It’s not hard to connect the customer experience to business growth. After all, each of us plays the role of the customer a lot more often than we do anything else in the equation. As such, we all know what it’s like to come out of an experience with a brand feeling frustrated, ripped off, mistreated, or ignored.
On the other side of the coin, almost nothing compares to the feeling of stepping into a favorite café or lunch spot wherein the staff greets you by name and already knows your order, no matter how busy they are.
Understanding the power of the customer experience will help you craft an exceptional customer journey that prioritizes creating a well-received, personalized, and gratifying customer experience.
Today’s consumers expect a high-quality customer experience no matter if they’re stopping at a café, or they’re signing a multi-year contract – make sure you’re providing the best experience possible with Impact’s customer experience consulting.
The Power of a Positive Customer Experience
There is a lot of power in a positive customer experience. First and foremost, if you deliver a high-quality customer experience on a consistent basis, you’ll end up converting customers into enthusiastic brand advocates. —people who genuinely want to tell their friends and family about the experience, your products or services, and they might even post on their social media platforms, which is incredibly strong (and essentially free) marketing.
This can also end up boosting levels of engagement across your brand’s social media platforms, which is excellent for brand awareness.
On top of the brand advocacy that you can generate with a positive customer experience, you will also see higher rates of average customer satisfaction which translates to higher earnings as the overwhelming majority of customers are more than happy to pay a little extra for a high-quality customer experience.
“86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience... customers are willing to pay a price premium of up to 13% (and as high as 18%) for luxury and indulgence services, simply by receiving a great customer experience.”
Staggering Customer Experience Stats
While the customer experience may not seem like an important factor in business growth, the stats truly speak for themselves.
PwC reports that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience, while 92% would completely abandon a company after two or three negative interactions. This drastic level of churn should be concerning if you aren’t already prioritizing a positive customer experience at every phase of the customer journey.
In a similar vein, Treasure Data has found that 74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experience alone. This further emphasizes the importance of a customer experience that can generate brand advocates. Current customers vouching for and marketing your brand organically based on their experience will lead to additional word-of-mouth sales and an expanded market share.
The gravity of customer experience really starts to come into view when you consider that even a 5% uptick in customer retention can lead to a 25%-95% increase in profitability.
To further drive this point home, here are a few additional stats on the effects of a positive customer experience.
Brand Loyalty and Market Share
When customers have a gratifying experience with a brand, they are more likely to develop an affinity towards it. This little preference forms the foundation of brand loyalty, where customers actively choose to repeatedly engage with your brand over competitors because they already know and trust you, ultimately making their shopping process much simpler.
Positive experiences will also naturally lead to enhanced customer retention rates. Satisfied customers are less likely to jump to competitors, meaning you see lower churn and capitalize repeat purchases.
By consistently delivering high-quality products or services, excellent customer support, and seamless experiences at every touchpoint, businesses can cultivate a customer base that remains loyal over time, allowing you to gradually increase and expand your market share since every customer you bring in the door has a higher chance of becoming a loyal, lifetime customer.
This directly translates to an above-average customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV measures the total revenue a customer generates for a business throughout their entire relationship.
Satisfied customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, upgrade to premium offerings, and remain loyal over an extended period. As a result, they contribute more revenue to the business over their lifetime compared to dissatisfied or disengaged customers.
All-in-all, a positive customer experience plays a crucial role in developing brand loyalty and driving market share growth. By focusing on delivering exceptional experiences, businesses can improve customer retention and reduce churn, increase average CLV, and expand their market share.
Using Emotion to Elevate the Customer Experience
Brands can harness the power of emotion to elevate their customer experience and fuel growth by emphasizing resonance in messaging, nurturing genuine relationships with customers, aligning values with their audience, and articulating their purpose.
Brands that understand their audience's values, aspirations, and pain points can create experiences that resonate on a deep level. Whether through storytelling, visual assets and branding, or personalized interactions, a resonant experience evokes emotions that leave a lasting impression and forms stronger bonds between the brand and its customers.
To strengthen customer relationships even further, brands can prioritize empathy and understanding to anticipate and address the needs of their customer base, enhancing the experience further and building additional loyalty along the way.
Taking this a step further, if your audience can see their own values in the mission and vision statement of your brand, they’ll feel an additional layer of connection to your business and what you’re trying to accomplish. Centering your business operations around a compelling ‘why statement’ will draw consumers to your brand who want to be a part of something bigger.
Personalization and Segmentation
Brands can also leverage personalization and segmentation in marketing to enhance the customer experience by tailoring their strategies to meet the specific needs and preferences of individual customers.
While personalization involves crafting targeted marketing messages, offers, and experiences that speak to individual customers on a personal level, segmentation divides your audience into distinct groups based on shared characteristics and behaviors.
In order to effectively create personalized campaigns and segment your audience, you’ll need to rely on data. By leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms, brands can gain insights into customer behavior and preferences. This allows them to make informed marketing decisions that lead to more conversions, and ultimately, more sales.
Whether it’s through targeted email campaigns, personalized product recommendations, or tailored social media ads, brands can use personalized storytelling to create meaningful connections with specific customers and drive important metrics like engagement, loyalty, and the bottom line.
Final Thoughts on How Customer Experience Drives Growth
Prioritizing the customer experience is essential for brands that want to remain relevant and competitive in the modern marketplace. With the rise of e-commerce, the saturation of most markets, and the prevalence of internet-enabled devices, the customer experience is one thing that can set your brand apart in the seemingly endless sea of competition.
By using emotional appeal and relying on data for personalized and segmented marketing, organizations can organically nurture brand advocacy, significantly increase customer retention, expand their total market share, and maybe most importantly, drive the bottom line.
A powerful customer experience will keep your brand top-of-mind whenever your audience is shopping.
If you need a little help polishing your customer experience so you can start generating brand advocates, improving customer loyalty and retention, and strengthening the bottom line, consider working with Impact’s customer experience consultants who can help you take your customer journey to the next level.
