Today, nine out of ten (89%) senior executives believe customers are constantly resetting their expectations to match their best omni-channel experiences. Meaning, people judge their recent customer experience against their last best experience – a high bar that doesn’t give much wiggle room to businesses.

Most organizations (understandably) struggle to meet the standards set by the world’s digital leaders.

Only 7% of practitioners consider their organization’s digital CX to be exceptional and able to surprise and delight customers, while 42% of organizations believe their customer experience sometimes falls short of customer needs.

Are you feeling these pressures and looking for innovative ideas to improve customer experience? We’re talking all-thing customer experience (with tips from our expert team members), plus 10 ways to improve customer service in business.

Table of Contents

1. What does it mean to provide a great customer experience?
2. How do you optimize customer experience?
3. What are 10 steps to improve customer experience?
4. What is a CX strategy for a website?

What Does it Mean to Provide a Great Customer Experience?

Great customer experiences aren’t just about seamless transactions; it's about creating a consistent, value-driven journey for your clients.

Let’s level-set on definitions. What is the meaning of “enhancing customer experience”: optimizing every interaction, whether direct or indirect, your customers have with your business to shape their positive perception and decision to continue the business relationship.

Ultimately, a great customer experience drives repeat business, larger average order values, and higher customer lifetime value (CLV). It safeguards your business from negative reviews and customer churn.

But how do you continuously deliver that great customer experience?

How do you Optimize Customer Experience?

“To optimize a customer experience strategy, businesses first need to understand all the various ways customers engage with a website and other marketing channels. Then, make sure that those interactions are positive and meaningful,” explains Tim Frost, Whereoware’s Creative Director. ‍

“If the experience – across any touch with your business – falls short of their expectations, steps need to be taken to fix it, otherwise it could lead to the customer going somewhere else for that productor service – losing out on brand loyalty. Each interaction is just one-piece of the customer experience.”

To optimize your digital customer experience, you need to understand where customers are feeling pain or challenged to achieve their desired goals.

Begin by mapping all places customers interact with your brand. For instance, digital channels might include: your website(s), mobile apps, social platforms, chat forum, ads, and crowd-sourced reviews.

The goal is to not just gather data, but to transform insights into actionable improvements.

You’ll use this data to prioritize quick wins (key conversion points) and start a backlog for future improvement – this is the start of your CX optimization plan.  

You’ll identify experiments to run to test your assumptions of why webpages are underperforming and learn more about what resonates with your customers.

After you modify the customer experience, continue to monitor metrics, like website traffic and conversions, support response time, and customer feedback to keep evolving your digital experience.

Let’s dig deeper with 10 steps to improve CX.

What are 10 Steps to Improve Customer Experience?

Don’t be afraid of the reality of your current customer experience – it can always get better. The key is to keep asking customers what works and what doesn't, and to be receptive to feedback.

Remember, "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates.

Let’s dive into 10 ways to improve customer experience.

Begin and End with Data Analytics.

Data reveals the problem and the solution. Ask yourself, ‘How can I use my data to inform decisions to produce better outcomes?’  

Analyze user engagement using Google Analytics or similar platforms.

Look closely at friction points and incomplete actions – typically revealed through metrics like bounce rates, scroll rates, abandonment etc. Look at your most visited webpages and the one’s getting no love – how are they different and how can you improve the less popular page?

When a page or conversion point stands out to you as underperforming, use tools like Mouseflow to view heatmaps and real-time footage of how users are interacting with the website and at what point they drop off. It can reveal confusion or frustration (hello rage clicking) – which is a great starting point of how to optimize the page.  

There’s no one-size-fits-all optimization band aid. You have to dig into the data and research and take it from there.

Create Feedback Loops.

Why wait? Go straight to the source.

Receiving direct customer feedback helps determine what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs improvement. You can hear, in your customers’ words, how to improve the experience to better suit their needs.

Leverage feedback through surveys, email, chatbots, and social channels. Look for patterns and trends – these insights enable businesses to assess if they're meeting, partially meeting, or falling short of customer expectations.

Buckle up – customer feedback tends to be surprising (sometimes it’s a good surprise, and sometimes the truth hurts). Regardless, ask the questions.

Build a ‘Holistic’ Omni-Channel Experience.

Two truths – 1) Your customers engage on channels they’re most comfortable using. 2) They will seamlessly switch between channels, without disruption across the user journey.

Your business must deliver an engaging and consistent brand experience on these same channels to please customers.

For instance, a customer might speak to three different support representatives regarding a product issue (email, chat, or phone). Having to repeat themselves multiple times will not translate into a positive outcome.

Focus on delivering a consistent experience by seamlessly transferring data and information throughout communication channels. This enables every channel to extend the previous interactions and capitalize on fluid customer experiences to expedite issue resolution, guide the “next best action,” convert more sales, and increase revenue streams.

‍Offer Self-Service Web Functions.

Customers commonly try to solve issues, research questions, or take action through self-serve digital experiences instead of reaching out to the company – 88% of customers say they expect access to a self-service portal when shopping.

Self-serving features frees customers to interact with a business per their preferences and schedule, and it pays off for businesses through stickier relationships and better customer loyalty.

In fact, 47% of businesses reported an increase in sales after implementing self-service. Empower customers to find solutions independently through FAQ pages, community forums, educational resources, or dedicated self-service portals. Add chat bots to your website to answer common inquiries and route customers to a sales rep or customer service team member for particularly unique or high-impact issue resolution.

Automate with AI.

By using your customer and business data to get increasingly smarter, AI powers hyper relevant and personalized customer experiences. Focus your AI efforts on creating more value for customers and help them take desired actions faster.

For example, AI-driven product or content recommendations help customers discover new products or information they’re seeking, without having to dig around the website.

AI-powered visual search and recognition capabilities let users search for products by matching products to uploaded images – a stand-out feature.

Taking self-service a step further, AI-powered chatbots automate customer support, engaging with customers before they reach a live representative. This saves time and resources, as AI is often able to resolve issues without the need for human intervention.

We’re only scratching the surface of ways AI can elevate and differentiate your CX from others in your space.

Be Proactive and Transparent.

‍Proactive customer outreach, like providing status updates, shows customers they are a top priority. Transparent communication and updates help businesses get in front of challenges or hiccups, before customers get frustrated.

For example, when Amazon texts a customer to inform of a delayed delivery because of weather they reduce customer service calls. Or when a company is dealing with temporary portal issues, by projecting a timestamp of it being back up and running, they put customers at ease that they’re working on the problem.

Without these types of communication enabled, a customer who stumbles upon a problem without an idea as to why, may lose trust with that business and hop toa competitor.

‍Personalize the CX.

‍With the information you know about your customers, provide a tailored experience to create a positive engaging experience.

An online retailer might segment their audience based on key characteristics or personas. They then build a personalized and automated email campaign that delivers hyper relevant products and incentives based on each individual’s past-purchase history to help them discover complementary items.

This type of engagement shows customer value and helps build brand loyalty.

Experiment Continuously.

Never set it and forget it. What works now, might not work next month. Adapting to changing customer needs and preferences ensures a competitive advantage.

This process of experimenting and learning can include A/B testing different aspects of a service or product, website, implementing, and assessing new customer service channels, or exploring innovative technologies to enhance the user journey.

By embracing experimentation practices, companies can identify what resonates with their customers.

Prioritize Seamless Security.

Every year, consumers lose billions of dollars due to fraud – from breached accounts, to stolen identities, to scams.

Protecting customer data and payment information is CRUCIAL.

Integrate robust security measures and ensure your tech stack is modern and updated. Adapt a policy of transparency and communicate clearly how you will use your consumers’ data.

A single data breach can significantly damage customer trust, loyalty and future business for good.

Measure and Optimize.

Measuring your customer experience initiatives is important for understanding whether your strategies are supporting continuous improvement.

Utilize KPIs, such as customer satisfaction scores, or first response times, to gauge effectiveness of initiatives. Did the chatbot and FAQ page you added reduce the number of live calls received? Or if support cases escalated, you’ll need to consider further investments in automated systems.

Continuously make adjustments based on what works best.

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Take a crawl-walk-run approach by trying these 10 tips to improve your CX.

Incremental improvements make a huge difference over time. Next, let’s see this in action, by focusing on one channel – your website.

What is a CX Strategy for a Website?

Developing a CX strategy for your website means understanding and enhancing every aspect of the customer's journey on your site to make it easier to browse, buy, and engage.

For instance, consider an example of an online shopping experience: a customer visits your website via laptop, browses products, communicates with your chat bot, logs into their account, adds items to their cart, closes their laptop, logins back in but on their mobile device, and finally completes a purchase. At each of these stages, their interaction should be effortless, smooth, intuitive, and delightful.

The key is to first identify all the ways customers interact with your website. Whether it’s navigating product pages, using the search function, engaging with customer support, accessing account information, or checking out, each step offers an opportunity to meet and exceed expectations. Luckily, website analytics tools make it easy to measure how each conversion point performs and infer how to make it better.

Should any aspect of these interactions fall short, it’s crucial to identify and remedy these issues promptly. Failing to do so frequently results in customers seeking alternatives.

Remember, your website is a crucial touchpoint influencing customer action, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Make sure you tirelessly improve CX with our 10 steps.

Conclusion

Implementing these 10 steps is vital in crafting a customer-centric approach that not only meets but exceeds client expectations. As a customer experience agency, we’re dedicated to guiding you through these strategies to help you build intelligent CX. Let’s connect.