Today, the secret of successful businesses lies in the strategies they adhere to. Apart from guiding businesses, strategy offers benefits such as eliminating uncertainties, differentiation, adding value and increasing efficiency. It is critical for a customer-oriented business to have a customer experience strategy on the road to success.
We have compiled the 8 steps you need to follow to build your customer experience strategy.
1. Company’s internal negotiations
Before starting to develop a customer experience strategy, internal interviews should be conducted by the customer experience manager in the company to uncover the company’s vision and perspective on customer experience.
Interviews at this stage should start from the top level and continue down to the lower levels. In addition to marketing and sales managers who directly contact the customer, department managers such as technology, finance, etc. should also be included in the interview schedule. As a result of these interviews, it is critical that the management level agrees on the importance of customer experience.
As a result of these interviews, the current vision of the company will also emerge. The company’s vision and customer experience vision should be consistent.
2. Get to know your customers
Before you start developing a customer experience strategy, you should conduct a situation analysis using qualitative and quantitative research. At this stage, you can use customer and stakeholder interviews, surveys, web and mobile application analytics data, social media and research studies.
While collecting this information, you should ask “Where are we now? Where do we want to go?”. These two answers will shed light on your strategy development.
In this step, you can identify where the added value offered by the company, the customer’s expectations and the opportunity overlap. Plan the interviews according to customer segments and focus on segments where your company has growth targets.
3. Review mission, values and goals
To create a 360-degree perspective, you should review the company’s mission, values and goals. The customer experience strategy should align with the company’s mission and values and support its goals.
Ask the right questions about current business objectives to understand your company’s strategic priorities.
For example: Is the primary goal to acquire new customers or expand revenue flow from existing customers? Does your business aim to enter new markets or grow in existing markets with new products/services?
Review the value proposition of your brand at this stage. The brand image should support the customer experience strategy. Brand image activities that will emphasise the strengths of the brand should be planned at this stage.
4. Process improvements
It can be a lot of work to review existing business processes from end-to-end, identify improvement needs and align them with the customer experience strategy. It would be pointless and a waste of resources for a company to develop a customer experience strategy if it can’t meet basic customer expectations.
Case studies and brainstorming for concrete business outcomes will be useful.
The answer to the question of where you need improvements is hidden in your customers. You should use the data you collected in phase 2 at this stage.
With a few basic questions, you can find where you need to focus.
Where are the gaps between customer expectations and the current experience?
Are there any problems caused by business partners other than the company’s internal processes?
Do employees have feedback on processes that are not going well?
5. Create customer journey maps
Customer journey maps, which are among the essentials on the way to a perfect customer experience, are also among the important parts of the customer experience strategy.
You can create customer journey maps using the data collected up to this stage.
You will also need personas used in marketing when creating a customer journey map. Examine the characteristic information obtained from different sources and define personas that reflect ideal customer profiles in the light of this information.
You should also identify customer touch points at this stage. Determine the touch points on channels such as physical store, call centre, website, mobile application, chatbot, social media, etc. in detail. Always show the pain points on the diagram.
You can visualise customer journey maps to make them understandable for everyone.
Make sure that customer journey maps, which will be a guide for your customer experience strategy, are always up-to-date.
6. Set SMART goals
By this stage, you should have a 360-degree view of your business. Now it’s time to set the SMART goals you need to implement your strategy. You will need the data from stages 3 and 4 the most when setting goals.
For a goal to be SMART, it must have the following characteristics.
Specific.
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound
7. Set KPIs
No matter how SMART the goals are, they are meaningless unless there is someone responsible for them. Ensure that SMART goals are matched with KPIs from the top to the bottom of the organisation and that no goal is left open.
Before setting KPIs for customer experience, review existing KPIs and make sure there are no duplicate KPIs. Present KPIs to the relevant unit managers for approval before senior management. Ensure that KPIs are included in performance evaluations.
8. Measure
If you have completed everything up to this stage, your customer experience strategy is ready. You can announce your work and your customer experience strategy to all stakeholders. In order to keep the strategy you have created for a perfect customer experience up to date, you should check all the steps periodically and make updates when necessary.
Measure customer experiences regularly to understand whether the strategy is working correctly. Comparative analysis and feedback with metrics such as NPS, CSAT, CES, etc. will show you whether you are on the right track. In addition to your customers, ask for regular feedback from your employees and don’t forget to look at your strategy through their eyes.
Meet Wiseback
Wiseback offers businesses an advanced platform that enables them to manage their customer experience end-to-end. Wiseback is also with you for the consultancy and training services you need to create your customer experience strategy with its expert consultants. Contact us to get information about our solutions that will move your customer experience processes forward.
