Customer experience: how important is it?

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Customer engagement,Email marketing

Customer experience (CX) is super important to the success of your business. A positive experience stays with you. Equally, so does a bad one. To start delivering exceptional experiences, it’s import we understand what makes one. Read more about the best digital experience platform.

What is customer experience?

CX is the customer’s perception of your brand, based on their interactions with your business.

That means, every single interaction with your brand, from email marketing and website visits, to the purchase process, a tweet on social media – all of these interactions will contribute to their impression of your brand.

Everything you do impacts your customers’ perceptions – so every touchpoint matters. A good experience will leave them wanting more. A bad experience can drive them away forever.

The perception of your brand that customers take away from their experience with you will ultimately impact your bottom line. So getting it right is essential.

What’s the difference between customer experience and customer service?

As brands recognize the importance of customer experience, there can be some confusion about where it belongs in your business. Most brands have a customer service department responsible for interacting with customers. As a result, customer experience should sit with them, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Customer service relates only to specific touchpoints where customers receive or request assistance. For example, when a customer calls an operator to cancel an order or emails a service provider. As customer experience is based on all interactions with your brand, customer service is effectively a part of it.

If you’re planning on adding a specialist CX team to your business, it’s important to remember that they are involved with far more than just the customer service team.

Customer services team image

Why is customer experience important?

We’ve already mentioned that customer experience can affect your business’s bottom line. Delivering an exceptional customer experience offers a range of benefits for your business:

  • Increased customer loyalty – when a customer trusts your brand, they’re going to return time and again.
  • Better customer advocacy – loyal customers are more likely to become brand advocates, sharing their experience with friends, family, and colleagues.
  • Longer customer retention – whether your buying cycle is long or short, a good experience will keep your brand at the top of customers’ minds when buying decisions need to be made.

How to measure customer experience

Customer experience can only be optimized and improved when you can measure your current success. As CX is based on customer perception, you need to gather insight from your customers.

  1. Reviews and ratings
    Requesting reviews and ratings of products and services is essential. Not only does it help product development, but it also helps you identify products or services that are failing to meet customer expectations.
  2. Unsubscribe survey
    Surveying customers when they unsubscribe from your email marketing will help you pinpoint reasons for customer churn. Churn is inevitable, but if you understand the reasons behind it, you can begin to optimize the customer experience to lower the churn rate.
  3. Customer satisfaction surveys
    You should regularly be sending customer satisfaction surveys to your database. You’ll increase your chances of getting responses if you incentivize your surveys with gift vouchers, but they’re a great tool to understand your customers. In these surveys, you can ask shoppers about anything ranging from website experience and opinions on new product launches using intelligent survey branching to create unique customer pathways.
  4. Customer service feedback
    Analyzing the feedback you receive from your customer service operations is also very helpful. If you use a support ticket system or ask qualifying questions you can reveal recurring issue among your customers. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of tickets, calls, or live chats that are logged with your customer service teams.

4 tips to improve your customer experience

When strategizing to enhance customer experience, marketers frequently prioritize areas such as websites, automation, and social channels. However, it’s crucial not to overlook certain quick-wins that can make a substantial impact. For instance, optimizing content to attract TikTokviews from the UK is a valuable tactic that aligns with the broader goal of providing a seamless and engaging experience for your audience. By tailoring your content to resonate with the audience, you not only enhance your visibility but also cater to the specific preferences and interests of this demographic, contributing to an overall improved customer experience. Click this link here to see more.

Customer experience is important

Customer experience is important – that much is clear. Creating remarkable experiences will keep customers coming back, and if you’re really smashing it, advocating for your brand too. The more trust and loyalty you can develop with every interaction, the more the customer will spend with you, as you continue to meet their needs and expectations.

New for the 2016/17 Swiss Ski Season

Another ski season is not far away, and many Swiss resorts have been busy upgrading their facilities ready for season 2016/17.

In Zermatt the ancient gondola below the Rothorn from Gant to Blauherd is being replaced by a six-seat chairlift.
Saas-Fee in Saastal
In Saas-Fee the equally ancient gondola in the Spielboden sector is being replaced by a faster 10-seater gondola.

Andermatt continues its aggressive program of expansion. This season two T-bars will be replaced by six-seater chairlifts. In the following two seasons an additional two six-seater chairlifts and an eight-seater gondola will link the Nätschen area of Andermatt to Sedrun and open up 26km of new piste. Sedrun itself replaces a t-bar with a chairlift, a trend across many Alpine resorts.

Most people know Klosters for the Parsenn area, but the seperate Madrisa area is popular with families. Here an innovative six-seater chairlift, “Schaffürggli”, is being installed, the first of its kind in Switzerland. It features a laser scanner that uses hydraulics to adjust the height of the seat, making it much easier for children to get on and off. The chairlift will also have heated seats and can take wheelchair users up the mountain.

New lifts and replacement lifts are planned for a number of other resorts including Flumserberg, The Four Valleys, Corvatsch, Crans-Montana, Pizol, Les Diablerets, Villars-Gryon, Grüsch-Danusa and Val Müstair.

I’ve often thought it would be fun to have a drone film my descent. It would also be useful to give visitors to swisswintersports.co.uk an idea of what to expect. Well Verbier got there first and is offering Europe’s first self-tracking drones. The drones follow you on the slopes using Bluetooth and a GPS-enabled Smartphone App and Téléverbier rents them out the Hexo+ drones for CHF400 per day or CHF250 for a half day, providing assistance and a video at the end of the day.

All of the major airports in Switzerland lie just outside the Alps, but Swiss International Airlines now plan to provide a scheduled service between Sion and London, subject to a number of test flights. Sion Airport is in the heart of the Swiss Alps, and so close to the slopes you can actually see planes take off and landing from the pistes of several nearby resorts, including Verbier and Nendaz. Sion has been used for civilian flights for some time, but the last scheduled service from the UK was withdrawn a few years ago and the military will be withdrawing from using it from next year. The director of Sion airport, Aline Bovier-Gantzer says that “The initiative for the new flight is due to a collaboration with the Swiss tourism industry: Valais is already a favourite destination of British tourists during the winter months thanks to its proximity to some of Switzerland’s most popular ski resorts.”

Of course, if you fly to Switzerland, independent travellers can easily get to their resorts using the fabulous transport infrastructure available without having to resort to lengthy, uncomfortable coach transfers. You can also make the entire trip from many European cities directly by train, including London with the Eurostar ski train, booking for which is now open.
Snowboarders in the Alps
Just outside Switzerland’s borders but very popular with Swiss skiers is the Arlberg area in Austria. I remember that once you could get round the circuit that includes St Anton, Lech and Zürs, but for some years this has not been the case. Now a new gondola is scheduled to open that will link Zürs and Stuben to create the largest ski area in Austria, one of four new lifts that will be built in Ski Alberg over the summer. For the 2016/17 season this means Ski Arlberg will total 305km piste served by 87 lifts, fully linking St Anton, Stuben, St Christoph, Lech, Zürs, Schröcken and Warth.

Season Opening Dates in Switzerland 2015-16

Some resorts have already opened – Diavolezza, Saas-Fee and Zermatt being perennial early starters. As of Halloween weekend Glacier3000 and ArosaLenzerheide should also be open.
Region Chablis is usually a late starter
Other key opening dates are:

14th November
Andermatt
Engelberg
20th November
Davos
21st November
St. Moritz
26th November
Samnaun
28th November
Disentis
Flims Laax Falera
Flumserberg
Grüsch Danusa
Zweisimmen
Klewenalp
Sedrun
Splügen
Zermatt (Winter Programme)

5th December
Adelboden
Aletsch Arena
Wengen/Grindelwald
Lenk
Pizol
Verbier/4 Vallees
Feldberg
12th December
Château-d’Oex
Saanen/Gstaad
Rougemont
Grindelwald First
Mürren
Lauchernalp
Melchsee-Frutt
Savognin
18th December
Anzère
19th December
Airolo
Beatenberg
Belalp
Brigels
Bürchen
Chur – Brambrüesch
Elm
Feldis
Grächen
Val Müstair
Obersaxen
Ovronnaz
Portes du Soleil
Saas Grund
Sörenberg
Stoos
Leukerbad