5 Customer Experience Challenges Businesses Must Overcome

Business needs and dynamics are transitory. There is more to business than just getting the customer in the shop and having them spend money. Post-purchase experiences are just as important as the experience of the customer at any other point in the sale process. Customer Experience, commonly referred to as CX is very crucial for every business that seeks to be sustainable. Overcoming customer experience challenges is a proven method of customer acquisition and a sure way of building memorable and long-lasting brands. The end results of a good customer experience are undisputed. Major brands have often capitalized on customer experience to acquire lifetime customers as well as convert one-time purchase customers into repeat customers. According to a Forbes Report, 74% of consumers stated they are likely to become repeat customers based solely on their experience with a brand. A survey by PWC found that 65% of all consumers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.

But hold on… What is Customer Experience?

Customer experience is simply a measure of how customers subjectively react to contact with your business – whether directly or indirectly. It is a measure of what the customer experiences during the purchase cycles. Customer interaction can be direct or indirect. Direct interactions occur during a purchasing cycle, such as talking to a sale representative. Indirect interactions are normally unintentional, such as reviews and referrals. Great customer experience is the major difference between any successful and failing business in an industry. Several businesses often fail to prioritize great CX and consequently, lose out on their potential competitive edge.

Customer Experience Challenges To Watch

Customer Experience is undoubtedly a hack for businesses. But not all businesses get it right. And even if they do get it right, it is after several trials and iterations. Businesses experience many customer experience challenges. Let us take a look at these challenges and possible solutions. Keep on reading.

Wrong Perception

This is by far the greatest customer experience challenge businesses face. Most customers have wrong perceptions about the quality of customer service they will receive. For starters, most customers believe that customer assistance agents are rude and arrogant. While this might be true in some cases, this generalized perception has often hindered customer assistance and led to low customer trust. The belief that customer assistance agents are hostile and non-receptive is misguided. There are brands with good customer assistance agents who are ready to listen and assist the customer. The second perception from the consumer is that their time is not valued. Most consumers often feel that their time is not valued and their needs were not adequately attended to. To attain a great customer experience, businesses must show customers that their time is valued and their needs will be attended to. Perception in customer experience is two-way. Customer service agents also have perceptions that hinder great customer experience. A customer seeking post-purchase assistance is sometimes regarded as a disturbance. Most customer service agents tend to generalize every customer engagement to be a complaint. However, that’s not always the case. Good customer service agents must listen to the customer and offer assistance at any point of the purchase cycle. For a great customer experience, both the customers and the service agents must shun making generalized and unfounded misconceptions. Dealing with these perceptions will help improve customer experience in a great way.

Lack of Sufficient Customer Data

Business today is dynamic. Business decisions must be data-based. We are past the time when decisions were speculative or based on intuition. For a business to survive in this modern era, decisions must be based on concrete business data. Businesses have generally embraced data-driven decision-making. However, this has not spilled off to customer experience. Customer experience is still far from embracing data and data science for decision-making. However, customer service agents can leverage data to improve customer experience. There is a lot of customer data available for customer service agents to utilize and deliver a unique customer experience. Many businesses struggle with understanding their customers, yet there is a whole load of customer data available to them. These businesses define the customer based on generalized opinions. How much do you know your customers? Understand the gains, pain points, likes, and dislikes of your customer and leverage this data to improve the quality of customer experience. Define your customers, and what truly motivates them. There are many ways to get concrete customer data. Relying on assumptions won’t help your business. it will in fact lead you to make wrong decisions consequently wasting your time and resources. To gather real and definitive data, engage with your customers. Ask questions and listen to them. Create a unique and personalized persona for your clients. Know what drives them and connect the dots for greater CX.

Lack of Personalized Interactions

Customer experience is personal. It varies from customer to customer. The greatest mistake that customer experience agents do is to generalize customer experience and treat it as a corporate affair. Customer experience ought to be personalized. Using customer data to personalize customer experience is a great place to start. Other than using customer segmentation and general persona analysis, you should use customer data to make personalized initiatives and gain a competitive edge. Such initiatives include dynamic pricing, targeted marketing, real-time product notifications, and personalized post-purchase assistance. These strategies are heavily hinged on customer data and are massively transforming the customers’ experience.

Employee Disengagement

This is among the major customer experience challenges. Customer experience is a highly interactive task that requires optimal employee engagement. The agents attending to your customers must share the vision and understand the brand promise. The agents must be engaged in the meaning and delivery of quality customer experience across the organization. The desire for quality customer experience must come from the top and trickle down to all touch points of the business. Customer service is a team function. It should not only be delegated and left to the customer assistance agents. Every member of the workforce must strive to offer great customer service. The leadership must be intentional in delivering quality customer experience and consequently enable, equip and empower the employees to offer excellent customer service. The whole organization must adopt a CX-first mindset.

Outdated tools

Customer service has been around for decades. However, business has evolved and become dynamic. The tools and programs used to enhance customer experience are now outdated and barely befitting. Technology has really advanced and can now be integrated into most business functions. There are greater tools and software available to bolster customer experience. Artificial Intelligence, customer sentiment analysis tools, bots, and several other neat functionalities are all available to help your business boost customer experience. Using such tools can greatly improve the quality of your brand’s CX. A majority of businesses are still using old and outdated tools that are barely effective in the modern business era. Technology has really changed business and it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. There are so many interesting and innovative things you can do to benefit your customers and improve the quality of CX. You could deploy assistance bots to help your users navigate your website, or even automate emails to send valuable information to your customer after a purchase. The key is to keep on exploring.

Wrap Up

There are many customer experience challenges in modern business. Attaining a perfect and quality customer experience is a bumpy road. However, several solutions could help your business improve the quality of customer experience. The use of customer data to develop a customer experience strategic plan is among the places to start. You could also empower your workforce team to embrace a CX approach to doing business as well as personalize customer interactions. Lastly, embrace the use of technology and modern software to help improve customer experience. Salesforce is among the modern tools you could use to improve your CX. Salesforce helps you to better understand your customers and deliver excellent customized service. At Plumlogix, we’re experienced in helping you improve your customer experience using modern and updated tools. We specialize in Salesforce integration and optimization for your business. Get in touch with us for premium Salesforce-managed services to help your team achieve your digital transformation goals.