Creating an excellent experience for customers requires significant effort and the participation of every company department to focus on customers' needs and wants. For many companies, an engaging customer experience continues to be a unique differentiator that helps them cultivate customer loyalty and retain more business. Organizations of all sizes and types can benefit from an improved customer experience, and customers are likely to recognize the effort. In fact, research from PwC showed that 73% of people consider customer experience an essential factor when making purchasing decisions.

The best way to create a strong customer experience is to develop a clear framework for your improvement efforts. This framework should include your customer experience vision, descriptions of your ideal customer, a road map, and key performance indicators (KPIs). From there, it is easier to set specific goals and identify the best customer experience strategies to implement.

In this post, we’ll discuss a few of the best customer experience strategies that are proven to add tangible value to customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as the company’s bottom line. Selecting the right customer experience strategy for your business can be a challenge, and some companies may choose to develop multiple strategies at the same time. Here are four excellent options to get you started.

1. Have a Clear Customer Experience Vision

Because customer experience is such a broad theme, it helps to have a clear vision for what you intend to create. A clear vision communicated to your employees will help them understand the goals and objectives and how to leverage your organization's unique strengths when performing their job duties. Having a clear customer experience vision will undoubtedly increase your chances of success and should be the cornerstone of any customer experience improvement plan.

2. Refine Your Customer Service Structures

Your customer support and service teams play a central role in customer experience management. In addition to improving your brand perception, excellent customer support can dramatically impact customer satisfaction levels. The customer service structures that you create should make your support resources easy to access and give customers a personalized experience at each touchpoint.

It is crucial to provide frequent training for your team to help them develop their skills and make sure that they can give the right kind of support. You may find it necessary to change the size of your customer support team, hire staff with unique skillsets, or implement processes to achieve more rapid responses and higher quality engagements. It may also help to expand your communication channels and offer more ways for customers to get in touch. Some of these decisions will be difficult, so it will be beneficial to reference your customer experience vision and the high-level goals you are trying to achieve.

3. Invest in the Right Systems and Tools

No matter how motivated your team is to provide exceptional customer support, it is hard to be effective without a robust customer support system in place. With the right platform in place, you can take advantage of proven software tools, such as a shared inbox and knowledge base, to give your customers easy access to critical information.

Digital tools can also enhance the customer experience for online support situations beyond in-person discussions and phone conversations. Many of these tools give your team a solid foundation and can improve customer satisfaction. Since you can’t try everything at once, it may help to start with tools that customers can interact with directly. Over time you can also improve your ability to monitor customer behavior, track vital metrics, and take proactive steps to prevent potential issues.

4. Provide Self Service Options

Because it has become so easy to access information online, many customers prefer to complete basic tasks and solve minor issues on their own. Without a way to find answers to these questions, customers may have no choice but to contact your support team. Relying on customers to reach out when they're experiencing problems is not always the most effective strategy, especially if the information could have been shared in a simple guide. One way to solve this dilemma is to provide self-service options.

One of the best self-service tools available is a customer portal, giving your customers access to a knowledge base and other useful features, such as a log of their previous support tickets and solutions. Self-service offerings help promote engagement with your brand and can lead to greater customer retention over time. It is vital to develop a holistic approach to customer experience and add value during every customer interaction with your company.

Customer experience is not a simple concept, and it will take time and a focused effort to create something truly unique and engaging. Companies can use a customer experience management framework to help them make decisions and select from the many potential strategies. By adapting to customer’s needs and focusing on the right priorities, it is possible to improve retention while developing a world-class customer experience.