The Top 10 Quick Hits to Improve Customer Experience

Although it deserves a spot first on the list, customer experience sometimes takes a back burner if you get too caught up in shiny new tools. When it comes to creating a brand presence online, your customer experience must be mapped and entirely understood from the very beginning – prior to a website build, social media community growth, etc.

Because most companies already have somewhat of a presence online, however, it’s hard to go back to the beginning and start from scratch. Wherever you stand in terms of your brand online make sure you always: put yourself in the shoes of your customers, focus on their needs and not yours, and always look for ways to help them.

Without a great deal of effort or change, here are 10 quick hits to improve your customer’s experience online:

1. Be Consistent. In everything from colors and design styles to tone of voice and core messaging, be consistent and speak to them how they want to be spoken to. Treat them as if you were one of them and they’re more apt to trust and engage with you.
2. Make Sure People Can Find You. True to both online and offline efforts, if your customers can’t find you, they’re not going to buy from you. Make sure your SEO efforts are up to date and in the physical space, make sure your online listings for your store or location are accurate.
3. Design Your Ads & Landing Pages to Work Together. If someone is intrigued and engaged with an online ad, and then they click on to the site and it offers totally different branding or value proposition, they will no doubt be confused and look elsewhere.
4. Share Relevant Content. ‘The right type of content has the ability to rank prominently in search results, earning shares on social media and making a name for the business behind it.’ On top of that, people now longer value a good story and brand experience, they expect it.
5. Include Videos When Possible. There’s no better way to articulate the value behind your product or service than to show it in action. ‘As the competition for customer attention continues to heat up, infographics, photos, and videos will be essential supplement to every piece of content.’
6. Make Your Email Marketing Relevant & Engaging. Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is far from dead – provided that you’re utilizing it in a way that furthers your story and gives the reader something that is valuable to their job or life.
7. Bring Online & In-Store Shopping Experiences Together. A cohesive communications strategy will make it more likely for brand recall in customer. This means that your website needs to reflect physical attributes of your brand, product or store; while your physical locations attract greater attention when digital is incorporated.
8. Use Social For Customer Support & Service. Social communities are the perfect place to extend an arm of customer service. People are there and talking, as long as you give them the impression they are being heard. Social customer service has proven high impact in terms of reducing internal customer service calls, inquiries, and complaints.
9. Make It Easy To Find & Leave Reviews For Your Business. On top of social conversations, customer reviews are a top influencer in the customer research process.
10. Finally, Say More With Less. People don’t have three minutes to peruse your content but they may have 30 seconds to hear a compelling story. Get to the point. Stay brief. Be creative.

To access the presentation slides for this information, click here. How will you improve your customer experience in 2016?