Most business owners are aware of the concept of customer experience, as well as how important it is in helping their brand grow. However, the emergence of the digital customer experience as a separate, but equally vital, entity has been a challenge for some business owners to adapt to. This article explores both the nature and importance of providing a positive digital customer experience.
Digital Customer Experience in a Nutshell
In very broad terms, digital customer experience refers to all the interactions that customers have with your brand through digital media. This includes any social media presence that you have, your website, digital interactions with customer service, and any technology customers interact with as part of the customer journey.
Naturally, one key aspect of this is the quality and performance of the digital platform that customers will use to interact with your brand. If we take a gambling app as an example, then its users will notice the way it looks and how it feels to navigate. A well-functioning application that looks professional, is straightforward to use, and where users can play, let’s say, exciting Bovada roulette games, and a range of other games is sure to make a positive impression on the majority of customers.
In fact, the modern customer has, by and large, come to expect the smoothest possible experience with a brand’s technology and online presence at every stage of the customer journey. Consider the fact that, for instance, 74-75% of customers want companies to offer better experiences through the use of both existing and brand-new technology.
Combine this with the fact that most people own a smartphone, and many of them interact exclusively with brands online, and the growing importance of the digital customer experience is self-explanatory.
Positive Customer Experience is Everything
To put it in the simplest possible terms, providing customers with a great experience of your brand is crucial; doing so will foster a sense of loyalty in them towards your business, make them more likely to recommend it to their friends and loved ones, return as customers, and so on.
Basically, satisfied customers are far more likely to become return customers than dissatisfied ones. And those same satisfied customers will often act as advocates for a brand, operating as a form of organic, grassroots, word-of-mouth marketing.
A cornerstone of good customer experience is great service. Ensuring that customers find it easy to get the help they need from your business is important – this experience is one that many people find to be frustrating and time-consuming. Providing excellent customer service is not only a key factor in a wider good customer experience, but it’s also a great way to distinguish your brand from competitors.
Try to ensure that your customers, especially high-value customers, are being listened to at every stage of their journey with your brand. Gathering customer feedback is a fantastic way to do so wherever possible. And, crucially, it’s vital to not only collect this feedback but also to act on it.
Consider, as well, the potential power that disgruntled customers can have in the digital age. If someone has a particularly poor experience of your business, they might feel compelled to write a negative review or post about it on social media.
Naturally, we can’t always control the behavior or actions of others. However, this does reinforce the notion that it’s paramount for businesses to do everything in their power to provide customers with the best possible experience of their brand whenever possible.
How Tech Can Help
It’s also worth mentioning here that businesses have plenty of technology at their disposal that they can use to massively enhance the customer experience they offer. This is especially true in the case of customer service.
For example, integrating features like a chatbot or autoresponder within a business website can be a massive help to customers with simpler, more straightforward queries. Most people reaching out to customer service will generally be able to find out everything they need to know from talking to a chatbot, and this is a process that is also usually far more efficient than it would be for them than attempting to get through to customer service over the phone or online.
Naturally, leveraging tools like these to create a positive digital customer experience is something of a balancing act. Excessive automation, especially in the context of customer service, is a common source of frustration among the public, so it’s equally important not to go overboard with it.
Analytics can also be useful in improving your brand’s customer experience. Businesses can use metrics like customer experience analytics or customer retention analytics to understand how they’re meeting the needs of their target market, and ways they may be able to improve even further in this area.
Furthermore, you can use tech to create an omni-channel experience for customers to make communication more straightforward and flexible. Not only do omni-channel experiences provide customers with a wider range of channels that they can use to engage with your brand, but they also support the exchange of data between channels to make the customer’s experience as consistent and seamless as possible.
