ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS: HIRING A CX EXPERT
I have been in the customer experience industry long enough to be able to say that there is a more defined shift in customer expectations taking place for the past six or seven years but especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Customers today are more discerning than ever. Despite the technological advancements, customers expect seamless interactions, personalized services, and exceptional experiences. While the willingness to spending more or paying higher rates has increased after the major impact the pandemic had in people’s lives and their priority scale (the YOLO culture), we have also seen the attribute “value for money” decreasing in most customer experience surveys. This brings us to the quick realization that offering quality products and services is no longer sufficient. Companies must focus on the entire customer journey, from pre-purchase to post-purchase interactions. A positive experience contributes significantly to brand loyalty, customer retention and is one of the most important business growth levers. By investing in CX (Customer Experience), businesses realize that they can achieve several critical-to-success benefits, such as:
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Satisfied customers are more likely to stay loyal and recommend the brand to others.
Reduced Churn: A positive experience reduces customer churn, preserving existing revenue streams.
Increased Customer Lifetime Value: Enhancing CX leads to larger average spend and long-term customer value.
Brand Preference: CX influences brand perception and preference.
Positive Word-of-Mouth: Satisfied customers become brand ambassadors.
Increased Value-for-Money: Elevating customers’ experiences and providing higher value propositions whether on a product or service is the one of the best strategies to building brand loyalty.
In essence, businesses recognize that investing in customer experience optimization is not only profitable but also essential for staying competitive and building lasting customer relationships. As a result of this, we’re seeing an increase in hiring customer experience leaders or consultants in the last couple of years. And not only in the hospitality industry but any type of business that is looking to provide above and beyond product and service experiences.
Customer experience experts have become a strategic pivotal function within companies whether as part of their leadership or advisory teams, and their role is increasingly prominent and more complex. Supported by various CX tools, this essential role oversees the entire customer experience journey, processes and behaviors involved and how to improve them (CX Design), focuses on creating seamless experiences that exceeds customers’ needs over any channel (CX-Centric Strategies), ensuring consistency across every touchpoint and interaction, digital or in-person (CX Optimization) and simultaneously gathers real-time insights (CX Voice of the Customer) to continuously improve on the processes and enhance their experiences.
It’s a full 360 intervention on all aspects of the customer journey and as such requires dedicated focused teams or dedicated external expert support such as experience design consultants, as a good and cost efficient alternative to hiring a full team. Moreover, with consumer trends constantly evolving, it is critical to continuously monitor those trends and quickly adapt your offerings in order to keep the competitive edge. Staying competitive as we all know, is critical to success and to business longevity.
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