How to Outdo Your Customer’s Expectations?

Customer’s experience (Customer eXperience, in short CX) is one of the main investment areas for companies’ marketing.

Nowadays, the digital world development allows tracking down customers’ “journeys” (Customer Journey): we are not just talking about virtual itineraries during e-commerce purchases, but every itinerary that a user covers in his various “environments” or points of contact with a given brand, whether online or offline. The fact that all of us live with a device called smartphone in our pocket, which we consult from the moment we wake up to a second before falling asleep, offers companies the opportunity of understanding the profile each customer belongs to, planning and optimizing interactions and innovating them with a nearly scientific approach.

Gartner defines Customer Experience Management as “the procedure of planning and reacting to the interactions with customers to satisfy or outdo their expectations and, therefore, increase their satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy”. It is a strategy which requires process changes and lots of technology to be realized.

So, besides understanding customers’ needs better, it is increasingly important to exceed their expectations.

It is also paramount to be concrete by putting ourselves in our customers’ shoes.

Let us make a practical example: I have got little time and the need to ask a provider for a product at the usual price, all of it within tomorrow. What do I do? I text him a whatsapp message: this prevents me from committing myself on the phone and allows immediate response. Then, if instead of a person there should be a chatbot, little would change: what interests me in this context is to reduce waste of time and head straight for my target.

The so-called conversational interfaces (FB Messenger, Telegram…) are successful because of this: they simplify users’ lives. But the idea of improving customer relationship experience is not limited to B2C interactions, it is also applied to B2B ones: all consumers, either B2C or B2B, judge their experiences on the basis of 24/7 accessibility and ease of use.

For further information on this topic, you are advised to read this other article: Why provide your e-commerce with chatbot?