Social media comments
Customer interviews and business reviews
User experience and usability tests
The most successful companies listen to and act on feedback in order to understand their customers better and deliver improved customer experiences. The challenge is to move beyond simply collecting data. A number of successful B2B brands today deploy Voice of the Customer programs to ensure they are really hearing their customers and extracting rich, meaningful insights from their feedback.
Map the B2B Customer Journey
A customer journey map is a visualization of each step your customers take — from the moment they encounter your brand to when they make a purchase and how they react afterward. Using a customer journey map can help your company continuously identify and anticipate the needs, motivations, and actions of your customers.
Through customer journey mapping, your organization can construct customers’ decision-making scenarios — and better understand the factors that influence purchase decisions and move sales cycles forward. This then aids your efforts to deliver improved customer experiences, drive more sales, acquire and retain more customers, and improve your business processes.
Offer More Personalized Experiences
In a world where consumers are bombarded by hundreds or even thousands of marketing and sales messages every day, personalization holds the key to standing out and cutting through the noise.
There’s a wide range of personalization tactics, both online and offline, that you can apply to improve the B2B buyer’s customer experience — from customer-specific content and personalized packaging to responsive website design and insight into customers’ order histories.
By increasing personalization in interactions, touchpoints, and engagements, you give customers a sense of identity and can more easily attract their attention that way.
Personalization also serves as a sign of respect for customers’ loyalty and business. It signals that your business is interested in strengthening the relationship by providing relevant suggestions, better service, and more informed support. This is why IBM assigns specialists to help its cloud storage suite customers get set up: not only does it help customers maximize the value of IBM’s products and services; it also drives personalized experiences that resonate with individual organizations.
Ensure Timely Response, Delivery, and Resolution
Great customer service is a major component of great CX. This means ensuring timely response, delivery, and resolution of issues; it means attending to customer needs and solving their specific problems. It’s important to provide responsive customer service through various channels, including email, phone, and live chat. Also, be sure you work closely with customers to address challenges, gather their input, and implement solutions that align with their business objectives.
Maintaining open and proactive communication throughout the customer journey is also a critical aspect of B2B CX management. Keep customers informed about product updates, new features, and relevant industry trends. Clearly communicate pricing, terms, and conditions. Through proactive communication and transparency, you can inspire brand trust and establish a solid foundation for long-term relationships.
Provide Self-Service Options
With research showing that B2B customers want self-service options for parts of the buying process, it’s essential for your organization to explore and invest in self-service technologies.
Just as a person shopping online has a wide range of products and services to choose from, your B2B buyers should also be able to access content, support, scheduling, and purchasing independently, without direct assistance from a representative.
Examples of self-service tools that B2B businesses can use include:
Customer portals for account management, order history, and invoice tracking
E-commerce platforms for product catalog, online ordering, secure payment processing
Knowledge bases and customer support portals for troubleshooting guides, FAQs, ticket submission, case tracking, and self-help resources
Feedback and survey tools for sharing input on customers’ experiences and gathering insights for improvement
Collaboration tools for document sharing, project management, and communication channels
Chatbots for responses to common queries, product recommendations, and product and service guides
Offering self-service tools and options can directly impact customer satisfaction, as well as contribute to operational efficiency, allowing your team to focus on more strategic aspects of your relationship with clients.
Digitize the B2B Journey
B2B buyers demand tools that simplify and streamline the entire buying process — from research and planning, through engagement, to the post-sales phase. This makes it critical to invest in technology that will better engage consumers and make every part of the customer journey pain-free.
You can implement user-friendly online platforms, intuitive interfaces, and streamlined procedures for ordering, invoicing, and payment. Another good example is utilizing digital “track and trace” systems so that clients can see the status of their orders and actions in real time. As you digitize the B2B journey, ensure robust data security measures to instill trust in your B2B customers and help them build confidence in your partnership.
Achieve B2B Customer Experience Excellence with InMoment
Managing the B2B customer experience is not just about individual transactions but about building and sustaining successful, long-term relationships with your customers. With InMoment, you can integrate customer signals across all relevant channels, gain deeper insights into the B2B buyer’s journeys and experiences, and take informed action with the world’s most recommended CX platform.
References
SmartKarrot. “75 Must-Know Customer Experience Statistics to Move Your Business Forward” (https://www.smartkarrot.com/resources/blog/customer-experience-statistics/). Access 1/3/2024.
TrustRadius. “022 B2B Buying Disconnect: The Age of the Self-Serve Buyer” (https://solutions.trustradius.com/vendor-blog/2022-b2b-buying-disconnect-the-age-of-the-self-serve-buyer). Access 1/3/2024.
Edelman. “How B2B Companies are Adapting Customer Engagement Strategies During COVID” (https://www.edelman.com/expertise/business-marketing/how-b2b-companies-are-adapting-covid). Access 1/3/2024.
Korn Ferry. “The 2021 Buyer Preferences Study: Reconnecting with Buyers” (https://www.kornferry.com/content/dam/kornferry-v2/featured-topics/pdf/2021-Buyer-Preferences-Study.pdf). Access 1/3/2024.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
It can be argued that the customer experience is more important in retail than any other industry. With 93% of consumers reading reviews before making a purchase, and 58% of consumers being willing to drive further or pay more for a product with good reviews, a good customer experience and brand reputation management have never been more critical than it is today.
The retail customer experience is also a complex one. It encompasses the in-store experience just as much as it does the online experience. In order to master the retail customer experience, you first need to understand the whats, the whys, and the hows.
What is the Retail Customer Experience?
At its core, the retail customer experience encompasses every touchpoint a customer has with a brand, from the first interaction to post-purchase engagement. But, it goes beyond transactions, it also encompasses emotions, perceptions, and overall satisfaction with the brand from the view of the customer.
Why is the Retail Customer Experience Important
The retail customer experience has become increasingly significant in the success and sustainability of any business operating in the modern marketplace. Consumers can quickly become lifetime customers and brand advocates when they have continuous positive experiences with a brand. But, there are more benefits to a well-crafted retail customer experience that go beyond customer loyalty. Let’s examine a few:
1. Revenue Growth
Satisfied customers are more inclined to spend more and make repeat purchases. When the retail customer experience exceeds expectations, customers feel a connection with the brand, leading to increased spending and higher lifetime value. Positive experiences contribute directly to revenue growth as customers become more engaged and willing to invest in the brand.
2. Competitive Edge
In a crowded marketplace where products and services may seem similar, the retail customer experience becomes a powerful differentiator. Businesses that prioritize delivering exceptional customer experiences gain a competitive edge over their counterparts. Customers are more likely to choose a brand that provides not only quality products but also a memorable and positive overall experience.
3. Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Satisfied customers become brand ambassadors, sharing their positive experiences through word-of-mouth marketing. Recommendations from friends, family, or online reviews play a significant role in attracting new customers. A brand that consistently delivers excellent retail customer experiences is more likely to benefit from positive word-of-mouth marketing, expanding its customer base organically.
How to Improve the Retail Customer Experience
In order to improve your customer experience in retail stores, you will need to focus on two main types of experiences: in-store and digital. These two types of experiences are equally important in cementing customer loyalty and improving the overall experience that is associated with your brand.
Improving the Digital Retail Experience
Providing an exceptional online retail experience is crucial for capturing and retaining customers. Here are strategies to enhance the digital customer experience:
1. User-Friendly Website
Design and optimize your website for ease of use. Ensure intuitive navigation, quick loading times, and a seamless checkout process. A clutter-free and visually appealing layout enhances user experience and encourages visitors to explore and make purchases.
2. Personalization
Leverage data analytics and customer insights to personalize the online shopping experience. Implement personalized product recommendations, targeted promotions, and customized content based on individual preferences and past interactions. Personalization creates a more engaging and relevant experience for users.
3. Responsive Customer Support
Offer responsive and accessible customer support across various channels, including live chat, email, and social media. Providing real-time assistance and resolving issues promptly contributes to a positive online experience. Implement chatbots for immediate responses and streamline customer communication.
4. Mobile Optimization
Given the prevalence of mobile device usage, optimize your website for mobile responsiveness. Ensure that the online shopping experience is seamless and visually appealing on smartphones and tablets. Mobile optimization is essential for capturing the growing number of consumers who prefer to shop on mobile devices.
5. Secure and Transparent Transactions
Instill confidence in online shoppers by prioritizing the security of online transactions. Clearly communicate your website’s security measures, use secure payment gateways, and provide transparent information about shipping costs and return policies. A secure and transparent transaction process builds trust with customers.
Enhancing the In-Store Retail Customer Experience
While digital experiences are vital, the in-store customer experience remains a cornerstone of retail success. Here are strategies to enhance the in-store retail experience:
1. Store Layout and Design
Create an inviting and well-organized store layout that aligns with your brand identity. Consider factors like product placement, aisle navigation, and overall ambiance. An aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-navigate store layout contributes to a positive in-store experience.
2. Staff Training
Invest in comprehensive training programs for your staff to ensure they provide excellent customer service. Equip them with product knowledge, effective communication skills, and the ability to address customer queries. A well-trained and motivated staff enhances the overall in-store experience for customers.
3. In-Store Events and Promotions
Organize in-store events, promotions, or exclusive sales to create a sense of excitement and urgency. These initiatives not only attract foot traffic but also provide customers with a memorable and enjoyable shopping experience. Consider incorporating interactive elements or entertainment to make the events more engaging.
4. Efficient Checkout Process
Streamline the checkout process to minimize wait times and enhance convenience. Implement technologies like self-checkout kiosks or mobile payment options to offer customers faster and more efficient ways to complete their purchases. An efficient checkout process contributes to overall customer satisfaction.
5. Customer Feedback Stations
Place feedback stations within the store to encourage customers to share their opinions and suggestions. Use this feedback to make informed improvements and adjustments. Actively seeking and acting upon customer feedback demonstrates a commitment to continuously enhancing the in-store experience.
Using InMoment’s predictive customer analytics tool, you get automated insights from unstructured feedback that help you notice what needs to be improved, or what is performing well.
By focusing on both the digital and in-store aspects of the retail customer experience, businesses can create a cohesive and comprehensive strategy that caters to the diverse needs and preferences of their customer base. Integrating these strategies ensures a well-rounded approach that fosters customer satisfaction and loyalty across various channels.
How to Measure Customer Experience in Retail
Effectively measuring customer experience in retail is essential for identifying strengths, areas for improvement, and overall customer satisfaction. There are three common customer experience metrics that most companies will use to measure customer experience.
1. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
What it is: The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used metric that assesses customer loyalty by asking a simple question: “How likely are you to recommend our brand to others?”
How to measure: Customers respond on a scale from 0 to 10, categorizing them into promoters (9-10), passives (7-8), and detractors (0-6). The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
Why it matters: NPS provides a direct indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Higher NPS scores indicate a greater likelihood of customers promoting the brand.
2. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Score
What it is: CSAT measures overall customer satisfaction by asking customers to rate their experience on a numerical scale.
How to measure: Typically, customers respond on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10, indicating their level of satisfaction. The average score represents the CSAT score.
Why it matters: CSAT offers a straightforward way to assess customer satisfaction after specific interactions or transactions. Regularly tracking CSAT scores helps in identifying trends and areas for improvement.
3. Customer Effort Score (CES)
What it is: CES measures the ease with which customers can achieve their goals or resolve issues.
How to measure: Customers rate their agreement with statements like “The company made it easy for me to resolve my issue” on a scale. The average score represents the CES.
Why it matters: Reducing customer effort enhances satisfaction and loyalty. A lower CES indicates a more straightforward and positive customer experience.
With InMoment’s reporting platform, your CX program performance can become quickly and easily digestible. We allow advanced data filters that allow you to segment insights for the audience that matters most to you. And, with our Reports and Dashboards Builder, you can create reports tailored to your business.
Retail Customer Experience Trends
As a retailer, you know that the vast majority of the insights you need to shape your merchandising, product development, e-commerce, and overall business strategy are on review sites, social media, from your employees, and beyond. In order to stay ahead of your customers, you need to be utilizing all of these channels to the best of your ability. But, in an effort to help you do so, our strategic insights team has conducted independent research to uncover two major trends in retail customer experience.
Trend #1: Consumers Will No Longer Settle for Convenience
Convenience-based experiences such as self-checkout, buy online and pick up in-store, and flexible payment options are no longer seen as above and beyond features, they have now become the standard. That doesn’t diminish the importance of these features. As a matter of fact, without these features, consumers may not shop with you at all.
In order to take your retail experiences to the next level, you need to embrace the power of social media and influencer marketing. In our research, we found that over 60% of retailers who had a strong TikTok and Instagram presence noted higher “purchase intent” sentiments.
Trend #2: Consumers Now Expect Hybrid Experiences
There is no longer a difference between your in-store customers and your online customers. One in three consumers now expect a blend of both in order to enjoy a seamless, hybrid experience. These hybrid experiences can take many different forms, but we asked consumers to rank the hybrid experiences they expect from retail brands:
In our research, it became clear that consumers were excited at the prospect of using their mobile devices as a part of their in-store experience in a variety of ways:
50% of consumers said they’d like to leverage their phone/an app to view product ratings and reviews while browsing in store
50% of consumers said they’d also like to be able to view product options (such as colors or sizes) by scanning a product with their smartphone in store
33% of consumers said they’d like to view recommended product pairings via an app/mobile site while in store
25% of consumers said they’d like to view social media product reviews/mentions while shopping at a brick-and-mortar location
Essentially, consumers want to bring their favorite digital experience elements into the physical store with them. Whether it’s seeing what other buyers had to say in the moment, getting product pairing recommendations, or other similar options, your consumers are looking to be wowed with personalization while in store. It’s time to start delivering!
Retail Customer Experience Examples
One InMoment client that consistently delivers best-in-class retail experiences is FootLocker. FootLocker was able to utilize the XI Platform to get all of their Voice of Customer and operational data into one, easy to digest platform. As a result, they achieved:
Increased OSAT score
Improved issue resolution
Added social media capabilities to their program
Take Your Retail Customer Experience to the Next Level
Are you curious to see how InMoment can help you improve your retail customer experience? Whether it’s our AI capabilities, customer reporting, or contact center software, we have just the solution for you. Schedule a demo to see for yourself today!
References
Trustmary. Online Reviews: Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind [2023]. (https://trustmary.com/reviews/online-reviews-statistics-that-will-blow-your-mind/). Access 1/3/2024.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
If you received an invitation to take a survey, you would probably be more likely to actually participate if the topic of the survey interested you. That’s the heart of voluntary response sampling. Like all other methods of sampling, voluntary surveys have their pros and cons. It’s one of the easiest ways to sample quickly and get responses, but it can also result in voluntary response bias.
What is Voluntary Response Bias?
A voluntary response is when someone volunteers to be a part of your sample. In doing so, you’re allowing them to skew your data and you don’t get results that are representative of the whole population. Thus, you get biased feedback.
Voluntary response bias refers to how allowing your sample to self-select skews your data, and you don’t actually get results that are representative of your whole population. Voluntary response bias isn’t always inherently bad; it’s not considered the worst of the biases that could arise in your sampling. But it can lead to more extreme results than would actually be true for your population as a whole.
Why Is Voluntary Response Sampling Biased?
When you create a survey, you want to get results that are representative of your population, so you can make the right decisions based on the data. If you’re allowing your sample to self-select, you’re not getting data that shows your entire population. You’re only getting data that reflects your sample. That leaves you with results that aren’t generalizable, and generalizing them anyway is where bias becomes a real problem.
Voluntary response also opens your survey up to the possibility of favoring more extreme results than your population actually experiences. Think about it this way: respondents are more likely to volunteer for a survey if they’re passionate about the topic. The passionate responses can skew your results. You’ll have the customers who loved your product the most (or had a terrible experience) responding instead of your average customer. That could lead to bias problems. You could end up making decisions on products and services that are slightly skewed by voluntary response bias.
What Is an Example of Voluntary Response Bias?
To illustrate voluntary response bias, let’s consider a scenario involving a survey on customer satisfaction with an online retail platform.
Survey Design:
Imagine a company conducts an online survey to gather feedback on customer satisfaction with its e-commerce platform. The survey is distributed through email newsletters and social media, allowing customers to voluntarily respond to questions about their shopping experience.
Voluntary Response Bias in Action:
Customers who had an exceptionally positive or negative experience with the online retail platform may be more motivated to participate in the survey.
Customers with neutral or average experiences may be less inclined to take the time to provide feedback, potentially leading to a skewed representation of customer satisfaction.
Resulting Bias:
The survey results may disproportionately reflect the views of customers who had either highly positive or negative experiences.
The findings might inaccurately suggest that the majority of customers either love or strongly dislike the platform, creating a potential misrepresentation of overall customer sentiment.
Impact on Generalization:
If the company relies solely on these biased survey results, they may make decisions based on an exaggerated understanding of customer satisfaction, potentially overlooking the needs and opinions of the more moderate majority.
This example emphasizes how voluntary response bias can manifest in retail surveys when individuals with extreme opinions are more likely to participate, leading to a sample that may not accurately represent the broader spectrum of customer experiences. Recognizing and addressing such biases is crucial for obtaining a more balanced and reliable understanding of customer sentiments in the retail sector.
How to Avoid Voluntary Response Bias
Voluntary response bias can significantly impact the quality of your research results, and potentially lead to skewed and inaccurate conclusions. There are several steps researchers can take to minimize or avoid voluntary response bias and enhance the overall quality of their research.
1. Use Random Sampling Techniques
Employing random sampling methods such as systematic sampling ensures that every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. This reduces the likelihood of biased participation and contributes to a more representative sample.
2. Ensure Anonymity and Confidentiality
Assure participants of the anonymity and confidentiality of their responses. When individuals feel that their privacy is protected, they may be more willing to participate, reducing concerns about potential repercussions and encouraging a broader range of participants.
3. Implement Post-Stratification Techniques
After data collection, post-stratification techniques can be used to adjust the weights of different groups to match the known population distribution. This helps correct any imbalances that may have occurred during the voluntary response process.
4. Pilot Test Surveys
Before launching a full-scale survey, conduct pilot tests to identify and address any issues with clarity, wording, or potential biases in the questions. Pilot testing helps refine the survey instrument and improve the quality of data collected.
5. Be Transparent About Study Objectives
Clearly communicate the objectives and goals of the research to participants. Providing transparency can attract individuals who are genuinely interested in the topic, rather than those with extreme opinions or biases, leading to a more balanced representation.
By incorporating these strategies into the research design, researchers can minimize the impact of voluntary response bias and enhance the reliability and validity of their study findings. It’s essential to carefully consider the potential biases inherent in voluntary response sampling and take proactive steps to address them throughout the research process.
Advantages of Voluntary Response Sampling
Voluntary response sampling has its own set of advantages in certain situations. Randomly selecting a population and getting those chosen to participate in the survey can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Voluntary response bias can eliminate that. You aren’t spending time tracking down participants and designing your survey since your sample is just those who are already willing to participate in your survey. Here are some key advantages to consider:
1. Cost-Effective
Voluntary response sampling is often a cost-effective method as it involves minimal resources to collect data. Participants voluntarily choose to respond, reducing the need for extensive outreach efforts or financial investment.
2. Quick Data Collection
The process of collecting data through voluntary responses is generally rapid. Since individuals willingly participate, there is no need for lengthy recruitment processes or follow-ups, making it a swift method for gathering information.
3. Ease of Implementation
Implementing voluntary response sampling is relatively simple. Researchers can easily distribute surveys or questionnaires through online platforms, social media, or other accessible channels, allowing for a quick and straightforward data collection process.
4. Wide Geographic Reach
Voluntary response sampling often allows for a broad geographical reach. Through online surveys or other digital means, researchers can attract participants from diverse locations, contributing to a more extensive and varied dataset.
5. Potential for Unbiased Insights
In some cases, voluntary response sampling may provide insights into niche or underrepresented groups. Participants who choose to respond may have a genuine interest in the topic, leading to a diverse set of perspectives that might not be captured through other sampling methods.
Disadvantages of Voluntary Response Sampling
Voluntary response sampling has some very obvious disadvantages. Using voluntary responses can allow bias to creep in on the results and skew data. Voluntary response also can introduce undercoverage bias. Your population could potentially be a complex and diverse group of people. When you use voluntary responses, only those who are inclined to respond are represented in the results. While voluntary response sampling has its advantages, it is crucial to be aware of its limitations and potential drawbacks. Here are some key disadvantages to keep in mind when deciding to participate in voluntary response sampling:
1. Selection Bias
One of the most significant challenges with voluntary response sampling is the potential for selection bias. Individuals who choose to participate may differ systematically from those who do not, leading to a skewed representation of the population and compromising the generalizability of the findings.
2. Lack of Randomization
Voluntary response sampling lacks the randomization inherent in more rigorous sampling methods. This absence of random selection can contribute to a non-representative sample, making it difficult to draw accurate conclusions about the broader population.
3. Limited Control Over Sample Composition
Researchers have limited control over the composition of the sample in voluntary response sampling. Certain demographic groups may be overrepresented or underrepresented, impacting the reliability of the collected data and potentially introducing confounding variables.
4. Potential for Misleading Conclusions
Participants in voluntary response surveys may have strong opinions or experiences related to the subject matter, leading to biased results. This can result in findings that are not reflective of the overall population and may lead to misleading conclusions.
5. Difficulty in Establishing Causation
Establishing causal relationships is challenging with voluntary response sampling, as the self-selected nature of participants makes it difficult to determine whether observed correlations are causal or influenced by other factors.
When utilizing voluntary response sampling, researchers should be aware of these disadvantages and carefully consider the appropriateness of this method for their specific research goals and the nature of the population under study.
Collecting Responses and Feedback
Voluntary response bias is a real risk researchers face when using voluntary response sampling. But considering what voluntary response bias does to a survey also opens up a discussion of the larger challenges with surveying. Choosing methods and creating accurate, simple, and powerful surveys is important, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. With InMoment, you’ll have access to best-in-class survey tools that will help you collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback. Schedule a demo today to see it for yourself!
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Constant engagement is key to creating a quality, meaningfully improved customer experience (CX). And for banks especially, the quality of the experiences customers have with a brand is the key factor in determining a customer’s longevity and willingness to maintain a relationship with a company. While an integrated CX approach demands that you go beyond the survey and look at data from everywhere – social reviews, call transcripts, chat logs, email threads, and more, CX surveys are the foundation. Banks can and should engage with customers via CX surveys and other feedback methods to see what customers love about the experience and what might need a little tweaking. Even more importantly, banks should engage with customers to let them know that they’re cared for not just as customers, but people.
Customers who feel heard and seen in this way will keep coming back even when the competition out there is fierce (and as you well know, it’s always fierce in the banking world). But what best practices should you follow to create winning CX surveys for bank customers?
Most banks rely on surveys to engage with their customers and gather this valuable intelligence, which is why today’s conversation focuses not ‘just’ on how to build a great survey, but how to do so in a way that speaks effectively to banking customers. So, with that in mind, let’s kick things off by going over our two favorite survey types: relationship surveys and transactional surveys.
Relationship Surveys
Relationship surveys are all about the big picture—brands in every industry use them to get a glimpse of the entire customer-company relationship instead of one or two transactions. A good relationship survey gives banks not only how their customers feel about experiences now, but also helps highlight which experience elements might be even more influential tomorrow.
What follows is the secret sauce for a great relationship survey. You want to include metrics that measure overall satisfaction and loyalty. You also need questions about brand perception, channel usage and satisfaction, product usage and satisfaction, and the experiences that impacted, or are impacting, your customers the most. Questions about marketing communication perception never hurt either! All of these questions, when used together, will give your bank a 360-degree view of customer relationships that goes a long way toward Experience Improvement (XI).
Transactional Surveys
As its name suggests, a transactional survey is all about how well (or not) a transaction at your bank went for your customer. These surveys can be tuned to both in-person interactions and online banking. Though transactional surveys are of a smaller scale than relationship ones, they’re also much more specific, which is great when you’re trying to get into the details of individual interactions.
Generally speaking, you want your transactional survey to ask how well the transaction went, overall satisfaction with elements like application processes and bank teller interactions, and whether there were any problems with either the transaction itself or the resolution that followed. All of that makes for a good enough survey, but we challenge you to go beyond by also asking about elements like how knowledgeable your customers think your reps are, how complete your information is, and whether it’s easy to jump between channels for a more fluid experience.
The Next Step
Whether you’re looking to design your first survey or double-checking whether your current one is up to scratch, we also challenge you to bear something else in mind: having a survey is great, but knowing when and where to deploy it is even better. Hot alerts, contextual survey deployments, and being able to analyze unstructured survey feedback can help take your bank straight to the top.
Interested in learning more on how to do all that? Click here to read our full-length eBook on how banks like yours can use surveys to meaningfully improve experiences, strengthen your bottom line, and build meaningful relationships with customers!
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
How do you respond when someone asks, “Are you doing okay today?” What if someone asked, “How do you feel today?” Most likely, you would answer these two questions slightly differently. One question asks you just generally how you feel while the other implies that you might not be doing well in the first place, so you might answer differently. There was bias in the wording of one question while the other stayed more open-ended.
You have possibly come across this phenomenon in your customer surveying experiences. Asking the right question to get responses from customers is crucial to making surveys a valuable tool. When your business decisions are influenced by the feedback you get in customer surveys, it’s even more important to make sure you’re asking the right questions to get the right feedback. But what are the right questions to ask? Read on to learn more about the different types of customer survey questions and what questions can help you get the most valuable feedback.
What Are the Different Types of Customer Survey Questions?
There are different types of questions you can ask customers for different types of surveys. A great survey will include a variety of questions to gather a variety of feedback. Depending on your goal for the feedback, you’ll want to focus on different aspects of the problem you’re exploring. We’ll walk you through four different types of survey questions to consider.
Open-Ended Questions
If you’re looking for deeper insights, open-ended questions can be extremely beneficial. These questions will include a section for customers to fill in or answer with more in-depth thoughts. These types of questions are sometimes more complex and can’t be answered in a word or two. The feedback you collect may also be complex, so it’s important to have a good way to understand and utilize the data. When you get longer answers, it can be difficult to mine for the key insights, so it’s important to have a strong analytics system in place.
Open-ended questions also run the risk of customers choosing to skip these questions. These questions require more thought and effort to write up or talk about their answers that some customers may choose to go onto the next question. So open-ended questions can be extraordinarily valuable, but they need to be used sparingly to help customers finish the survey. Save open-ended questions for the insights you need that can’t be gathered from another question type.
Yes or No Questions
While open-ended questions can provide deep insight, simple questions still serve a valuable purpose in a customer survey. A yes or no question just asks customers to select an option between yes or no. These questions are simple for customers to answer, so very few will skip the question. The main drawback of this type of question is that it will only provide a little information about how the customer feels about a topic. But, despite that, these questions prove valuable to revealing a problem. For more insight, you may need a follow-up question, but a simple yes or no question can still give you a good idea of where a problem may lie.
Options Questions
Options questions are another simple question type that gets more specific than just yes or no questions. For these types of questions, customers will choose from a predetermined set of options. Sometimes it’s beneficial to allow customers to select more than one option, and you should make that clear to customers. Option questions are also often very useful to find insight into if something is a problem—without requiring too much effort on the customer’s part to answer the question. The data you gather from options questions can be more manageable since it’s already decently organized, and the insights can still be incredibly valuable.
Scale Questions
Scale questions allow customers to slide or select a numeric value that aligns with their answer. Often these numbers are attached to an answer or feelings. For example, a scale question might have three numbers for disagree, neutral, and agree. Scale questions give less detailed insight than open-ended questions, but they can give more detail than some yes or no questions. Scale questions, though, can involve more effort on the part of the customer—depending on how complex the scale is. On the other hand, scale questions data is very easy to use, find the average of, and begin implementing.
Overall, these are some of the types of questions that many people use in customer surveys. All of these questions can be utilized in many different survey formats. These are some of the most common survey formats used.
Survey Formats
Email surveys. These surveys typically include a link to questions that target a customer’s experience. Sometimes email surveys come after a purchase or to just check in with customers at any point in their journey. These online surveys are usually easy for customers to respond to, but sometimes the extra step of following the link can lose some customers and potential respondents.
Pop-up surveys. Instead of sending out an email, you could use a pop-up survey to ask customers about their experience. For example, after a purchase, you might have a brief pop-up survey that asks them to rate their experience and to illustrate any challenges they faced on your website.
Exit surveys. When a customer decides to leave your company, an exit survey can be a valuable tool to find out why. These are often online surveys that pop up after a customer unsubscribes, or they could be email surveys that are delivered when a customer hasn’t purchased a product in a long time.
Receipt surveys. If you use a brick and mortar store, you probably hand out receipts to most customers. A link to a survey on the receipt can be a way to learn more about customers’ experiences. These links also work well for digital receipts.
Comment card surveys. These surveys are an old staple, but they’re a staple for a reason. Using pen and paper, you can leave physical cards for customers to fill out and leave comments on their experience. It can take more of your time to enter this data (as online surveys are fairly simple to begin analyzing), but this survey type can reach other customers online surveys may not.
In-store surveys. If you have a brick and mortar store, you can set up a survey system inside the store. Kiosks by entrances and exits are a great way to reach customers who may not subscribe to your email list or visit your website.
What Are the Top Customer Questions to Get the Most Valuable Feedback?
The type of question and the format of the survey all influence how customers may respond, but the actual content of the questions can also have a large impact on how customers respond. What are the most valuable questions to ask in a survey? These are some of the main categories of questions and the specific questions that can help you get the most valuable feedback from customers.
Demographic Questions
What is your name? This question is simple for customers to answer and can give you a way to organize the rest of the data you collect.
What is your age/gender? These are more simple questions that customers likely won’t skip, but they can help you determine if there are any trends among certain demographics for your products or services.
Where do you access your news? Understanding where your customers are going for information can help you determine where they could come across your products and how to best reach them in the future.
Psychographic Questions
Do you prefer reading online or through a physical copy? Knowing where your customers want to get their information is important to know how to reach certain groups of customers and potential customers. If you know that your customers like to read physical copies, you’ll know it could be advantageous to have physical copies of materials for customers.
How do you prefer to receive information? It can be valuable to simply ask how your customers prefer to receive information from you. If you know how they want to receive information, you can then focus your efforts on particular channels.
For Marketing
How did you learn about our company? If you know how your customers learned about your company, you can begin focusing your marketing efforts on particular areas to reach more potential customers.
How often do you use our product/service? Knowing when your customers use your products can help you find the specific areas where you could improve your marketing efforts to reach your customers. For example, if you learn your customers use your products or services three times a week, you could better market to future customers about how your products could be used.
What made you decide to purchase from us? Learning about what drew customers to go through with a purchase can help you know where and how to enhance that to draw more customers through the marketing funnel and to commit to purchasing.
For the Website
Have you used our website before? This question is simple and takes little time for customers to respond to, but it can inform you on whether or not customers use your website in the first place.
Did you find what you were looking for on the website? It’s important to know how easy it is to navigate your website and how easy it is for customers to find what they’re looking for. It’s even more important to know if customers aren’t finding what they’re looking for, so you can begin to improve your website to facilitate ease and help customers make purchases.
What would you change about the website? Customers may point out weak places on your website, or they might point out little points that could’ve prevented them from going through with a purchase. Knowing these things can help you fine tune your website to enhance the customer experience.
For Product Improvements
Which features do you love about this product? If you know what customers love, you’ll know what’s working well. If you know what’s working well, you’ll be better able to improve your products to enhance what works. If customers love a particular part of your product, you can bring that out more, adjust the parts that aren’t working, and add what customers love to new products.
What would you change about the product? If a customer would change something about the product, it’s worth knowing about. Those suggestions can help you pinpoint areas for improvement and how a customer might like to see the product improved.
What do you like the least about this product? Asking customers about what they don’t like can show you where the weak spots are with your product, so you can begin finding the right ways to improve it.
For Products That Aren’t Selling
What challenges are you trying to solve with this product? If you know why a customer bought the product, you can figure out how you might market the product that isn’t selling better. For example, if customers use a product that’s not selling well to solve a problem that you hadn’t intended the product for, you could shift marketing to begin targeting customers with that particular problem.
What would have stopped you from buying the product? If you know where a customer would have given up, you can work to keep future customers from stopping at that point.
Do you feel that the product is worth the cost? Sometimes a product isn’t selling because the price doesn’t match the product. Knowing this can help you adjust and find ways to make a product be successful.
To Measure Customer Experience
How likely are you to recommend this product or service? This simple question has customers rank the likelihood of recommending the product on a scale of 1 to 10. Ultimately, this question can help you determine your Net Promoter Score.
How satisfied are you with your experience with our company? You likely want to know how satisfied your customer is with your company and products, and customer satisfaction survey questions can help you understand that. Using this survey question can also help you determine your Customer Satisfaction score.
How well did our company help you handle an issue you had? Customers come across issues regularly, and your customer service representatives will often help them. It’s important to know how your team is working and where your customer effort score is.
5 Things Good Customer Survey Questions Should Do
Customer surveys play a pivotal role in understanding and improving the customer experience. The effectiveness of these surveys hinges on the quality of the questions posed. Let’s delve into the key attributes that define what good customer survey questions should do:
1. Elicit Specific and Actionable Responses
The hallmark of effective survey questions is their ability to extract clear and actionable feedback. Ambiguous or convoluted queries can muddy the waters, making it essential to craft questions that lead to precise and useful insights.
2. Address Relevant Topics
Good survey questions are purpose-driven, focusing on topics that directly align with the objectives of the survey. Whether gauging satisfaction levels or exploring product preferences, questions should be tailored to the specific goals at hand.
3. Consider the Customer’s Perspective
Crafting questions from the customer’s viewpoint is crucial. Language should be accessible, avoiding industry jargon or technical terms that might alienate respondents. Questions should resonate with customers, ensuring clarity and ease of understanding.
4. Encourage Honest and Unbiased Feedback
Neutral wording and a balanced approach characterize questions that elicit honest feedback. Customers should feel empowered to express their opinions candidly, even if they are critical. Minimizing bias in the questions contributes to the reliability of the responses.
5. Offer a Range of Response Options
Versatility in response formats—whether scales, multiple-choice, or open-ended—enables customers to express their sentiments in ways that suit them best. This flexibility enhances the richness of the data and ensures a comprehensive understanding of customer attitudes.
In essence, the success of customer survey questions lies in their capacity to generate actionable insights. By considering the customer’s perspective, maintaining clarity, and aligning questions with the survey’s objectives, businesses can gather valuable information to enhance their offerings and cultivate strong customer relationships.
Best Practices to Make Your Customer Questions More Fruitful
Once you have your survey questions designed, there are a few more best practices to keep in mind as you prepare your customer surveys:
Always A/B test your surveys before sending them out to customers. It’s important to figure out what will work well in your survey early on.
Make sure you ask satisfied customers and unsatisfied customers. Both types of customers will give you different results, so it’s important to ask both how they feel about something.
Always ask short and relevant questions. Longer questions are complicated and hard to answer, and short questions will get your more response and better data.
Send the surveys at the right time. Timing is key to nearly everything, including surveys. Research to determine when it would be best to send your particular surveys.
Thank your customers for their feedback. People love to be valued for the work they do, so thanking your customers will help them feel valued and encourage them to respond to future surveys.
Overall, focusing on your survey questions can help you gain valuable feedback and insights from your customers. Surveys aren’t the only way to get information, but they are certainly a valuable tool to utilize. Asking the right survey questions reduces the bias that can come from wording questions in particular ways, which can lead to false information. Information gathered that is inaccurate, untruthful, or not useful can actually harm a company in the long run because there should always be a constant improvement.
Instead, it’s important to focus on choosing good survey questions that are both accurate and valuable. To learn more about how to improve your surveys, talk with an expert today!
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Customer experience metrics are crucial to tracking the success of a customer experience program. They help prioritize actions, benchmark against competitors, and more. Learning how to utilize these metrics is important to create long-lasting CX success.
As competition and buyer empowerment compound, customer experience (CX) is proving to be the only truly durable competitive advantage. Organizations must learn how to measure, manage, and act on customer experience KPIs and metrics so that they can deliver experiences that lead to increased loyalty, lower churn, more referrals, positive word of mouth, and higher-value customers.
Companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn on average an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience.
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don’t focus on customers.
As your organization starts your customer experience management efforts, you need to consider how to measure it. CX is a multi-layered concept, and to truly understand customer experience at scale, you need to have a good understanding of customer experience KPIs and metrics.
How to Measure Customer Experience
Measuring customer experience is a strategic imperative that helps your company build strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers, stay competitive, and adapt to changing market dynamics.
Measuring CX requires a layered approach that can include in-depth user interviews and gathering data at key points of contact, as well as tracking customer experience metrics like NPS, CSAT, and CES, among others. It is an ongoing process that requires attention to customer feedback, continuous improvement, and a commitment to delivering value.
It also involves collecting and connecting customer experience data from every touchpoint and channel for a complete view of the customer journey. After all, customers use a variety of channels to interact with your brand, such as your store, website, mobile app, contact center, social media, online review websites, and so much more.
As your company looks to measure customer experience KPIs and metrics, it’s important to integrate data from all the touchpoints and channels that matter to your business so that metrics are not analyzed independently of the broader experience.
Keep in mind that no single customer experience KPI or metric will give you a complete picture, and you will have to discover how to adapt the metrics you’re tracking to your business case. Nonetheless, various customer experience survey methodologies and metrics are used across industries and serve as a great place to start as you grow your program.
What Are Customer Experience KPIs and Metrics?
Customer experience KPIs and metrics are indicators that enable your organization to gain a comprehensive understanding of your customer experience performance. Regularly tracking and analyzing these metrics can guide your business as you look to make informed decisions that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a CX metric that surveys customers based on one question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”
Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal, satisfied customers who will help fuel your business growth by buying and referring other customers to your business.
Passives (score 7-8) are also satisfied customers, but their lack of enthusiasm may render them vulnerable to offerings from the competition.
Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who may impede your growth and spread negative word of mouth about your business.
To calculate your Net Promoter Score, simply subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.
NPS Survey Powered by InMoment
NPS is a valuable tool for measuring not just customer experience, but also customer loyalty, since it transcends single experiences. It is often referred to as a brand or relationship metric. The NPS question asks the customer to draw on the sum of their experiences with your company, not just the most recent, making it a good indicator for repurchasing (and growth). As a result, it is often considered a “board-level” metric.
NPS is a great place to start when you’re looking to measure customer experience. However, if you would like to learn more about the experience you provide at specific touchpoints or transactions along your customer’s journey, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) should be one of the customer experience KPIs to track.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is the most popular transactional metric. A customer satisfaction survey asks a customer how satisfied they are with a recent interaction — often a purchase or a customer service call — on a rating scale. CSAT is flexible and highly customizable. In some cases, emojis (smileys, frowns) are used instead of numerical scales to overcome any language barrier.
Above is a 2-step CSAT survey on a mobile app powered by InMoment
In the realm of CX, a short CSAT survey is most often used to gauge customer satisfaction with interactions with support personnel. It’s a great tool for identifying support agents who may need more training or for quantifying the impact of your last team-wide training effort. You will need to dig into the qualitative feedback you receive to understand which attributes of satisfaction are most important to your customers and which areas require improvement.
A related survey metric is the PSAT or Product Satisfaction Score. This is an adaption of the CSAT survey that is popular with software developers and advocates of product-led growth. An example is an in-app survey that asks a software user, “How satisfied are you with this product or feature?” The specific, contextual feedback that users provide in a PSAT survey helps to prioritize a roadmap of product improvements.
Customer Effort Score (CES)
Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys ask the customer, “How much effort did you have to expend to handle your request?” This is scored on a numeric scale. It’s a customer service metric that is typically used to improve systems that may frustrate customers.
Customers may then respond on a 5- or 7-point scale, and scores are calculated simply by getting the average of all the collected responses. Reducing customer effort can be a valuable marketing investment that makes your brand stand out in a sea of unaccommodating, not-very-helpful competitors.
CES advocates believe that when it comes to customer service or support, “effortlessness” is the most relevant attribute of customer satisfaction. Tracking Customer Effort Score helps you identify and remove obstacles, and solve problems, so your customers can find success with ease. According to the Harvard Business Review, CES can predict repurchasing even better than CSAT, making it a go-to critical metric for companies that depend heavily on successful onboarding and customer success to lay the foundation for repeat purchases.
Churn Rate
Customer churn or attrition is defined as the loss of clients or customers and is also one of the first and most obvious indicators of customer dissatisfaction. This makes churn rate one of your most important customer experience metrics; it is especially critical if your business model is subscription-based (for example: software companies and membership-based services).
To calculate the customer churn rate, first determine the period for which you want to calculate the churn rate (e.g., monthly, quarterly, or annually). Then count the customers at the start of the period, as well as the number of customers lost during the period. Use the following formula to calculate the churn rate:
Churn Rate (C) = (Number of Customers Lost % Number of Customers at the Start of the Period) × 100
This formula expresses the churn rate as a percentage.
It’s important to note that while calculating the churn rate provides valuable insights, understanding the reasons behind customer churn is equally crucial. Analyzing customer feedback, conducting surveys, and identifying patterns can help you take proactive measures to reduce churn and improve overall customer satisfaction.
Tracking churn rate will also allow you to see and apply new ways to handle the challenging situation of customers canceling their plans or subscriptions as well as to overcome other roadblocks to fostering customer loyalty. Organizations that consistently keep an eye on this customer experience KPI are also better at predicting if and when a customer is at risk of churning so that they can take the next step and close the loop with at-risk customers.
Retention Rate
Customer retention rate is a customer experience KPI that measures the percentage of customers your business retains over a specific period. It’s a great way to assess your customer experience performance as well as the effectiveness of your customer retention strategies. A higher customer retention rate typically indicates that a company is keeping its existing customers satisfied.
To calculate your retention rate as a percentage, simply follow this formula: customer retention Rate = (Retained Customers % Number of Customers at the Start of the Period) × 100.
Monitoring and improving customer retention rates are essential for the long-term success of your organization. A high retention rate is often associated with increased customer lifetime value (CLV) and reduced customer acquisition costs. To make the most out of this metric, you should complement retention rate analysis with customer feedback to continuously enhance the customer experience and address potential areas of concern.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric that represents the predicted net profit your company can expect to earn from a long-term relationship with a single customer. This will tell you what a single customer is worth to your business throughout the course of the relationship.
Learning how to measure and increase customer lifetime value will help your company forge stronger customer relationships and achieve a competitive edge in the market. Increasing CLV will also improve the long-term profitability of your business, allowing your company to identify which customers are most valuable over time and determine how to allocate resources more efficiently to serve and retain those customers.
The simplest formula for calculating customer lifetime value is: CLV = customer value (average purchase value x average purchase frequency) x average customer lifespan.
First Response Time (FRT)
First Response Time (FRT) is a crucial metric for measuring customer experience, particularly in customer support and service environments. It represents the time it takes for a customer to receive an initial response after making a query or reporting an issue.
This CX metric matters because quick responses contribute to higher customer satisfaction. Customers appreciate the timely acknowledgment of their concerns, which demonstrates that the company values their time and is committed to addressing their needs promptly. First Response Time can even influence your company’s reputation: brands that are known for quick and efficient customer service are likely to be perceived positively, while a reputation for slow response times can harm your overall brand image.
Average Resolution Time
Average Resolution Time is a customer experience KPI that provides insights into customer service efficiency and directly impacts customer experience and satisfaction. By tracking this actionable CX metric, your company can set goals to reduce the time it takes to resolve issues, while also continually improving support processes, leading to an enhanced customer experience over time.
When quick and efficient issue resolution contributes to a positive overall experience, your company is better equipped to foster customer loyalty. Understanding how much time is typically spent on resolving customer issues can even help your company allocate resources appropriately. This can involve adjusting staffing levels, providing additional training, or implementing new technologies to improve efficiency.
CSAT vs NPS vs CES
There are always conversations around the three most popular customer experience KPIs: CSAT vs NPS vs CES. Which of these CX metrics are most suitable for your company? What are the advantages and limitations of each? These metrics differ in terms of the insights they provide and the areas of customer satisfaction they focus on.
CSAT captures satisfaction with specific interactions, NPS evaluates loyalty and advocacy, and CES assesses the ease of the customer experience. By utilizing a combination of these metrics, businesses can gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategies to enhance the overall customer experience.
Advantages
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a useful customer experience KPI because it’s an easy-to-calculate metric that provides actionable insights. Your team can follow up with detractors to understand the reasons for their dissatisfaction and take corrective action. NPS also allows you to benchmark your score against competitors and industry standards, providing context for your overall performance.
Meanwhile, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) surveys are relatively easy to administer and understand. They often use a simple scale and provide immediate feedback, with some surveys being conducted right after a specific customer interaction or transaction, providing real-time feedback.
Advocates of Customer Effort Score (CES) often highlight the ease with which they can gather actionable insights from responses. CES results often offer specific areas for improvement, helping companies identify and address high-impact pain points in the customer journey.
Limitations
For larger organizations, NPS on its own may be too simplistic of a metric. It helps you understand that customers have had a positive or negative experience, but not necessarily why that’s the case. NPS works best if paired with other customer experience metrics, or when you utilize a secondary follow-up question to investigate the customer experience in greater detail.
CSAT, meanwhile, may not provide the most comprehensive view of the overall customer experience since it focuses on satisfaction at a particular point in time. The interpretation of satisfaction scores can also vary between individual customers, and what one considers satisfactory might not be the same for another.
The same goes with CES: it may not necessarily capture the entire customer experience and may focus more on transactional aspects. Interpreting CES scores on their own also often requires a broader understanding of the context of the customer experience, and a low score doesn’t always indicate a systemic issue.
Should You Measure All the CX Metrics?
Given the advantages and limitations of the customer experience KPIs listed above, should you measure all these CX metrics?
The short answer is: no. While tracking and measuring as many CX metrics as possible can be helpful in understanding and improving your performance, it’s not always necessary or practical to monitor every possible KPI or metric. The choice of metrics is not even as important as you might think, since driving improvement is what’s important.
With that in mind, choose metrics based on what you’ll be able to do with the data they provide. Are the results going to enable you to take action? If not, don’t spend time on them. The selection of specific metrics should align with your business goals, industry, and the nature of your customer interactions. It’s also important to regularly reassess your customer experience KPIs and metrics to ensure they remain relevant as your business evolves.
3 Most Common CX Metrics Questions
Customer experience (CX) metrics are a CX program’s bread and butter. NPS, CSAT, and CES have historically been the main tools every program utilizes to have a systematic way of establishing a voice of customer (VoC) source and leveraging those findings to improve customer experiences. But it’s not easy—a CX metric score alone can’t create transformation.
CX metrics aren’t one-size-fits-all. Certain CX metrics are more fitting for specific industries—and even then your brand might not need to use the same metrics as your direct competitors. There’s no one golden method for measuring CX metrics, which is actually why many businesses struggle to create a success framework.
What CX Metrics Can You Use to Determine Industry and Organizational Maturity?
Before you can answer this question for your company, there are three things you should answer first:
How are you measuring the customer experience? Is it through satisfaction or NPS, or is it another metric that aligns with the goals you have?
What are you doing with the metric? How are the metrics of field services, retail, call center, first-contact resolution, etc. used?
From an employee perspective, are you doing something beyond a basic employee engagement study? Or do you have an employee pulse metric by division, region, or queue?
There’s no one-size-fits-all metric that determines maturity? Instead, focus on where your company is toward your specific goals. Success is determined by how close you are to achieving that goal, instead of a set of objective metrics that may not even relate to your business. Truly mature organizations are aligned on specific business goals and have customer experience KPIs directly attached to those individual goals. They frequently check in on those metrics and take action to move the needle and tie that success back to their experience programs.
How Can You Tie Metrics Directly to CX and VoC Programs Versus Other Internal and External Factors?
The important thing is to look at your organization and how they talk about success as well as learning to speak that language. Are you a finance, operations, or retention-focused organization? And how are you integrating operational, technical, and financial data with customer survey data?
Organizations that are technically or engineering-focused often look for an extreme amount of precision. But survey data doesn’t always lead to one answer or the answer you expect. The real question is, “How do you pull information together and communicate that collectively?” As much as the mathematical connections are crucial, so are the practical ones.
Ultimately, metrics can be tied either statistically or practically, but the latter is much more realistic for a business. For example, the broader benefits when enabling an entire organization are hard to quantify but there could be specific benefits your program has contributed to making a project more successful. Maybe the insights your program provided can take accountability for 10% of the project’s effects. Then you can say, “It wasn’t all from our VoC or CX program but we get credit for that 10%.”
How to Analyze Which Attributes Influence NPS in Survey Analysis?
Let’s say your organization’s leadership is focusing in on NPS—where you are, what drives it, and so on. So, you try structural equation modeling, key driver analysis, or heavy-duty analytics. That approach is equatable to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Instead, you want to break methodology down to core factors—using statistical analysis or text analytics—to see what themes come out and categorize them according to where your organization is.
Now, at an executive level, you might not want to communicate the “R-squared” of the modeling. Usually, executives just want answers to the questions, “What’s driving NPS?” and “What should I do with it?” Your job is to articulate the answers in a clear and simple way throughout the organization. That will drive your success from the top down. But of course, you should still have in-depth analyses prepared in your back pocket if you encounter someone who is statistically oriented.
How Can I Use KPIs to Improve Customer Experience?
Improving customer experience starts with tracking your current CX metrics, listening to customers, and analyzing data for insights that will be essential to forming an action plan. Keep in mind that this is a cycle that your organization has to do consistently and regularly.
Instead of sending out feedback or customer satisfaction surveys only once or twice a year, you may consider investing in a customer experience management software platform that enables your organization to achieve always-on listening. This means that you’re able to capture CX data and feedback from various touchpoints and channels, such as social media, website and mobile app analytics, call center transcripts, and online reviews, as well as from targeted surveys that deliver results in real time.
After you take these actions, you measure the response to your improvements and determine the success of your efforts. And once you’ve completed the cycle, you must do it all over again.
Tracked and managed the right way, the customer experience KPIs and metrics listed above should help support your organization’s commitment to putting customers first. They’re useful for collecting valuable sentiment data, generating actionable insights, and predicting future behavior. Most importantly, these metrics enable your organization to take the guesswork out of your strategy, accurately measure customer experience, and inspire more moments of customer delight.
Your Next Steps: Taking Action
Customer experience involves multiple touchpoints and interactions across various channels and stages of the customer journey. Capturing and measuring the entire, multi-faceted experience requires a comprehensive approach that takes into account diverse customer interactions.
This is where InMoment comes in. Combining award-winning technology with expert services in customer experience measurement and management, InMoment helps today’s top brands deploy programs that are designed to measure customer experience KPIs and metrics in ways that are simple, speedy, and scalable.
References
SuperOffice. 32 Customer Experience Statistics You Need to Know for 2024 (https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-statistics/). Access 12/1/2023.
Forbes. 50 Stats That Prove The Value Of Customer Experience (https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/09/24/50-stats-that-prove-the-value-of-customer-experience/). Access 12/1/2023.
Harvard Business Review. Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers (https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers). Access 11/30/2023.
Unlock Expert Guidance on Today’s CX Challenges & Opportunities
Whether you’re struggling with limited resources, data fragmentation, or evolving customer expectations, this guide offers the expert advice you need to elevate your CX strategy. Download now to discover how to transform these challenges into growth opportunities.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
Get a first look at the trends that matter most and how they can impact your customer relationships, drive growth, and strengthen your overall strategy.
Thank you
Your download will begin shortly. If it doesn’t, click on the download button.
