We live in a digital world, where customer experience is king. So the question is, how do you create a customer experience that feels like magic?

 The customer experience is a broad concept that includes your interactions with a company and its products or services. It’s not just about the product or service itself, but how the customers feel about those products and services — and the company offering them.

Customer experience is the new battleground for companies. One Qualtrics study of more than 23,000 consumers showed that 8/10 of respondents believe customer experiences need to be improved. In the digital age, your customers are empowered to make decisions, and they have access to more information than ever before. You need to meet them where they are with an experience that is personalized, relevant and integrated into their lives.

Customers expect their experience to be defined by these three things:

1. Personalization. We’re all used to seeing ads tailored to our interests and preferences — and we expect the same from companies themselves. Companies will need to be able to tailor their interactions with us based on what they know about us and what we’ve done with them in the past.
2. Effortless. Customers won’t want to jump through hoops or fill out forms when trying to make purchases or find information — they want everything available with the least possible effort.
3. Omnichannel. People will expect their devices — their phones, tablets, laptops — to work seamlessly together to use whichever device is most convenient at any given moment without losing any of the contexts from previous interactions with a company or service provider.

Unified customer experience

Unified communication has become more popular as businesses have realized that they need to be able to interact with their customers no matter where they are or what device they’re using. This method of communication allows companies to set up multiple channels for communication — phone, email, text message, etc. — and then route those communications through one system, so they’re all logged and organized in one place.

You can use various methods of communication based on who you’re talking to and what works best for them at any given time. That could be emailing a response or chatting with them on the website module if they have questions about one of their recent purchases. This type of personalized communication is powerful. It shows your customers that they’re not just another transaction on a spreadsheet to be processed; they’re real people who need to be listened to and cared for.

Implementing this method is simple with communication platform as a service (CPaaS) software. For example, Nudge allows companies to send text messages, IVR, emails, push notifications, WhatsApp messages, and more directly to their customers’ devices — all in one platform. That means no more time wasted switching between apps or tracking down information on outdated legacy systems. We make it easy for businesses to send out timely and relevant messages without spending hours doing research or trying to keep up with customer preferences across disjointed methodologies.

Because Nudge is cloud-based, it’s always up-to-date and customizable. It also allows you to integrate all of your communication channels in one place without having to learn new software or hire new employees. Our flexible APIs enable you to adapt with a scalable foundation, making it a perfect addition to your customer communication stack. This means less overhead and more time spent on actually running your business.

Data-driven customer experience

We live in the age of data-driven customer experience, and it’s time to get on board.

If you’re operating a digital business, it’s crucial to think about the customer experience as something to build with the help of your treasure trove of customer data. With the right data-driven approach, you can design experiences that make customers feel like they’re being treated like a VIP.

Data-driven customer experience starts with understanding how your customers interact with your brand online and offline. This could be tracking everything from how long it takes them to find what they’re looking for on your site to what kinds of things they’re searching for, how many times they visit a specific page or section of your site, and which pages they spend more time on than others, plus so much more.

Understanding your customers’ behavior will help you learn more about what they want from your brand — and how they want it delivered — which will allow you to create experiences that are tailored specifically to them and their needs.

This kind of personalization goes beyond just creating individualized marketing messages: it means creating an entire system where everything runs smoothly because every piece falls into place based on real-time information.

You can use AI and data science to create a better customer experience by:

• Creating personalized experiences for your customers based on their previous interactions with your brand.
• Using AI to develop self-service systems that make it easy for customers to solve problems themselves without ever contacting your company directly (or even talking with another human being).
• Delivering relevant content keeps customers coming back for more through push notifications, emails, or SMS.

Create a vision of your customer’s experience

Or a customer journey map.

When creating a digital presence for your company, it can be hard to know where to start. Where should you focus? How do you make sure that everything is organized and streamlined?

One of the best ways to keep all of your efforts organized is to create a clear vision of your customer’s experience with your brand. When you’re designing labels or making graphics, or deciding which social media platform to use, you’ll know exactly how each element will contribute to creating an experience that will delight and engage your customers.

Start by asking yourself: “What are our company’s goals?”

What do we want people to feel or think when they interact with our products or services? What kind of impression do we want them to leave with? Working backward from this will help you figure out what content to include in each step toward achieving those goals. Collect feedback from your customers to help you understand what they’re thinking and feeling now to see if it aligns with the end goal you have in mind.

Ask them directly — at events, on Twitter, and Facebook — and listen carefully. They will tell you everything you’re doing right plus the things you’re doing wrong.

It also doesn’t hurt to read up on the latest trends in customer experience. You can learn a lot by studying other companies’ efforts and seeing what works for them and what doesn’t (and why).

Once you’ve gathered all of your information, try role-playing as the customer. How does the experience make you feel? How can you improve it?

Humans are driven by emotions. Every time a customer interacts with your brand, it evokes some type of feeling that will leave an inevitable imprint. Because of this, approaching your customer with empathy is critical for creating a delightful experience. If you don’t start thinking about how your customer is experiencing your brand, you’re apt to find yourself in a landscape that may not find you relevant any longer.

If you’re interested in the future of customer experience, we’d love to work with you on how Nudge is the perfect fit. Contact us today to get started.