If you had to name the top priority for marketers today, what would it be? If you said creating a positive Customer Experience (CX), you’d be right. Sure, everybody wants to increase sales, but without a good customer experience, that’s very difficult, if not impossible, to do.
CX is your customers’ perception of how you treat them and what it’s like to do business with you. CX is influenced by everything from the types of marketing your company engages in, to your willingness to honor their channel preferences, to how salespeople inside the store treat them.
To understand just how vital CX really is, SuperOffice recently surveyed nearly 2,000 marketers, asking them to identify the top priority for their businesses in the next five years. Perhaps surprising to no one, CX came out on top. It even beat out products and pricing:
- Customer experience (46%)
- Products (34%)
- Pricing (21%)
When you look deeper, you can see why. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, found that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for great CX, and the more expensive the item, the more they are willing to pay. For example, customers are willing to pay a price premium of up to 13% for luxury and indulgence services simply by receiving a great CX.
How can you improve your CX? Make every interaction matter. In your marketing, for example:
- Create a consistent brand experience from one channel to another. Ensure that your brand colors, images, and messaging are consistent regardless of whether they are interacting with you through print, email, social media, mobile, or the web.
- Personalize your mailings to ensure that your communications are relevant and exciting.
- Use highlight color and great design to make it easy to find critical information, such as contact numbers, payment information, and addresses.
- Ask customers about their channel preferences for communications. Then honor them.
- Use high-quality materials for your print communications. Make each contact feel like a luxury experience. Use color, special coatings, and high-quality papers that make customers feel special.
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Creating a positive customer experience has never been more important. Marketing communications can be an essential component of achieving this goal.
