A customer’s experience doesn’t start and end with purchasing your product or service. It’s a journey encompassing every point of interaction with your brand, from the initial awareness to leaving an online review. Managing this experience through a customer-centric approach can help businesses strengthen their customer relationships for long-term success.

What is Customer Experience Management?

To grasp customer experience management, it’s essential to first understand customer experience itself. Customer Experience (CX) is the overall perception someone has of your brand based on their thoughts and feelings after each interaction with your business.

From visiting your Instagram page to buying your product, each touchpoint along a customer’s journey contributes to their feelings about your brand and what it offers. If those feelings are largely positive, the customer is likely to become a loyal advocate for you and help enhance your brand reputation. In fact, businesses that prioritize CX witness an 80% increase in revenue, which further underscores the impact of a customer-centric approach. 

Furthermore, organizations that choose InMoment for the customer experience management solution realize ROI in half the time compared to competitors. 

To see how much customer experience ROI InMoment can deliver for you by utilizing the XI platform, fill out the ROI calculator below:

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Customer Experience Management (CXM) is the set of processes that aims to deliver that positive experience to your customers at each step of their journey. It helps brands track, analyze, and organize each customer interaction with them. As a result, businesses gain valuable insight into customer expectations, which guides strategy on boosting retention and loyalty.

Importance of Customer Experience Management

Focusing on delivering a positive customer experience gives you a crucial edge over your competition. Here is how customer experience management helps make that possible for you:

• It enhances customer retention and loyalty. 83% of customers agree that they feel more loyal to brands that listen to their concerns and resolve their pain points. CXM will help you improve customer retention by giving you a better understanding of your customers. 
• It increases revenue by bringing more sales from existing customers. By guiding you toward practices that improve customer satisfaction, CXM helps you boost sales. This is because satisfied customers are likely to interact with you again and recommend you to their peers.
• It enables continuous improvement. Feedback collected and analyzed from customers as a result of CXM provides insights into continuously improving your products and services.
• It helps you stand out by offering personalized customer experiences. 77% of customers are more likely to buy from a brand that understands their specific needs and goals. CXM helps you differentiate your brand from the competition by creating memorable interactions that make customers feel heard and valued.

CXM vs CRM: How They Differ?

It’s easy to think of CXM and customer relationship management (CRM) as the same processes because they both offer a better understanding of customers through data. But, they have a few key differences as they address different aspects of the customer’s interactions with the brand.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Definition

CRM helps businesses understand customer profiles to increase sales and revenue. It involves the use of tools that highlight a customer’s purchasing habits. 

For instance, if a customer actively interacts with your brand during the last week of each month, your business could enhance its marketing efforts during this time for increased customer engagement.

Customer Experience Management (CXM) Definition

CXM, on the other hand, focuses on improving the overall customer experience beyond just transactional touchpoints. It involves the collection and analysis of customer feedback across all touchpoints, from the first visit to the company website to conversations with customer support. The feedback is used to improve the quality of each interaction so that a customer develops and maintains a positive perception of the brand. 

For example, you can segment customers based on shared experiences or traits. If you notice a group of customers received discount codes that didn’t work, you can group them together resolve the issue in order to prevent customer churn. 

Customer Experience Management Best Practices

Effective customer experience management involves making the most of the data and tools available to your business. With the right approach, you can optimize the utilization of your resources to track the customer’s experience across all touchpoints of their journey.

Here are a few CXM best practices to collect rich insights into your customers:

1. Build and maintain customer profiles. Understanding all your customers is the first step toward improving their satisfaction rates. Each customer has a certain profile that describes their specific needs and goals. By evaluating these various user personas, you can deliver consistent and valued experiences to your customers.
2. Personalize your customer interactions. Maintaining user profiles also allows you to create personalized experiences for your customers. For instance, you can send product recommendations to customers based on their specific persona, making it more likely for them to make a purchase.
3. Collect customer feedback at each stage of the journey. Surveying your customers at each step of their journey gives you comprehensive data on their complete experience. From the onboarding stage to the moment they choose to leave, gathering feedback across all stages ensures you don’t miss out on valuable insights.
4. Invest in a comprehensive CXM platform. You can gain a significant advantage over your competition by investing in a robust CXM platform. The right tools will offer features like real-time feedback collection, omnichannel support, and sentiment analysis to help you make data-driven decisions on enhancing customer experience.
5. Encourage a customer-centric culture. By prioritizing customer satisfaction throughout your organization, you can align your departments toward developing the best possible CXM strategy. Customer-centric companies are also 60% more profitable than their competitors.

Customer Experience Management Examples

The goal of customer experience management is to make informed decisions on retaining customers and transforming them into passionate advocates for your brand. Let’s look at a few examples of how businesses put CXM into practice:

1. An online sports watch retailer enables omnichannel support to let customers interact with them via Instagram, email, and live support chat. The options make it easier for customers to voice their suggestions or complaints.
2. A productivity tool startup sends Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to its customers and analyzes the responses to see how it can further improve its product.
3. A hotel chain implements a loyalty program to reward repeat customers with points that can be redeemed for discounts or other special offers. The program is likely to boost satisfaction and give existing customers an incentive to book rooms in the future.
4. An e-commerce app analyzes customers’ purchasing behaviors to send personalized recommendations to them via notifications and email. This strategy makes customers feel more connected and loyal to the brand.

Advantages of Customer Experience Management

Customer experience management offers the following advantages to businesses:

• It enables continuous improvement in customer experience. Improving CX is never a one-and-done process. By tracking patterns and trends in customer behavior, CXM helps businesses stay attuned to their customer’s evolving needs and goals.
• It helps enhance customer loyalty. CXM is all about placing the customer at the core of the business. This approach makes customers feel valued, making it likely that you retain them for the long term and reduce customer churn.
• It reduces customer service costs. By improving the contact center experience, CXM helps lower the cost of serving customers. The feedback from customers provides actionable insight into how issues can be resolved quickly. When you utilize InMoment’s conversation intelligence software, you can understand individual speaker insights with customizable NLP. 
• It enhances brand reputation. Loyal customers are also more likely to recommend your business online or to their peers. This positive word-of-mouth enhances the brand’s online reputation by establishing it as a trustworthy business.

Moreover, CXM helps identify pain points throughout the customer journey that can be addressed to make continuous improvements. Here is a quick look at how you can improve each phase of the journey with this approach:

1. Awareness: CXM allows you to build user profiles that you can target with your marketing efforts to ensure more prospects find your brand during their research phase.
2. Consideration: Your enhanced brand reputation as a result of focusing on CX will make it more likely that prospects consider your specific products and services over those of your competitors.
3. Purchase: Collecting and analyzing the customer’s purchase will help you understand their goals and expectations from your brand.
4. Retention: The insights gained from analyzing a customer’s purchase patterns and behavior help you retain them by offering personalized support and recommendations.
5. Loyalty: Delivering consistent value to your customers across their journey with the help of CXM will eventually convert them into loyal consumers.

Therefore, by engaging customers and delivering personalized experiences, CXM helps businesses drive revenue and gain a competitive edge in the market.

Challenges of Customer Experience Management

A keen understanding of common CXM challenges can help you invest in the right tools and strategies for your business. The majority of CX programs are ineffective at driving systemic improvements because they face one or more of the following challenges:

• Lack of customer data. You need sufficient Voice of the Customer (VoC) data to pinpoint issues, trends, and opportunities for improvement. If your CX datasets are sparse, it will be difficult to make accurate assumptions about customer behavior and expectations.
• Absence of qualitative data. While quantitative metrics are valuable in their own right, combining them with qualitative insights provides a more comprehensive overview of the customer experience. Focus groups, interviews, and surveys with open-ended questions are just a few ways to capture this kind of data.
• Limited channels for feedback collection. Customers offer their thoughts and ideas through various channels, including email, social media, customer support chat, and in-app feedback widgets. Without omnichannel support, you will struggle to collect enough feedback from customers to improve your operations.
• Inadequate tools for customer experience management. The collection, organization, and analysis of customer data requires a comprehensive CXM platform. The lack of such a platform will make it difficult for you to track and process key CX metrics across the customer journey.
• A vague understanding of the ROI. Improving customer experience through CXM is important, but exactly how much is it helping your business? CX practitioners often have trouble linking CX to business metrics. If you’re struggling to understand the customer experience ROI, it will be difficult to justify investments in CXM strategies.
• Siloed CX datasets. Businesses should aim to capture data across all touchpoints of the journey to get a complete picture of customer behavior. However, 87% of CX programs track CX at the touchpoint level, with only 49% evaluating the overall journey. This is partly due to inadequate CXM technology, but also a result of departmental silos that make it difficult to have all the data in one place for accurate insights.

What Should You Look for in Customer Experience Management Software?

The best customer experience management software will help you oversee and improve every aspect of the customer journey. Here are a few key features to look for before investing in a CXM platform:

1. Omnichannel Voice of the Customer (VoC): The collection and organization of customer feedback from multiple channels allows for more accurate insights into the customers’ feelings and pain points. InMoment’s CX integrations ensure that your customer experience management platform can integrate with all the systems that you currently use so that you can make data-driven, customer-focused decisions. 
2. AI-powered text analysis: The ability to analyze structured and unstructured customer data in one place can uncover valuable information about the customer’s current and intended behaviors. Industry analysts have named InMoment as a proven leaders of AI and natural language processing (NLP) with the ability to discover and automate insights from your data. 
3. Automated workflows: From quick response resolution to smart recommendations for satisfying customers, automated workflows are key for effectively closing the feedback loop without wasting time.
4. Custom Integrations: The software should allow you to integrate with various systems, from Salesforce to Zendesk, to make the most of the customer experience data available to you.
5. Actionable reporting: Dashboards and comprehensive reports for visualizing the results of CX efforts help provide a clear path forward for your business. InMoment’s reporting capabilities allow you to build customized reports and easily share them across your organization.

Discover Customer Experience Management Solutions from InMoment

InMoment’s customer experience management solutions let you track, organize, and analyze every aspect of the customer experience end-to-end to make better business decisions. From omnichannel feedback collection to AI-powered workflows, InMoment helps you better understand the customer journey so that you can enhance satisfaction and retention. Discover your ideal CX solution today!

Did you know that customer acquisition costs have risen by over 200% over the last 10 years? It is increasingly expensive and difficult to improve customer acquisition, which means that it is just as important to keep your current customers happy. Focusing on customer retention will help your organization reduce costs and increase revenue. 

What Is Customer Retention?

Customer retention is your organization’s ability to keep your existing customers coming back to you over a set period. This is a key indicator of your organization’s customer loyalty and success in building lasting customer relationships. 

Why is Customer Retention Important?

High customer retention rates indicate high customer satisfaction, which leads to repeat business and increased word-of-mouth referrals. Customer retention is important because the longer a customer stays with your brand, the higher their average purchase is. Also, the top 10% of customers spend more than the other 90%. Keeping customers will increase your average customer lifetime value, and help create a sustainable business model. 

How Is Customer Retention Measured?

Your customer retention rate is an important metric. To calculate it, you will first need to decide the period for which you will calculate it. For example, 97% of businesses calculate their customer retention rate at least once a year, with 71% of those businesses reviewing their customer retention rate monthly or weekly. To calculate customer retention, assume the following definitions:

• CE = The total # of customers when the period ends
• CN = The total # of new customers that you acquired during the period
• CS = The total # of customers at the beginning of a period

To calculate your retention rate, you need to use the following equation:

What is A Good Customer Retention Rate?

Customer retention rates vary widely depending on the industry you operate in. That being said, knowing the average customer retention rate for your industry will help you benchmark against your competitors to see how your business compares. Here is the average customer retention rate by industry: 

Customer Retention Strategies

Effective customer retention strategies are essential for fostering long-term customer relationships and producing a customer retention rate that rivals your competitors. While these strategies can vary based on your business model or resources available to your customer experience program, these proven strategies can help any organization reduce customer churn and improve customer retention.

1. Implement Loyalty Programs

Implementing a loyalty program can be one of the most effective customer retention strategies that your organization invests in. 79% of consumers say that loyalty programs caused them to purchase from an organization more frequently. By implementing a loyalty program that rewards customers for repeat purchases, such as discounts or early access to new products or services, you incentivize them to remain loyal to your organization. 

2. Personalize Customer Experiences

Did you know that 71% of consumers expect a personalized customer experience? Furthermore, 78% of consumers are likely to repurchase from an organization that personalizes their customer experience. 

Personalization helps create a deeper connection with customers by showing that your organization cares about their individual needs and preferences. When you personalize your customer experience, customers are more likely to make the initial purchase and more likely to return for future purchases, which will increase customer retention. 

3. Seek Customer Feedback

In order to improve customer retention, you will need to solicit and respond to customer feedback. This makes customers feel more connected to your organization. As a matter of fact, 83% of customers agree that they are more loyal to organizations that respond to and resolve their complaints. To increase customer retention, make sure you have dedicated resources to responding to customers and identifying actionable insights from customer feedback. 

With InMoment’s customer experience platform, you can not only respond to reviews, you can get actionable insights from that data. With InMoment’s AI-powered Active Listening solution, you can get 40% more actionable data points than similar platforms. This ensures you are getting the most out of your customer feedback.  

4. Stay True to Your Brand

Consistency is key to building trust and loyalty with your customers. Ensure that your brand consistently delivers on its promises and that business decisions align with your core values. Research shows that 82% of consumers prefer a brand’s values to align with their own. By sticking to the core values of your business, you will attract customers with similar beliefs. By staying true to those values over time, you will build brand equity and easily retain those customers. 

5. Improve Customer Experience Metrics

Another strategy to improve customer retention is by improving other customer experience metrics surrounding customer retention. For example, if you focus on eliminating the factors that are causing customer churn, you will eliminate the things causing customers to leave. As a result, you will retain more customers. 

By implementing these customer retention strategies, you can build better customer relationships and build sustainable business growth. These strategies apply to all businesses, but customer retention strategies can be different for businesses in different industries looking to improve client retention, account retention, patient retention, and guest retention. 

With InMoment’s platform, you can build a fully customized customer experience dashboard that contains the metrics that are most important to your business. These dashboards also allow you to build reports that are easily shareable with stakeholders in your organization, regardless of their having access to the platform. This makes it easy to share customer experience insights across the organization. 

Client Retention Strategies

In service-based industries, retaining clients is critical for growth and getting referrals. Client retention is built upon strong relationships and trust. Implementing effective client retention strategies can help you improve client relationships and enhance profitability. Here are some strategies that can help improve client retention: 

1. Build Personal Relationships

In the same way that customers want to have personal experiences with a brand, your clients want to have a personal relationship with your organization. You can personalize your interactions by remembering key details about their business and showing genuine interest in their success. Taking the time to schedule regular check-ins, personalize communication, and remember important dates such as client anniversaries will help strengthen personal relationships and improve client retention. 

2. Offer Value-Added Services 

You can realize more client retention by providing additional services or resources beyond the basic agreement the client has with your business. These additional items could include industry insights, training, or additional strategic advice. Offering these services shows that you are invested in their success for the long term, not just the duration of their contract. 

3. Create a Clear Onboarding Process

A clear, structured onboarding process helps new clients feel comfortable and ensures they have all the information they need to get started. A smooth onboarding process sets a positive tone for the relationship. On the other hand, almost 25% of client churn happens because of an ineffective onboarding process. By focusing on the onboarding process, you decrease the likelihood of early termination and increase the likelihood of client retention. 

4. Foster A Partnership Mentality

You want your client to see you as a partner, not just a service provider. It is important to show clients that you value them and their time. When presenting plans or strategies, be sure to ask for their feedback and consider it when finalizing your proposed plans. This partnership mentality helps build trust and reinforces the value of your relationship.

5. Stay Relevant and Adaptable

Client needs evolve over time. It is important to stay current with market trends and be adaptable to changes. You don’t want your clients leaving for a competitor who offers more current services than you, so be sure to regularly update your services to meet new client demands and industry standards. Demonstrating your adaptability will improve client retention. 

With InMoment as your partner, you will never fall behind. The XI platform has been named a leader in Gartner, IDC, and Forrester reports. As updates are made to the Integrated CX approach, clients are always the first to be updated with new upgrades and features. 

Account Retention Strategies

Account retention is important for B2B businesses looking to improve the B2B customer experience. In these industries, the loss of a single account can significantly impact the bottom line. Implementing account retention strategies can help minimize churn and help drive growth. Here are some strategies that can enhance account retention:

1. Understand Account Needs and Goals

Understanding your account’s business objectives, challenges, and industry dynamics is important for setting up the account in the best way possible and delivering relevant solutions. 86% of B2B organizations are more likely to buy if companies understand their goals. By taking the time to understand them in the purchasing process, as well as conducting regular needs assessments, you can stay aligned with their goals and present offerings that add value. 

2. Provide Dedicated Account Management

In order to keep account satisfaction levels high, assign dedicated account managers that serve as a single point of contact. These account managers can provide personalized service, respond to inquiries quickly, and gain a better understanding of the account’s needs. 

With InMoment, you will always have access to the best resources. Our personnel have over 50 years of advisory and research experience across multiple industries. Furthermore, InMoment never outsources services. InMoment takes full accountability for CX program success for the lowest cost of ownership. 

3. Identify and Address At-Risk Accounts Early

To increase account retention, you need to prevent account churn. You can implement predictive customer analytics to identify signs of dissatisfaction or disengagement, such as decreased platform usage or negative feedback. It is important to have a system in place to flag these accounts so that immediate action can be taken to keep them from churning. 

4. Ensure Cross-Departmental Coordination 

Improving account retention also requires internal work. Effective account management requires communication across multiple departments to ensure a cohesive experience. For example, if the account manager promotes a new feature to the client that won’t be ready for six months, this would cause frustration and might lead to churn. However, if the account managers are informed about the product development roadmap, they will know when it is appropriate to start promoting new products or features. 

5. Offer Incentives and Rewards for Loyalty

Rewarding long-term accounts with special incentives can reinforce their loyalty. This could include discounts, priority access to new features or products, or invitations to exclusive events. Recognizing their loyalty shows that you value their business and encourages account retention. 

Guest Retention Strategies

Guest retention is critical for businesses in the hospitality industry, such as hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Working to improve the guest experience and encouraging them to return can lead to increased revenue, positive online reviews, and valuable word-of-mouth marketing. Here are some effective strategies for retaining guests and creating lasting impressions:

1. Personalize the Guest Experience

Personalization is especially important in the hospitality industry. It can make guests feel valued and create a memorable experience that often coincides with important occasions. Use guest data, such as past preferences and special requests, to tailor their stay or visit. Whether it’s a personalized greeting, a favorite room setup, or a preferred table in a restaurant, these small touches can make a big difference in the guest experience and increase the likelihood of guest retention. 

2. Maintain An Omnichannel Experience

An omnichannel customer experience is key for guests in the hospitality industry. Customers engage with companies on an average of nine different channels, and they expect their experience to be consistent with each one. Be sure you are utilizing voice of the customer software to house all the customer feedback data in one place. A consistent guest experience across all channels will increase guest retention. 

3. Recognize and Reward Special Occasions

Celebrating special occasions, such as birthdays or anniversaries, with a complimentary gift or personalized service can leave a lasting impression. Guests are more likely to return if they feel that your establishment goes above and beyond to make their milestones memorable. 

4. Create a Sense of Community

Build a sense of community around your brand by hosting events, creating social media groups, or engaging guests through newsletters and blogs. This sense of belonging encourages guests to stay connected with your brand. As a matter of fact, 49% of businesses said that online communities had a direct impact on their revenue. 

5. Go Above and Beyond

Going beyond the basics can elevate the guest experience. Depending on where you operate within the hospitality industry, consider providing complimentary services like welcome drinks, free Wi-Fi, or late check-out options. These can make a stay or visit more memorable and increase the likelihood of repeat business.

Patient Retention Strategies

Patient retention is an important part of customer experience in healthcare and helps identify a stable practice. Retaining patients not only helps improve health outcomes but also supports the financial health of the practice. Effective patient retention strategies can enhance patient satisfaction, and build trust. Here are some key strategies to retain patients:

1. Streamline Appointment Scheduling

Over 60% of patients prefer to book appointments via digital channels such as online, on an app, or through email. This means that you need to make it easy for patients to schedule, reschedule, or cancel appointments with online booking options or you may be at risk of losing their business. Reducing barriers to access care can improve patient satisfaction and retention. 

2. Provide Patient Education

Listening to patient feedback and educating patients about their conditions, treatment options, and preventative care methods will help you earn patient trust and empower patients to take a more active role in their health. Consumers rated receiving excellent care as the biggest factor in a 5-star patient experience. By taking the time to educate patients, you are providing more complete patient care that will make patients feel more comfortable in your practice. 

3. Develop a Patient Portal

Patients want easy access to their medical records and test results. As a matter of fact, 90% of patients who accessed their online medical records were looking to view test results. A well-designed patient portal can enhance engagement and patient retention by providing easy access to medical records and test results. Patients appreciate the convenience of managing their health information and communicating with their care team in one place.

4. Offer Telehealth

There has been a 103% increase in telemedicine consultations in the last five years. By providing telehealth services, you can improve accessibility and convenience for patients by meeting them where they are. Telehealth can help keep patients engaged and ensure continuity of care. 

5. Create A Comfortable Environment 

58% of patients agree that the cleanliness of facilities is the second most important factor in their patient experience, behind receiving the best care. A welcoming, clean environment can make patients feel more at ease before their visit. Consider investing in comfortable seating and creating informative brochures to put in the waiting room. 

Customer Retention Examples

Understanding how successful companies implement customer retention strategies can give you an idea of what successful customer retention strategies might look like in your organization. 

legalsuper

The CX team at legalsuper noticed that their member experience was declining. To improve retention, they partnered with InMoment to transform their member experience program. After pulling in administrative and membership data in the InMoment platform, they realized they needed to understand more about their clients to give them a personalized experience. 

Next, legalsuper leveraged the InMoment platform to conduct primary research to fill in their knowledge gaps about their client base. Using an AI segmentation model, they were able to cluster members into specific groups based on their preferences, needs, and behavior. 

After segmenting their customers, they were able to develop specific customer journeys for each segment and offer more personalized experiences that led to increased member retention. 

B2B Retention

An InMoment client focused on retaining and acquiring B2B customers implemented a training program for the account managers in the organization. This training program offered workshops, meeting templates, and guidance on how to hit goals. 

One example of the success of this B2B retention program was when an $8M account was growing faster than the current account team could handle. The team then set up a channel to receive detailed client feedback on the areas that needed the most improvement. Using the feedback from the channel, the team was able to redistribute resources which led to the renewal of the account, which has since grown to over $16M. 

Improve Your Customer Retention and Generate Revenue with Your CX Program

Customer retention can help you increase revenue in your organization by increasing customer lifetime value and helping you achieve sustainable growth. To learn more about generating revenue through customer retention, read this eBook to learn about: 

• The four cornerstones of a successful retention approach
• The math that will help you prove the value of reduced churn
• The world-class brands that have proven retention is a revenue generator for businesses

Get your copy below!

EBOOK

How to Improve Customer Retention & Generate Revenue with Your CX Program

Losing customers can have a huge impact on your business, but we’ve got it down to a science when it comes to increasing customer retention—and generating revenue!

Check out this eBook to learn about:

• The four cornerstones of a successful retention approach
• The math that will help you prove the value of reduced churn
• The world-class brands that have proven retention is a revenue generator for businesses!

Download

If you’d like to see how InMoment’s XI Platform can be customized to help your business track customer retention, schedule a demo today!

When you think of your most recent purchase, you don’t think of the experience in silos. You don’t remember how you felt during the awareness phase separate from the consideration phase. You recount your experience based on how you felt about the whole process, from start to finish. This is how we view the end-to-end customer experience. 

What is End-to-End Customer Experience?

End-to-end customer experience refers to all the different experiences a customer has with your organization, and how they feel about those experiences as a whole. For example, in the context of retail customer experience, suppose a customer had a smooth checkout experience, but then experienced a shipping problem. When they contacted the support team, their problem was resolved and they were awarded 20% off of their next order. 

This customer had three experiences for this transaction: shopping, ordering and shipping, and post-transactional. While this customer may have had a bad shipping experience, it was made up for by the support team. So their end-to-end customer experience was a positive one because they felt their issue was resolved. 

End-to-End Customer Experience vs Customer Journey

The difference between end-to-end customer experience and the customer journey is that one of them is business-focused while the other is customer-focused. The customer journey maps out the path a customer takes and focuses on individual touchpoints.

The end-to-end customer experience, however, is how the customer feels about each of those touchpoints. It takes a broader view, emphasizing not just the sequence of interactions but the quality, consistency, and emotional impact of those interactions. It’s about the holistic experience, not just isolated steps.

86% of customers agree that they would switch to a competitor after three or fewer negative experiences with a brand.

Why is the End-to-End Customer Experience Important?

The end-to-end customer experience is important because it can be key to retaining customers. 86% of customers agree that they would switch to a competitor after three or fewer negative experiences with a brand. So, it is important to create a customer experience that ends with the customer being satisfied so that they develop into a lifetime customer, rather than take their business elsewhere. 

Benefits of End-to-End Customer Experience

A memorable end-to-end customer experience will have a tangible impact on your business. It can have an impact on everything from sales to operations. Here are some benefits you may realize from having a positive end-to-end customer experience: 

Increased Customer Loyalty

When customers know they will get a good customer experience from start to finish, they are more likely to return for future purchases. As a matter of fact, customers are willing to pay more for a product or service from a brand with a better end-to-end customer experience than competitors. A positive end-to-end customer experience will help you improve customer loyalty. 

Improved Brand Reputation

Improving the end-to-end customer experience can also improve your brand equity. When your brand delivers a consistently positive experience, customers trust you more and think of your products or services as higher quality. Customers are also more likely to share their positive experiences through online reviews, social media, or by recommending your brand to others. 

Reduced Costs

A good customer experience often results in fewer customer complaints and support tickets. Focusing on the end-to-end customer experience will also help you revamp or retire processes that are causing frequent issues or customer churn. A streamlined customer experience will improve operational efficiencies and reduce overall costs. 

How to Improve the End-to-End Customer Experience

To improve the end-to-end customer experience, you will need to make sure you are doing everything you can to listen to and understand your customers while they interact with your organization. Here are some steps that you can take to improve your end-to-end customer experience:

1. Understand the Customer Journey

Customer journey mapping will give you a visual of all the touch points that a customer has with your brand. Understanding what the customer experience looks like in your organization will help you identify where you may be falling short. Every member of your CX team must understand the customer journey. 

2. Collect Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is useful when improving the end-to-end customer experience because it can give you insights into how customers feel at every stage of the customer journey. For example, an online review might reflect a customer who had a positive purchase experience, while a social media post may reveal a customer who didn’t make it to the purchase phase because of poor customer service. 

3. Ensure Consistency Across Channels

The end-to-end customer experience doesn’t include a set start and end point. Where customers start their experience will depend on the industry and type of organization you run. They might start their journey via social media, a paid ad, a search engine result page, or coming to visit you in person. 

Regardless of where they start, they are going to take multiple steps before they reach the end of their experience. It is up to you to ensure create an omnichannel customer experience so that their experience is consistent across whichever channels are most convenient for them.

4. Personalize the Customer Experience

Personalization is one of the most important things you can do to improve the end-to-end customer experience in today’s market. In fact, 71% of customers expect personalization, and 76% are frustrated when they don’t get it. 

A lack of personalization in your customer experience will hurt your business. To improve the end-to-end customer experience and your bottom line, consider implementing personalization such as product recommendations, unique discounts, or personalized communication. 

5. Measure Customer Experience Metrics 

One of the ways to track the effectiveness of your end-to-end customer experience improvement is by tracking customer experience metrics. As you work to improve your end-to-end customer experience, measuring the performance of your chosen metrics will help you know the success and ROI of your efforts. 

How to Create An End-to-End Customer Experience Strategy

Your end-to-end customer experience strategy can be an extension of your overall customer experience strategy. The most important part of creating an end-to-end customer experience strategy is communication. Communication between different stakeholders and teams will drive the success of your CX initiatives. Here are what you will need to get started: 

1. Define Your CX Goals

Before you get started, you have to know where you’re going. What do you want to achieve with your end-to-end customer experience strategy? Are you aiming to increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, differentiate from competitors, or some other goal? 

Having specific goals will ensure that every CX action that is taken will be taken to improve your goal. It is also important that every stakeholder in your organization, such as executives, is aware of this goal as well. 

2. Empower Employee

Once the key customer experience stakeholders in your organization know and understand the objectives of the end-to-end customer experience strategy, it is time to empower employees to help deliver on those goals. Frontline employees are the most important part of any organization’s customer experience program since they are the group that interacts with the customer the most. 

Consider offering trainings that help define the business goals and what steps can be taken to get there. You may also be able to drive employee engagement by offering incentives once certain metrics are met. Securing the buy-in of employees will drive a successful end-to-end customer experience. 

3. Create a Continous Feedback Loop

Once your goals are created and employees are empowered, you can implement your end-to-end customer experience strategy. Once implemented, it is important to have a customer feedback loop as well as an employee feedback loop. 

A customer feedback loop will help you enact changes requested by customers. On the other hand, an employee feedback loop will help employees make stakeholders aware of what is or is not working in your end-to-end customer experience strategy. Make sure that you have created an environment that supports employee feedback, as it will often have a positive impact on your overall customer experience goals. 

End-to-End Customer Experience Examples

Implementing a seamless end-to-end customer experience can differentiate brands in competitive markets. Below are some real-world examples of companies that excel at delivering exceptional customer experiences from the first interaction to post-purchase support.

Metro Bank 

Metro Bank worked to improve the end-to-end customer experience by restructuring its customer insights program. Before this restructuring, customers had to go to a third-party platform to take a survey. One of the biggest changes made during this restructure was moving the survey within the app. This, as well as other changes, helped Metro Bank was able to realize growth in revenue, customer accounts, and overall operational efficiency. 

Juniper Networks

Juniper Networks has created a positive end-to-end customer experience by making it easy for customers to leave feedback. By leveraging InMoment’s platform, they have created short, mobile-friendly surveys that can be sorted by keywords. This allows unstructured data to be analyzed easier and ensures the most important feedback takes priority. These customer-focused features have allowed Juniper Networks to increase customer resolution times by 62%. 

Improve Your End-to-End Customer Experience with InMoment

InMoment’s platform allows you to view every point in the end-to-end customer experience and gives you the tools to track and measure changes over time. To see how this can be customized for your business, schedule a demo today!

In today’s healthcare landscape, patient expectations are higher than ever. It’s not just about treating ailments anymore—it’s about delivering care that’s seamless, compassionate, and easy to access. So, what does it take to create an exceptional customer experience in healthcare? Discover the most important factors, common challenges, and top trends shaping the future of healthcare customer experience—and how you and your organization can lead the way.

What is Customer Experience in Healthcare?

We’ve all been a sick patient before, and we know that the experience can make or break how we feel about a healthcare provider. Customer experience in healthcare goes far beyond just scheduling appointments. It includes every touchpoint—whether it’s the way you’re greeted at the front desk, how well your concerns are listened to during an exam, or how smooth the follow-up process is. A positive experience doesn’t just create happy patients—it builds trust, fosters loyalty, and can even lead to better health outcomes. To sum it up, it’s about ensuring each step of the patient journey feels seamless, compassionate, and human.

What is Customer Experience Management in Healthcare?

Managing customer experience in healthcare involves actively monitoring and improving every touchpoint patients have with your organization. Think of it as building a feedback loop: you collect patient insights, analyze them, and take action to enhance the patient journey. Healthcare organizations that leverage tools like InMoment’s CX solutions can gather feedback in real time, identify problem areas, and streamline operations to make the experience as smooth as possible.

What is the Importance of Customer Experience in Healthcare?

In healthcare, the stakes are high. Patients aren’t just customers—they’re individuals often dealing with stress, illness, or pain. Their experience can have a profound impact not only on how they perceive your care but also on their overall well-being. It’s not just about providing excellent service to retain patients—it’s about being empathetic and making the entire process as easy and comforting as possible. This care extends beyond patients to their loved ones, making the experience smooth for everyone involved.

Most Important Factors in Healthcare Customer Experience 

The patient experience in healthcare hinges on several important ingredients. Here are the top factors that make or break a great healthcare experience:

• Ease of Access: Make it simple for patients to book appointments, access test results, and communicate with your team.
• Wait Times: Long wait times can quickly sour an otherwise good experience. Reducing them shows respect for patients’ time.
• Clear Communication: From appointment reminders to treatment plans, patients need clarity and consistency at every step, such as balancing efficiency with delivering empathetic and thorough responses within healthcare contact centers.
• Staff Empathy: Friendly, compassionate care is key. A simple smile or a comforting word can make a huge difference.
• Personalized Care: Treating each patient as an individual, with tailored care, makes for a more meaningful experience.
• Facility: A clean, safe environment is a top concern for patients, especially for infection control and hygiene, but facility comfort, including ease of navigation and privacy, is also important.

Mastering these areas will set your healthcare practice apart and keep patients coming back.

What are Common CX Challenges in Healthcare?

Of course, healthcare comes with its unique set of challenges. For many organizations, it’s about balancing efficiency with compassion. Here are some of the most common CX hurdles healthcare providers face:

• Long Wait Times: Whether it’s waiting for an appointment or in the waiting room, delays are a top frustration for patients.
• Scheduling Issues: Limited availability or complicated booking processes can drive patients away.
• Bedside Manner: Healthcare professionals who lack empathy can create lasting negative impressions, even if the care is clinically sound.

These challenges vary depending on the type of provider. For example, hospitals may struggle with fragmented care coordination, dental offices often face appointment management issues, and pharmacies might have long lines or delays in prescription fulfillment. Addressing these issues head-on is the first step to improving CX.

How to Improve Customer Experience in Healthcare?

Improving healthcare customer experience doesn’t happen overnight, but there are actionable steps you can take:

• Streamline Scheduling: Use online booking systems to make it easier for patients to secure appointments at their convenience.
• Reduce Wait Times: Improve internal workflows to ensure patients aren’t left waiting unnecessarily.
• Enhance Communication: Keep patients informed with clear, compassionate communication, whether it’s before, during, or after treatment.
• Offer Training for Staff: Ongoing training on empathy and bedside manner ensures your team is offering the best possible patient care.
• Use Technology: Implement CX platforms like InMoment to monitor patient feedback, identify pain points, and optimize the patient journey in real time.

How to Create an Omnichannel Customer Experience in Healthcare

In today’s digital world, patients expect seamless experiences across multiple platforms. An omnichannel approach ensures that patients can interact with your organization through their preferred channels—whether it’s in-person, online, or via mobile. This could mean offering online appointment scheduling, a user-friendly mobile app, or telehealth services. Ensuring that patients have consistent, high-quality experiences across all touchpoints makes it easier for them to engage with your services and boosts overall satisfaction

Customer Experience Trends in Healthcare

As the healthcare landscape evolves, so do customer experience trends. Here’s what to expect:

• Telehealth Expansion: Virtual care isn’t going anywhere. As telehealth becomes more mainstream, expect continued improvements in remote care delivery.
• AI and Automation: AI is making its way into everything from appointment scheduling to treatment recommendations. It’s helping reduce wait times and improve efficiency.
• Personalized Healthcare: Data-driven insights allow healthcare providers to offer more personalized care, improving both outcomes and satisfaction.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP): Tools like NLP in healthcare are being used to analyze patient feedback at scale, allowing providers to address concerns faster and more effectively. 

Improve Your Customer Experience in Healthcare with InMoment

Delivering a great healthcare customer experience takes more than just good intentions—it requires the right tools and strategies. With InMoment, you can capture real-time patient feedback, analyze it, and make data-driven decisions that improve every aspect of the patient journey. From reducing wait times to enhancing patient communication, our solutions are designed to help healthcare providers create the best possible experience for their patients.

Ready to start transforming your healthcare CX? Explore our healthcare reputation management and download our healthcare reputation report for insights on how to take your organization’s customer experience to the next level.

What is Patient Feedback?

Patient feedback is the opinions, reviews, and thoughts that healthcare organizations gather from their patients. From the healthcare contact center to the doctor’s diagnosis, each step of the patient journey presents an opportunity to learn about patient expectations and behavior.

The goal of collecting patient feedback is to pinpoint areas for improvement in healthcare operations. For instance, a hospital could have world-class medical staff delivering high-quality care. But, if patients have to endure long wait times to see the doctor, they are still not likely to report a positive experience.

Healthcare centers usually capture this feedback with the help of surveys, reviews, and conversations at different points of the patient journey. Here is an overview of when and why each institution collects feedback.

Hospitals and Clinics

In hospitals and clinics, the medical staff gathers feedback from inpatients and outpatients to see what steps in the patient journey need improvement.

Each type of patient care involves feedback collection at the following points in the patient journey:

• Inpatient care
  • Appointment booking – helps understand if the patient is satisfied with wait times or staff behavior.
  • Medical diagnoses – provides information on the patient’s experience with the accuracy and price of medical tests.
  • Hospital stay – gathers feedback on the patient’s stay in the hospital, including quality of treatment, staff support, and cleanliness.
  • Discharge – captures patient opinions on discharge, such as how long it took and how well the doctor followed up with them.
• Outpatient care
  • Check-in – gathers patient feedback on wait times and quality of staff support during the check-in process.
  • Consultation with the doctor – offers information on the patient’s satisfaction with the doctor’s communication and overall behavior.

Dental Clinic

Dental clinics capture feedback from patients to pinpoint any issues with their oral healthcare service and general operations. They usually collect patient feedback at the following points:

• Appointment scheduling – helps understand the patient’s experience with ease of booking, staff support, and wait times.
• Dental treatment – captures patient feedback on the quality of dental care, dentist’s communication, and treatment plan.
• Billing process – collects feedback on the transparency of costs and availability of various payment options.
• Follow-up – provides information on how well the dentist followed up with the patient post-treatment, including the quality of aftercare instructions.

Aged Care

Aged care facilities rely on feedback loops to make residents feel more comfortable and satisfied. The goal is to check in with them and their family at the following points to see if the center is meeting their unique needs:

• Patient admission – collects information on the ease and convenience of admitting a new resident.
• Medical check-ups – highlight issues, if any, with daily health assessments and if the resident is satisfied with them.
• Daily care – captures resident feedback on the quality of care, support from staff, and general activities.
• Family visits – collects feedback from family members on their satisfaction levels with the facility, including staff, hygiene, environment, and healthcare.
• Discharge – covers any complaints from the resident or their family about the convenience of the discharge process and support from staff.

Pharmacies

Did you know that 58% of Americans view pharmacies as a first step when faced with a non-emergency medical issue? A pharmacy gathers feedback at the following touchpoints to better understand patients:

• Prescription dispensing – helps understand if the medication was safely, correctly, and appropriately dispensed to the patient.
• Consultation – captures patient feedback on consultations offered by the staff, including dosage and general medication advice.
• Purchase and billing – collects information on how smooth it was for the patient to purchase medicine and process payments.

Why is Patient Feedback Important?

Patient feedback is primarily important for enhancing patient satisfaction and helping the healthcare organization with brand reputation management.

Feedback highlights the organization’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to fulfilling a patient’s needs. Hospitals and clinics use this kind of insight to make data-driven decisions to improve their workflow and enhance patient satisfaction. 

For instance, if a hospital receives multiple complaints about wait times during appointment booking, it has an immediate area of concern to address.

Moreover, collecting patient feedback encourages transparency and communication with patients. By becoming proactive listeners and responders to their needs, organizations show that they value their patients’ thoughts and feelings.

As a result, patients are likely to trust these healthcare centers and give them a positive review online. Given that over 70% of patients consult online reviews before visiting a new center, it’s important to focus on practices that boost patient satisfaction ratings.

Benefits of Collecting Patient Feedback

Collecting patient feedback helps organizations make informed decisions on delivering a positive patient experience. Here are a few key benefits of capturing feedback from patients:

Higher Quality of Healthcare

A key component of performance assessment is to look at areas for improvement, especially those suggested by patients. This is where feedback is beneficial as it pinpoints the exact issues to prioritize and fix in order to deliver a higher quality of care. It provides specific answers to important questions about the patient experience.

Enhanced Patient Satisfaction and Retention

A higher quality of health care has a positive impact on patient satisfaction ratings. When patients feel that an organization successfully met their care needs, they are more likely to give it a glowing recommendation online or otherwise. 

Satisfied patients not only provide positive recommendations, but they are also likely to become loyal customers themselves. Therefore, by collecting and acting upon feedback, healthcare providers boost patient retention.

Data-driven Decisions

The last thing healthcare centers want to do is take a guess at what works for their patients. It’s important to have access to actionable data that provides specific insights into improving the customer experience. Collecting patient feedback helps organizations capture and analyze this data to enable continuous improvements in their services.

How to Collect Patient Feedback?

From kiosk surveys at check-in to post-treatment email surveys, patient surveys help organizations collect valuable feedback at each step of the patient journey.

Patient Feedback Survey

Surveys are great options for feedback collection because they let patients reflect on their experience right away. Moreover, surveys allow patients to be more forthright and accurate in their feedback by removing the need for an in-person conversation.

By issuing surveys at key touchpoints during the patient journey, healthcare centers gain targeted insights on improving their operations. Here is an overview of the surveys healthcare centers use throughout the patient journey:

1. Kiosk surveys

A touchscreen display device placed at strategic points in the hospital, like the reception area, is a popular way to collect feedback. 

Kiosks are typically used to survey patients on their experience after check-in, consultation with the doctor, and booking follow-up appointments.

2. Email surveys

According to a 2024 report on email statistics, 88% of respondents said they use email daily, with 39% checking their inboxes 3-5 times a day. Therefore, email remains one of the most reliable channels for organizations to gather customer feedback.

For healthcare centers, sending an email survey right after discharge is a great way to collect insights from the patient. Emails can feature a link to the full survey form or a straightforward one-click survey embedded within the email body itself.

3. Mobile app and website surveys

Healthcare providers can also leverage mobile apps and website widgets to collect patient feedback smoothly. The idea is to integrate always-on surveys within the apps and websites to prompt customers for specific (post-consultation, discharge, etc.) or general feedback.

Feedback from Online Reviews

In addition to surveys, online reviews offer another valuable method for gathering patient feedback and play a crucial role in healthcare reputation management. Beyond providing key insights and actionable data, online reviews can:

1. Authentic Patient Experiences: Reviews often capture unfiltered, real-world patient experiences, providing healthcare providers with genuine insights into what patients appreciate or dislike about their care.
2. Volume and Diversity of Feedback: Healthcare providers can gather a large volume of feedback from a wide range of patients, offering a broader view of service quality across various demographics and healthcare needs.
3. Timeliness: Patients tend to leave reviews soon after their visits, giving providers immediate feedback that can highlight pressing issues or recent successes.
4. Publicly Accessible Insights: Since reviews are public, they not only provide feedback but also shape the provider’s reputation. This transparency encourages healthcare providers to address concerns quickly and improve their services.
5. Building Trust: By engaging with reviews, responding to patient concerns, and showcasing a commitment to improvement, healthcare providers can enhance trust and credibility within the community.
6. Benchmarking: Reviews allow providers to compare their performance against competitors in the same field or location, giving insights into areas where they can improve relative to others.

Regardless of which method is used, healthcare providers will receive both positive and negative feedback:

Examples of Positive Patient Feedback

• “Efficient, friendly, and informed doctor. She carefully checked my medical records and I felt confident in her expertise.”
• “The receptionist was very helpful on the phone. He was polite and took care to answer each of my questions in detail.”
• “I visited the app to book an appointment, thinking it might take a week to get one. However, to my pleasant surprise, I got an appointment the next day!”

Examples of Negative Patient Feedback

• “Avoid going to this doctor’s clinic. He didn’t seem interested in spending time on the patients at all. He just prescribes medication and goes away without any explanation!”
• “I found that I’d been billed for services I never received! I won’t be returning to this dentist as this is unacceptable.”
• “The facility was dirty and outdated, which is not what I expect from a hospital. I didn’t feel comfortable at all.”

How to Manage Patient Feedback?

Be it positive or negative, it’s important to know how to effectively manage patient feedback. The goal is to organize the collected feedback, analyze it to gain valuable insights and focus on high-priority issues before checking in with the patient again.

Here are four key steps to follow after collecting patient feedback:

1. Organize and respond to feedback

The first step to effective feedback management is organizing the patient feedback coming from various channels.

A dedicated feedback portal or a CRM system helps integrate multiple pieces of feedback in one place for easier analysis. It is also useful to categorize feedback in this step by overall sentiment (positive or negative) for a targeted approach.

The next step is to respond to the feedback based on its sentiment. While automated responses save time, it’s good practice to have a dedicated support team to contact the patients as well.

2. Analyze the feedback for useful insights

Analysis of patient feedback reveals the exact issues and opportunities that healthcare providers must focus on. With the help of AI-enhanced customer feedback analysis, organizations can speed up the process of capturing actionable insights.

One popular method here is sentiment analysis, which leverages natural language processing (NLP) to determine if the feedback is positive, negative, or neutral. Similarly, AI is useful for detecting patterns in data, such as recurring issues faced by patients concerning wait times or staff behavior.

The results of this analysis reveal priority areas to fix immediately for an enhanced patient experience.

3. Take immediate action based on the analysis

Healthcare centers should encourage their staff to take instant action on patient feedback. For example, if the analysis shows a recurring issue with wait times, the staff should optimize their workflow or look to hire more people to reduce delays for patients.

A good practice for organizations is to offer a token of apology, regardless of the exact action taken. These tokens could include a free checkup or a discount on medication. The idea is to offer a bonus that further affirms the organization’s commitment to patient satisfaction.

4. Follow up with the patient

In order to create a feedback loop, healthcare providers should follow up with the patient, informing them of the actions taken. This step builds trust as it signals to the patient that the hospital or clinic is willing to hear them out and act on their feedback.

Patient Feedback Software

When choosing the right patient feedback software to collect, organize, and analyze data, there are a few key factors to consider:

1. Multi-channel feedback collection: The software should be able to accept and collect feedback from various sources, including email, kiosk surveys, and SMS.
2. Automated survey and feedback response: The software should feature automated workflows for issuing surveys at key touchpoints in the patient journey, from check-in to discharge. Similar workflows for sending instant replies to patient feedback are also helpful.
3. Customizable surveys: Healthcare providers should invest in software that allows them to represent their brand. Personalized surveys featuring the brand’s colors and style are likely to engage more patients.
4. Analytics: The software should feature analytical tools to provide useful insights from patient feedback. For instance, it should support sentiment analysis to distinguish between positive and negative reviews.
5. Integrations: To ensure smooth patient feedback management, the software should support integration with electronic medical records (EMR) and CRM systems. By providing information like patient demographics and clinical records, these integrations enable more specific analysis.

How InMoment Can Help Collect Patient Feedback 

InMoment’s feedback management system lets you collect, organize, and analyze patient feedback in one place. Our integrations and award-winning technology will help you capture actionable insights into patient expectations. 

As a result, you get access to all the data you need to deliver the best possible patient experience. Schedule a demo today to see how you can get started!