3 Ways CX Management Can Increase Revenue

More and more companies are talking about being customer focused, but are they doing it well enough to create a competitive advantage and drive revenue? Not only does investing in Customer Experience Management keep you ahead of the competition, it also plays in important role in increasing your bottom line.

The Facts

According to Accenture, the business costs of poor customer experiences can be as much as $1.6 Trillion from U.S. consumers who switch their service to a different brand or service provider. To support this, CEOs and companies who demonstrate a continuous pursuit of excellence in customer experience reap not only long-term customer loyalty, but also positively impact revenue growth.

Data driven and market-based research has shown that improving customer experience is directly linked to business outcomes: higher revenue growth and lower costs. McKinsey insights found that, on average, brands that improve CX:

• Increase revenue 10-15% and
• Lower costs 15-20%.

So positioning your business as customer-focused is a simple way to increase revenue, right? Wrong. Although 81% of the executives polled in the Dimension Data Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report recognized that customer experience is a competitive differentiator, only 13% rate their company’s customer experience efforts as a 9 or 10. So why the predicament?

The Challenge

According to 44% of the respondents, customer experience is simply too difficult.

Customer Experience is the sum of all the interactions (feelings, emotions, perceptions) that a customer has with a company over the course of the relationship life-cycle. Overhauling a brand’s entire customer experience efforts may be time consuming, but it is still possible to improve the experience and increase revenue with some careful thought and planning.

How Customer Experience Management Can Improve Revenue

Customer Experience has become the new marketing. Whether a company is B2B or B2C, CX marketing continues to shift its focus from advertising and awareness to experiential marketing: impacting both the online and off-line customer journey. Here are three ways customer experience management can enhance the brand-customer relationship, ultimately leading to new forms of topline and bottom line revenue growth:

1. SIMPLIFYING THE PROCESS OF BECOMING A BRAND ADVOCATE: Customers are increasingly relying on third-party validation such as online reviews rather than traditional advertising messages. To convert customers into brand advocates, it’s important to be proactive in providing exceptional customer service by interacting with your customers at every given opportunity (and through every available platform).

Whether it’s through self-service or agent-assisted channels, businesses need to be dedicated in recommending the right customer support via true omnichannel services.  Once the issues are resolved, you can send those happy customers a direct link to review your product or service on your most impactful review sites. Fostering these kinds of immersive, personalized relationships can build trust while increasing customer advocacy and drastically improving your online reputation.

(Click here for more on ‘Defining Omni-Channel Customer Experience’.)

2. EMPOWERING STAFF TO BUILD DEEPER CUSTOMER RELATIONS: The most direct way to impact business results is to empower employees to do their best work. Providing the right tools, developing them the right way, and allowing transparency with critical customer data gives employees ownership of their projects, as well as a voice.

Proper CX management will help identify processes that will enable your employees to make decisions that positively impact customers. Arming your employees with training, tools, and flexible policies can empower them to deliver meaningful experiences. When you hire and train employees for customer value purposes, you’re not only empowering the agent (under a ‘everyone owns CX’ policy), you’re able to incentivize their performance via positive customer outcomes.

One of the best ways to empower front line employees is to show them their importance, by investing in their skills. Hold training sessions with them to help them better understand your customers. Share customer insights by bringing your customer personalities and customer journey maps to life. (Click here to see how BARE International’s customer experience research services can help.)

3. PURSUING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION INNOVATIONS: Businesses are quickly learning that the customer experience economy is one of rapid change. Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, resulting in fundamental changes in how a business operates and the value they deliver to their customers. And now customer experience research is the next stage of the customer-centric business transformation.

A deep understanding of your customers’ motivations and intentions is a critical starting point for any digital transformation initiative.  To attract the next generation of digital customers, they must have the ability to easily find information and streamlined services online. This makes it much more convenient for customers to find the information they want, and often eliminates the need to speak with an employee. The use of automation and digital experience management tools are at the forefront of Digital Transformation of CX, but while each company faces unique challenges, a digital initiative has to be accompanied by meaningful cultural change that will sustain the transformation into the future.

Final Thoughts

Many see improving CX as not being worth the cost, but Customer Experience Management has come a long way from CRM systems and call centers when it comes to staying ahead of the competition.

While a short-term approach such as reward points, compensation and offers can drive revenue, keeping customers’ interest at the heart of business and marketing – and managing your CX initiatives well – will maximize your chance of good business performance and revenue in the long run.

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Customer Experience Research & Insights by BARE International

In an age of market saturation, building and delivering on the right customer experience strategy is the difference between driving just surviving—or thriving—in the customer experience economy. From your online branding to your employee’s training, your CX management strategy is designed to engage and connect with your customers in hopes to provide a seamless customer experience for your customers. But do you know if they are receiving the seamless experience you are striving to deliver? Don’t just think about how customer experience can affect your company’s bottom line, see it in action.

Our proven success across industry categories stems from asking the right questions to help you address the challenges you face everyday. Each solution we offer is customized to meet your needs, providing actionable feedback to help you make critical business decisions. We treat you the way you want to treat your own customers, providing a dedicated project team to give you the attention you deserve and an infrastructure spanning the globe to provide the resources you need to understand your customers’ experiences.

• Customized Research Solutions
• Immediate, Actionable Feedback
• Dedicated Project Team
• Family-Owned, Global Capabilities

Get in touch today to receive a complimentary evaluation of your business. We look forward to working with you.