What does customer experience mean to you?  For most, it’s the practice of preparing for – and reacting to – user interactions to meet and exceed their expectations in an effort to increase loyalty and satisfaction and make them your brand cheerleaders.  

As today’s technology evolves, the bar is being pushed higher for more intuitive user interactions. With these innovative advances, achieving a consumer experience that exceeds expectations is becoming more of a challenge.

So what’s the key to the ultimate consumer experience?

There are 3 keys to keeping people loyal for the long run – ease…speed…and accuracy!  Customer experience is more than just customer service or a quick reaction to issues – it includes the complete lifecycle of awareness, intention, desire, action and advocacy.

So why the sudden change in focus to customer experience?

Sure, providing great service has always been important, but does that really have an impact on your brand? Yes!

Your competitors have the ability to gain access to your buyers, learning their habits and providing a solution to their problems.  Consumers are also changing. They are educating themselves prior to making a purchase decision and are expecting digital ease of service at every phase of customer engagement.  

Here are some tips to boost your user experience.

• Make your design user-centered: You can remove the need for other solutions later by making sure that your website and products/services are intuitive to your users’ needs and expectations.
• Personalize: Some activities throughout your sales funnel don’t require personalization, but when it matters, it really matters.
• Provide a human touch: Make it less painful. When the resolution to an issue is not clear-cut, it can add effort to the user journey and hinder their experience.
• Redirect: If the first contact is a self-service option, acceleration to phone, email or chat should be seamless and directed to the proper help center.
• Pay attention to the user’s time:  Throughout the experience, each point of contact should have all the information they need from the previous contact point to speed up the process.
• Sync your social outlets:  Today people often turn to social channels when resolving an issue via mobile devices. According to the WSJ, Americans spend an average of 37 minutes daily on social media, which is more time spent than on any other Internet activity.

In marketing, communicating with your customer translates to anticipating their needs, wants and problems before they arise, and the competition will not be won based on price point or product features, but by the entirety of the overall consumer experience.