For just a minute, put yourself in the shoes of a customer. Think about purchases you’ve made from your favorite brands.
What is it that makes you a loyal customer?
There’s a good chance that it’s because the brands you choose offer a quality, seamless customer experience.
You’re not alone in this sentiment either. 73% of consumers say that customer experience is one of their top factors when making purchasing decisions.
The question is: As a brand, how can you effectively manage your customer experience?
That’s where a customer experience platform comes in.
Before we talk about customer experience platforms, let’s consider what the overall customer experience really entails.
What is Customer Experience?
Customer experience, or “CX” for short, defines the total customer experience with a brand—from early engagements between the consumer and brand to the purchase and beyond, including customer service.
This is different than the other “X” – “user experience” or “UX” – which is focused on screen-based interactions at a specific point in time.
CX is applicable to all brands with customers. It’s also difficult for brands to control, considering that CX is based on the perception and the attitude of customers towards your brand. No matter what your brand claims to offer as far as customer experience is concerned, customers will make their own judgements.
CX covers the entire customer journey at every touchpoint. Examples of these touchpoints include:
- Online ads
- Social media
- Emails
- Branded content
- Customer reviews
- Point of sale
- Customer service interactions
- Exchanges/returns
- Loyalty and rewards programs
As your consumers experience these different touchpoints, they form an overall opinion about the customer experience provided by your brand.
But what makes a positive CX so important?
In today’s market, businesses that put the customer first are thriving more than ever. Many customers are actually willing to pay more for products and services if the brand is providing a top-notch customer experience.
Consumers have a wealth of choices and instant access to brands through online orders, social media, and more. To separate from the competition, brands need to pay close attention to the customer experience at every touchpoint.
Not only does an excellent CX create satisfied and repeat customers, but it also helps create brand ambassadors.
CX is the first link in an important chain toward boosting brand loyalty and advocacy.
What is a Customer Experience Platform?
Creating an excellent customer experience involves closely monitoring your customers’ interactions’ with your brand. A CX platform is the best way to do this.
A CX platform is software that allows you to measure, manage, and improve your customer experience. It starts with collecting data on customer interactions with your brand and creating responses by analyzing the data closely. Customer experience platforms are capable of analyzing individual customer behavior, leveraging analytics, and coming up with personalized solutions to increase customer retention.
What to Look For in a Customer Experience Platform
A quality customer experience platform offers many valuable features for your organization to use, including:
Personalization and segmentation
A fundamental function of CX platforms is segmentation and personalization. They allow brands to send personalized messages to users based on determined segments, such as location, shopping cart activity, and more.
This personalization is one of the key drivers of customer loyalty and creating an excellent customer experience.
Personalized experiences even go as far as persuading customers to spend more based on the experience alone. All the more reason to seek out a CX platform with in-depth personalization features.
Insights tools
Running surveys and polls is a textbook way to get quick and valuable feedback and insights from your customers on their experience with your brand. With in-platform insights tools, you’ll be able to gather data that can not only be used to optimize your customer experience but to personalize at an individual customer level as well.
Social media and voice of the customer
A key way to assess your customer’s journey is to hear from them directly. CX platforms can give you the ability to aggregate and analyze customer feedback and sentiment about your brand on social media, discussion boards, and other digital channels. They may also give you the opportunity to respond, enabling you to elevate your customer service experience directly from the platform.
Reporting & Analytics
The feedback gathered from your customer experience platform can be used throughout your organization to better the overall customer experience, correcting and improving upon existing practices at every touchpoint. So the reporting and analytics your CX platform delivers will be key.
It’s important to consider what departments will be using the platform and for what purpose. Data can include demographic, psychographic, social, and behavioral data, voice of the customer (VOC), and business analytics. The ability to provide actionable insights, as well as to utilize the data within the platform to improve the customer experience are all important considerations when determining the right CX platform.
Integrations
A software’s ability to integrate with other key tools within your organization can significantly boost efficiency and the overall effectiveness of the software itself.
This is no different for a CX platform. Choosing a CX platform that integrates with your current Marktech Stack can help you utilize the data more efficiently and effectively.
A Quality CX Platform Allows You To Deliver The Best Possible Customer Experience
There’s absolutely no hiding from the fact that success for brands hinges on providing the best possible customer experience.
It starts with the initial engagements between brand and customer before a purchase is even made. It continues through the purchase process and beyond to follow-up emails, returns, loyalty and rewards programs, and more.
With all of these customer touchpoints to manage, a quality CX platform is crucial.
Choosing the right platform allows you to analyze these touchpoints and act on them using relevant data to provide an experience that customers will be raving about.
Questions About Customer Experience Platforms?
Vesta’s community platform gives brands the tools they need to provide an industry-leading customer experience. Because of this, we’re well-versed in CX. For any questions about customer experience platforms, reach out to us. We’re happy to help.
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