Can you remember the last time you had an experience with a company that left you feeling thrilled? Likewise, I’m sure you will have no problem recalling interactions you had with businesses which left you feeling exasperated or disappointed.
Since the pandemic struck, organisations go to extra lengths to win new customers and keep existing ones happy; hence why customer experience (CX) has become critical to every organisation’s success.
Happy consumers are more loyal; they boost your revenue and more importantly – they spread the word to their social circles about their positive experience. It’s like free marketing.
Whether you’re head of a Salesforce team or are a leading figure in an SF consultancy, today we discuss how to update your CX to maintain customer relations and capitalise on growth opportunities this year.
Let me explain.
Connecting with Customers
In their latest State of Service report, Salesforce surveyed over 7,000 global service professionals on how they have adapted during the pandemic. Two of the key themes that came out of the changing customer service model were those of empathy and flexibility.
From the report, 83% of service professionals say they’ve changed policies to provide more flexibility to customers during the pandemic. Additionally, 71% of consumers say that businesses that showed empathy during the pandemic have earned their loyalty.
The bigger picture that is emerging is that a successful CX is one where customers feel that the brands they are interacting with have the human touch – that they are prepared to go out of their way to deliver a personalised experience.
To what extent are your consultants encouraged to be flexible to consumer’s needs? How often do employees go out of their way to deliver excellent CX?
Rather than these being random occurrences, instead, you should build delivering a highly personalised customer experience into your culture and your Standard Operating Procedures.
Speed remains critical in delivering outstanding service, but this must be offset against performance. To build a picture of how timely your team are responding to customer needs, take a look at your:
- Response times
- Handling times
- First-contact resolutions
- Hold and wait times
It’s not always easy to balance speed versus quality. If you are aware of the scales tipping in one way or the other, this is an area of development to work on with your employees.
One unexpected benefit of the pandemic is how it has brought colleagues together – overcoming the challenges of Covid-19 has increased resilience and understanding between team members. It has emerged that a high employee experience (EX) score is directly linked to an excellent CX – let’s look at why this is.
How EX and CX are Connected
Salesforce recently collaborated with Forbes to create The Experience Equation – a report on the link between happy employees and business growth.
The report revealed that it is no coincidence that the businesses with the happiest employees have the most satisfied customers; the two are intrinsically connected. The report examined the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of firms and found that those with high CX and EX doubled their growth over companies with lower CX and EX ratings.
For a £1 billion company, this translates to £40 million per year in revenue, and top performers include Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
Improving your EX is a no-brainer. It’s a straightforward way to guarantee better consumer satisfaction and higher revenue. So how do you do this? Here are some tips you can use right away:
- Provide a supportive, collaborative working environment
- Look at your employee journey – many businesses aren’t aware of documenting, and continually working on improving this – check out this TechTarget employee journey mapping resource for more info
- Give continuous feedback, both good and bad, in a helpful and encouraging way
- Offer excellent career progression opportunities such as Salesforce badges and Trailblazer training
- Recruit new talent who are aligned with your company’s culture and values to maintain a harmonious working environment
Finally, we look at what Salesforce roles are evolving into, and what this means for your team’s future.
How Salesforce is Evolving
Salesforce has built an app, embedded into the Salesforce platform, which allows sales teams to collaborate as effectively at home as they did in the office. Salesforce Anywhere allows people to work on deals in real-time from anywhere in the world, with alerts, comments and video calls.
Creating happy customers via a streamlined CX is one way to increase revenue; another is hiring the right Salesforce talent.
Recruitment this year will be all about finding the candidates who will deliver the best CX for your organisation.
If you would like to know more about the link between hiring CX-minded employees and increasing revenue, talk to us today. Our recruitment strategy is designed with your ROI in mind; call me on 01322 272 532 to find out more or click here to contact us via email.
Thanks
Lee