The latest research shows 73% of consumers say customer experience influences their brand loyalties. On top of that, satisfied clients result in a 30% increased profitability for a business as they are more likely to renew their services.
Obviously, keeping your customers happy should be your top priority. Happy customers translate into higher revenue, strong loyalty and increased brand awareness. We at PassKit know you want to provide an unforgettable experience to your consumers.
Do we have some pieces of advice on how to improve customer satisfaction in 2022? Yes, we do! It’s all about customer experience optimization this year.
Optimizing customer experience is a sure-fire way of getting your business in front of more customers and surpassing your competition.
In this article, we’ll help you understand customer experience optimization!
What is customer experience optimization?
What does it mean to optimize customer experience? It refers to a process where a business strives to understand its customers in order to provide the best possible experience across all touchpoints.
Image Source: Voxco
Customer touchpoints, in case you aren’t familiar with the term, are situations where a consumer interacts with a company. For instance, a customer may come into contact with your brand by:
- Visiting your website
- Reading reviews
- Finding you on social media
- Seeing your online ads
- Reading your blog posts
Customer experience optimization examines all of these touchpoints during the customer journey. It tells you how you can enhance the experience so you have happy customers.
But, to excel at customer experience optimization, you can’t perceive your consumers as walking wallets. They’re human beings who are ready to put their trust in your business.
As they’re willing to trust you, their satisfaction should be your top priority. That’s why you should ask yourself: Did they have a good experience with your brand or not?
By finding the answer to this question, you’ll start optimizing the customer experience.
Why do businesses need customer experience optimization?
In 2022, it’s not enough for businesses to offer quality goods and services at competitive prices. Why? Because consumers have become more demanding.
They don’t only expect your products or services to impress them. Quite the contrary, they base their judgment on the experience your brand offers.
Indeed, 74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to purchase based on experience alone. To gain a competitive advantage, you need to bring the customer experience to the next level.
If you’re not able to deliver a seamless experience across all touchpoints, your customers will leave you. So, optimize your customer experience to reap the following benefits:
- Increase sales. According to Forbes, 83% of executives believe that unimproved customer experience puts their business at revenue and market share risks. Obviously, it’s easier to move happy customers down the sales funnel. If you focus on improving consumer satisfaction, your audience base will be more willing to make a purchase.
- Promote loyalty. 56% of customers stay loyal to brands that understand them. Creating loyal customers through a great experience can result in lucrative long-term relationships.
- Retain existing customers. Did you know that 82% of companies agree that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition? If you want your business to profit, focus on your existing customers. They will choose your competition if they have a bad customer experience with your brand. If you want to beat your competition, you can use customer loyalty apps like PassKit to give incentives to buyers.
- Reach new customers. Your existing customer base can bring in new consumers. But they need to be satisfied to do that. Indeed, 71% of people will recommend a product or service if they receive a great experience.
- Improve conversion. Do you want to boost conversions? Your conversion rate can go through the roof if you optimize customer experience.
Customer retention, higher conversion rates, loyalty—all of this can be yours if you offer an optimized customer experience.
Want to show your customers that you care? Launch a digital loyalty program! Visit PassKit to design and create your loyalty program. We’re here to help you retain old and attract new customers. Try PassKit now!
What do statistics say?
Customers are the reason your business thrives. If you’re not working to keep your customers happy, we hate to break it to you, but they won’t buy from your brand anymore.
Brand loyalty comes from satisfaction. This means you need to look at the customer journey and how you can improve it. Is there something you can do to provide the best customer experience?
Image source: Creatopy
It’s highly likely you have room for improvement. Your customer’s experience should be on top of your priorities. Why?
Well, according to Genesys, the top three reasons why businesses invest in customer experience optimization are:
- Improved customer retention (42%)
- Improved customer satisfaction (33%)
- Increased cross-selling and upselling (32%)
Customer experience begins from the moment a consumer hears about your brand. Enhancing or optimizing customer experiences from start to finish must be your number one goal.
Customer experience affects purchasing decisions
Customer experience optimization is the latest buzzword across various industries. Why? The market is saturated, and optimization may help businesses stand out and attract customers.
According to Forrester and Adobe, experience-driven businesses generate over 1.5 times higher year-over-year increases in customer retention, repeat purchase rates and customer lifetime value.
Clearly, when you optimize your customer experience, you’re closer to achieving numerous marketing goals. Most importantly, you find a way to move consumers down the sales funnel, which increases revenue.
According to research:
- 77% of consumers consider a brand’s customer experience just as important as the quality of products or services
- 94% of customers recognize the importance of customer experience
- 56% of consumers know that customer experience is a defining factor when making a purchasing decision
- Customers will pay a 16% price premium for exceptional experiences
It’s now easier to realize what makes customer experience optimization important. If you want your business to thrive, invest in it and consumers will come flocking to your brand.
What are the three main components of customer experience?
Exceptional customer experience is imperative for businesses. According to research, 86% of customers are willing to pay more if it means getting a better customer experience.
Image Source: TutorialsPoint
But, what makes for a great customer experience? Are there some components you should pay special attention to? Yes, there are!
Our team at PassKit has analyzed customers’ wants and needs. We have concluded that consumers want businesses to be outstanding across three key areas:
- Reliability. Brands must ensure their systems and networks are reliable. This helps customers get the right solutions in the shortest time. After all, consumers rely on your business to provide support for both critical and non-critical issues. Communicating the resolution to your customers is, therefore, of utmost importance.
- Availability. Customers expect they can contact your customer service team using various marketing channels. You should be available via phone, email, chat or social media. When they contact you, you should answer them in a timely manner.
- Simplicity. Customer experience optimization depends on simplicity. Doing business with your brand should be easy every step of the way. From ordering products to using your services, your business should make customers’ lives simple.
The above three factors can make or break your customer experience. That’s why optimized customer experience is crucial to have.
You should rely on the available technology and customer data to offer the best experience across different touchpoints. This will give you a clear idea of what consumers expect from you.
Bear in mind that customers aren’t invested in your brand just because of your products or services. Sure, they might make the initial purchase because of your goods, but they will stay loyal because of the way you treat them.
If they see that you’ve made the effort, they’ll ignore your competition. Optimize your customer experience to leave a lasting impression on buyers!
Now you understand what customer experience optimization is and why you need it. It’s time PassKit gives you advice on how to optimize your customer experience.
PassKit is there for you every step of the way. If you want to create loyalty passes, membership cards or digital coupons, PassKit enables you to do that in a few easy steps. Learn more about our platform to see why Burger King and other major brands rely on PassKit!
What are the best ways to optimize customer experience in 2022?
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One customer success story doesn’t make a brand excel at customer experience optimization. It takes much more than that to change a customer’s perception of your brand.
If you want your brand to be synonymous with great customer experiences, you must take it up a notch. Being good at customer experience optimization means being consistent. Don’t let one customer success story make you believe you’ve done your part.
There’s so much you can do! For one, you should keep your customers consistently happy.
How can you do that? By following our tips on how to optimize your customer experience.
Collect customer feedback
Did you know that 53% of shoppers believe their feedback doesn’t go to the person who can act on it? They basically think they are leaving their reviews in vain—no one will do anything about them.
Show your audience you aren’t like other brands. Gather customer feedback and act on it. This will prove that your business cares and that you aren’t in it just for profit.
In fact, 77% of consumers view brands more favorably if they request and apply their feedback. After taking the time to draw your attention to either your strengths or weaknesses, the least you can do is hear your customers out.
Perhaps they will suggest how you can enhance your products. Maybe they will give a bit of helpful advice on how to improve your customer service team.
You can use their feedback for your customer experience optimization efforts. Instead of wondering which touchpoint you can optimize, you’ll hear it from the horse’s mouth.
How to gather customer feedback
80% of companies use customer satisfaction scores to analyze customer experience and improve it. You can do that as well by asking consumers to rate their level of satisfaction with your business or products.
But first, you need to collect feedback directly from them. Luckily, technology has advanced a lot. As a result, you can gather feedback on various channels:
- Link to a survey on social media. Request feedback on the channel your customers visit the most—social media. Post a link to a survey on your social media pages, i.e. in Facebook status updates, tweets or Instagram posts.
- Launch a poll on Instagram Stories. According to Instagram, 500 million users visit Instagram Stories every day. That means a huge portion of your followers checks out Stories as well. Use this to your advantage and conduct a poll. Make sure you analyze your Instagram followers demographics beforehand to understand which questions to ask.
- Ask for feedback on the order confirmation page. Interested to know how satisfied shoppers are with your online shopping experience? Ask them that on the order confirmation page! Find out if your website was user-friendly, how quickly they found the desired product and ask other usability questions.
- Send email surveys to old and new buyers. Customer experience is your major concern and consumers should be aware of that. Send them email surveys to determine their satisfaction with your business.
Create a seamless experience both online and offline
If you want to change a customer’s perception of your business, you must create a seamless experience throughout your entire organization.
Online and offline aren’t two separate entities. Both channels represent your brand, so you must ensure they work in unity. The brick-and-mortar store is an extension of your online shop, and vice versa.
For instance, your online team can analyze data that helps in-store employees increase sales. On the other hand, in-store employees have a more personal connection with shoppers. This enables them to know which areas need improvement.
Customers expect to have a unified experience at every stage of the journey. If they contact you via phone, chat or email, you must deliver a consistent message.
How to bridge the gap between online and offline
Clearly, your customer experience optimization efforts must focus on unifying a customer’s online and offline journeys. Most companies forget about that, appearing inconsistent throughout their marketing channels.
Learn from their mistakes and provide a seamless experience both online and offline. Here’s how:
- Location-based marketing. Thanks to technology, you can now target consumers with online or offline messages when they are in the vicinity of your store. Leveraging location data, you can create a unique experience for consumers on the go.
- Frictionless in-store experience. Forbes states that the future of retail is frictionless. The gap that exists between online and in-store shopping is almost non-existent now because of new technologies (e.g. Apple Wallet). For instance, PassKit can help you bridge that gap. Thanks to PassKit, consumers don’t need to dig out loyalty cards to manage reward points or get special coupons from your brand. Everything they need is right in their smartphones.
- Online and offline rewards programs. Reward programs should work regardless of where your customers decide to shop. Don’t favor online shoppers by giving them discounts on-premise buyers don’t get. Ensure consumers can access the same discounts wherever they want. This will produce a hybrid online-offline experience.
Work on providing a personalized experience
Image Source: Medium
Various customer data show personalization is the future of retail. We’re living in the digital age and it’s easy for people to feel distant. That’s why they crave personalized interactions and experiences.
Indeed, 91% of consumers state they are more likely to shop with companies that deliver relevant discounts and recommendations to them. Modern technology enables businesses to give them what they want.
You can now gather and store customer data. Use this information to create more personal experiences for consumers.
Greet your customers by their first name in newsletters, design offers that meet their interests or launch targeted marketing campaigns. Personalization is the thing that will set you apart from your competitors.
Consumers will meet you halfway. 90% of them are willing to share their data to receive discounts on products they are interested in. This is helpful for marketing teams.
Namely, when people order online, their preferences are recorded. Marketing teams analyze these preferences to create tailored offers, which are personalized to individual customers. That’s how a business caters to consumers’ tastes.
Reward loyalty
What is one of the hardest things to inspire in your customers? Most businesses will tell you it’s loyalty. If you want to win consumers’ loyalty, you must focus on customer experience optimization.
Loyal customers deserve your attention and time. They are there for you through thick and thin, choosing your brand even though countless others are vying for their attention. Don’t take that for granted. If you do, you’ll lose their loyalty in the blink of an eye.
Make sure customer retention is one of your top priorities. Offering a great customer experience will help you along the way. Satisfied consumers will become your loyal advocates.
On top of that, you’ll reap the following benefits:
- Loyal customers are five times more likely to repeat purchases or forgive a bad experience
- A loyal customer purchases 30% more items per order when compared to a first-time buyer, which helps you increase sales
- Loyal customers are worth ten times as much as their first purchase on average
Investing in a great customer experience is a revenue-generating opportunity.
At the end of the day, consumers remember the experience much longer than the product or price. As that famous quote goes, people will never forget how you made them feel.
Image Source: Goodreads
Take an omnichannel approach
Did you know that companies that implement omnichannel strategies retain 89% of their customers? Compare that with a mere 33% customer retention rate for companies with weak omnichannel strategies.
It’s obvious you need to take an omnichannel approach. Although this may have been a luxury in the past, the global pandemic has forced brands to develop omnichannel strategies to reach their customers.
Customers rushed to the internet, seeking brands with great online customer experiences. Businesses met them online but still continued to engage offline to meet different consumer preferences.
That’s what you should do as well. Be present for your customers on various channels. This includes physical (e.g. stores) and digital (e.g. social media platforms, websites, online shops) channels.
The main goal of an omnichannel approach is to create a convenient and seamless customer experience. As a result, consumers are able to browse products online and then purchase them in your physical stores (or vice versa).
How can you improve your omnichannel strategy?
Businesses must deliver a consistent customer experience across all sales and marketing channels. It’s all about connecting your digital and physical presence. As a result, consumers will leave your business satisfied, regardless of where they interacted with your brand.
Here is what you should consider if you want to improve or develop your omnichannel marketing strategy:
- Understand your target audience. You can’t develop any strategy without getting to know your consumers. Learn who your customers are and what their preferences are. For instance, you can research how they buy from you to further improve your omnichannel strategy.
- Create educational content. Your business should try to create high-quality and relevant content. You want to educate your customers and come across as an expert. The only way to do that is by making content that answers your audience’s questions.
- Offer Wi-Fi in your physical stores. Increasingly, customers have started to do product research in brick-and-mortar stores. In fact, 84% of buyers access the internet on their smartphones while in a store. People have increasingly started to rely on the internet. According to our client, Boxpark, 80-90% of orders happen via mobile ordering when customers are in the bar!
- Make free in-store pickup possible. People are often reluctant to pay for shipping costs. They usually abandon their online cart when they realize they will be charged for delivery. Don’t let them leave your website without buying—offer free in-store pickup to your customers.
Enhance your customer’s experience and go omnichannel as soon as possible.
Leverage real-time data to get to know your customers
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Today, consumers interact with your brand from everywhere. Numerous touchpoints, including websites, online ads, social media or loyalty cards, generate a massive amount of customer data.
When it comes to customer experience optimization, you must rely on that data and not on a hunch. Having a data-driven approach will equip you with the facts and knowledge you need to improve customer experience.
That’s why you should track metrics about your customers and their interactions with your company. You’ll have a clear picture of how good or bad your customer experience is. Also, you’ll identify areas that are doing well or need improvement.
Data also allows you to personalize experiences, adjusting them to different customers’ preferences. For instance, it enables you to categorize consumers according to:
- Demographics
- Buying behavior
- Online activity
- Order history
As you’ll see, this information can help you create relevant content and improve your customer experience optimization efforts. Perhaps it can also help you conclude whether you need a new plan for your digital membership cards or new discounts.
Offer the best mobile customer experience
Customer experience optimization isn’t aimed at the web only. You need to provide a consistent experience throughout every platform your consumers are using. That includes mobile devices as well.
According to a survey conducted by Statista, almost half of the respondents said that on average they spent five to six hours on their phones every day. This means they are highly likely to interact with your brand on their smartphones.
Don’t let them down! Provide the best mobile customer experience to draw them to your business. How? For one, you can ensure the site is responsive both on the web and smartphones.
Then, mobile users shouldn’t miss out on anything. Any functionality present on the web needs to be available to users on smartphones.
For instance, if customers can check out their loyalty points on the computer, they should also be able to do that on mobile. Customer experience on mobile and desktop should be the same. Your consumers shouldn’t feel like anything is missing on either platform.
When you optimize customer experience, your business goals, including higher sales and increased brand awareness, will be more attainable.
Optimize your customer experience with PassKit
Image Source: PassKit
Unifying the online and offline experience, personalizing the customer journey, collecting real-time data and providing a frictionless in-store experience, all of that is possible thanks to PassKit.
PassKit is a software that allows businesses of any size to leverage native apps built in today’s smartphones—Apple Wallet and Google Pay. According to Statista, Apple Wallet numbers over 200 million users, while Google Pay has 100 million users.
Clearly, PassKit enables you to take advantage of the familiarity and trust your customers have with the above two apps. Your consumers expect a frictionless, connected, seamless and engaging customer experience, both online and offline. PassKit is able to deliver that.
We help you reward customers for their loyalty. They don’t need to dig through their pockets or bags to find their physical cards or vouchers. PassKit turns them into digital passes, which they can store in their built-in digital wallets.
Real-time data is crucial if you want to track your passes distribution and performance. As PassKit connects with your CRM or POS, all loyalty data is trackable and easily accessible. Additionally, PassKit allows you to analyze your customers’ purchasing behavior.
Optimize your customer experience with PassKit and show consumers you’re willing to use technology that makes their lives easier!
Why choose PassKit
Image Source: PassKit
Small businesses want to launch loyalty programs to increase customer loyalty and trust in their brand. If you want to create your own loyalty program, PassKit can help you.
Our software comes with numerous benefits for your business, regardless of the industry you operate in. These benefits are:
- It’s frictionless, which is especially useful during the global pandemic
- Reduced paper waste as everything is located within a smartphone, which saves the trees
- It’s not necessary to design or print anything
- It doesn’t require any technical know-how, enabling you to set up your loyalty program in just a few minutes
- It integrates with your CRM or POS to track all loyalty data
Here is a short overview to see what you can expect from PassKit:
| PassKit | |
| Industries | Hospitality, Travel, Retail and Insurance |
| Native app | No, it integrates with Apple Wallet and Google Pay, meaning you don’t need a team to develop your app from scratch |
| Support | Live chat, help center |
| Free Trial | Yes |
| Pricing | Starts at $39.50 |
Conclusion
You must optimize your customer experience in 2022. The competition is fierce, with companies doing all it takes to win the attention of consumers. One careless mistake and your customers will take their business elsewhere.
Don’t let your customers down. Show them you care by improving your customer experience optimization efforts. Thank them for their loyalty by creating a seamless experience throughout every customer touchpoint.
PassKit enables you to create that seamless experience, bridging the gap between online and offline. Bring loyalty cards to your customers’ mobile wallet applications to further enhance their experience. Start your journey with us today.
FAQ
What is customer experience optimization?
Customer experience optimization refers to a brand’s efforts to create a consistent and seamless experience throughout the entire customer life cycle.
How do you optimize your customer experience?
To optimize your customer experience, you must:
- Gather consumer feedback
- Create a seamless experience both online and offline
- Take an omnichannel approach
- Improve the mobile customer experience
How do you optimize customer service?
If you want to optimize customer service, follow these methods:
- Develop customer retention techniques
- Build trust with your customers
- Enable your team to offer exceptional customer service
- Collect feedback to determine which areas need improvement
- Develop social media and content marketing strategies
What is customer experience excellence?
Customer experience excellence refers to the success of your optimization efforts that improve the experience customers have with your brand. Customer experience excellence is important as it increases loyalty, advocacy and engagement.
