Customer Experience is not a new tool for marketers to increase customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and revenues, but is a fairly new concept for the Indian diaspora when compared to the West. Customer Experience (CX) has been picking pace in India as customer expectation is increasing due to flawless experience with western companies such as Uber, Apple and Amazon, as well as an increase in high-growth start-ups. According to Forrester, high-growth companies are nearly 2.5 times more likely to focus on solving customer problems than those that are not.

Let’s divide the economies in today’s world into two categories: pre-sale and post-sale economiES. Most businesses in the Western side of the world moved long back from the pre-sale to the post-sale category. This means they moved from just being interested in the sales numbers to wanting to deliver a great experience to the clients by pivoting to being consumer-centric at their very DNA. Over the last half a decade, we have seen a swift yet similar movement in the Indian market too, where businesses are joining the Western world to become post-sale businesses and drive sales by offering a best-in-class customer experience. According to Qualtrics, 89% of companies that lead with customer experience perform financially better than their peers. This is certainly a beacon of hope for the new age start-ups who can achieve bigger market share by tapping into the high expectations of tech-savvy Indian millennials and Gen-Z and matching it with processes such as seamless digital transactions, quick issue resolutions, among others.

There are 3 ways that large as well as small businesses in India can offer a better experience to their customers:

1) Make sure the consumer centricity flows from the very top and reaches every employee

The first step to offering a great experience to customers is to make sure that the intention is set from the very top. CX should be in the list of the top three priorities of the C-Suite and the message should be relayed to the very bottom. This could be done in three ways: Firstly, make the customer centre for everything. Companies should make sure that customers are a part of the process, right from the product/service designing phase. It is important to understand their needs through customer interviews and early concept feedback and then tailor products/ services according to customer needs. Secondly, make sure your employees are happy. Unhappy employees cannot offer an exceptional experience to your customers. Do frequent internal pulse check surveys and fix the issues for your employees quickly. According to Salesforce, companies that prioritize employee experience to deliver a premium customer experience achieve 1.8 times faster revenue growth. Lastly, customer personalization is the key to customer loyalty. With Netflix and Spotify personalization features taking the recommendation game to next level, other companies have big shoes to fill. The easier that you make a customer’s life by giving the right suggestions of products and services, the higher is the customer likely to engage with your business. In fact, according to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences. Another Salesforce report states that consumers are 2.1x more likely to view personalized offers as important versus unimportant.

2) Just one metric of evaluation isn’t enough, we need to evaluate CX and fix the gaps holistically

Most companies practising Customer Experience track their Net Promoter Score seriously and consider it as the benchmark of success. Many Product Managers in new/ budding Indian start-ups sleep in lullaby if their NPS goes well, and remain unaware of the underlying levers of satisfaction. However, in order to holistically evaluate customer experience and become a best in the class player, conducting a journey mapping of each process a customer goes through with the company becomes critical. Additionally, companies also need to identify the sub-journeys and drivers of satisfaction within each journey. For example, if opening a bank account is a Journey a customer goes through, within it are multiple sub-journeys like reaching out to the bank, submitting a form, etc and multiple drivers of satisfaction such as timeliness of opening the account, employee friendlessness, etc. Mapping experiences to these levels will help companies understand where in the experience cycle is the customer having an unsatisfying experience with the company and get a holistic idea about the company’s CX. Further, data analytics can be used to identify which journeys have the most impact on the NPS score and therefore resources can be invested in fixing those experiences first.

3) Invest in technology, it is worth more than you think 

Measuring Customer Experience is not a ‘once in a while’ activity but requires continuous measurement and fixation. Therefore, there are three core places where firms should consider investing. Firstly, continuous tracking, evaluation and action on customer feedback are needed through ‘Voice of Customer Systems’. From CEO to Product Managers, everyone should be able to get a holistic view of customer pulse through a touch of a button on their iPads, and a feedback loop tracking mechanism should be placed to track issues. Secondly, the in-house data collection and analytics centre should be more streamlined. Collect the data in usable form and proactively analyze it to observe new trends in consumer behaviour such as changes in buying patterns, sensitivity to pricing, etc. This will additionally help in breaking the data silos between different departments and help make more robust decisions. Lastly, invest in technology to improve customer issue resolution experience. It is one of the most important drivers of satisfaction across industries and geographies. Hence, use of better apps, chat-pots and digitally engaging platforms can help reduce the issue resolution time and improve customer satisfaction.