The Importance of Prioritizing Customer Experiences

Marketing professionals have always known giving customers the best experience possible is important, and that it refers to the entire customer journey rather than ending after making the purchase. Delivering great experiences has only become that much more important. Businesses have the opportunity to maintain and strengthen relationships with customers at every step of the customer journey by building trust.

Building strong relationships between your business and your customers starts with creating exceptional customer experiences. And with so much of our interactions with brands online, customer experiences can make or break a business. According to a report from Salesforce, 79% of customers agree that the experience is just as important as the product or service a company sells. So, prioritizing customer experiences is a necessity today to stand out amongst competitors.

While it’s easy to say how important prioritizing customer experiences is, it’s another to put that into action. A few ways you can do that include:

Exceed expectations

When you give customers what they expect, it’ll satisfy them. It’s when things unexpectedly go wrong when they aren’t happy. But if you can give them more than they expect like adding a welcome gift, thank you card, or even just standout customer service, they’ll be thrilled. When people feel the love, they’ll return the favor by coming back for their next purchase or even recommending your brand to others.

Ask for, listen to, and act on feedback

We’ve explained before why asking for customer feedback is important, and doing so in the form of reviews or some kind of rating system makes it easy. But just asking for feedback means nothing if you don’t do anything about it.

People want to feel heard, and reviews and ratings hold a lot of weight on your business because of how heavily potential customers rely on them. From a business perspective, it’s also important to constantly try to improve your business. With these ratings and reviews being directly about your product, this is the easiest way to do so.

Reward loyalty

There’s a reason loyalty programs work: they build trust and increase customer retention. But there’s an easy way to reward customers’ loyalty as opposed to building a whole program around it. You can reward people with small things like reposting user-generated content with a thank you attached or offering exclusive discounts to show your appreciation.

Prioritizing customer experiences doesn’t just build trust between your business and your customers, but it is also much more cost-effective and less time-consuming compared to trying to obtain new customers. It also results in happier customers, which will result in good customer reviews. And if they really like their experience, it’s possible they’ll become brand advocates, where they’ll market for you by recommending your business to their friends, families, and/or online followers.

So, it’s clear that businesses shouldn’t just consider customers’ experiences, but they should make it a vital part of their marketing strategy. It’s often an overlooked part of the process, but it pays off in the end to make it the best it can be. The reality is that customers are constantly interacting with the brand, even if it isn’t directly with your customer support people. They’re scrolling past ads on social media, watching an influencer promote a product on YouTube, or checking out your Instagram page. So, use that to your advantage by making sure every interaction your business has with customers will keep them coming back.