Customer Experience Strategy: How to Create + Tips

Today, where copying products and services is easier than ever, customer experience (CX) has become the strategic differentiator.  

Recent customer experience statistics show that improving customer experience can cut customer churn by almost 15% and increase win rates by nearly 40%. So, building an effective customer experience strategy is now a must-have in any business's go-to-market plan.   

However, many companies still struggle to create a CX strategy that truly aligns with their vision and revenue goals. The main hurdles? Departmental silos and the common belief that CX is just for the C-suite. Well, it's time to move past this mindset.  

In this blog, you'll discover how to build a customer experience strategy that gives you the competitive edge you've been looking for. We'll share actionable tips and real-life examples to help you get inspired and get started.

What is a customer experience strategy?

A customer experience strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to meet or exceed customer expectations at every customer touchpoint, aiming to enhance satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy through consistent and positive interactions.  

Crafting an effective CX strategy is not solely the responsibility of the C-suite, although the chief customer officer (CCO) or chief experience officer (CXO) often leads the charge. Success requires a cross-functional approach involving marketing, sales, customer service, product development and IT to ensure a cohesive and holistic strategy.  
 
When devising a customer experience strategy, it's crucial to align it with your company's overarching vision. This ensures that every customer interaction is in line with your business goals and customer expectations. Maintaining consistency across all touchpoints, engaging and training contact center agents to deliver exceptional customer service and integrating technology to streamline and enhance customer interactions are also pivotal components of a successful CX strategy.  

Why is CX strategy important?

According to Statista, 94% of customers say that a positive customer service experience made them more likely to purchase again, with 82% saying they would recommend a company based solely on excellent customer service.  

From this, one can imagine the importance of customer experience strategy today. Here are some other reasons: 

• Complements your offerings 
  A strong customer experience strategy can greatly improve your market share and brand reputation. Take companies like Airbnb, Netflix, Lufthansa, Ritz Carlton and Disney for example. These brands evoke positive experiences, which is not always the case with their competitors in the same industry. 
  
  In a time when products and services are becoming more standardized, a customer's emotional connection with a brand often becomes the deciding factor. A well-designed CX strategy helps create a positive brand perception that profoundly resonates with customers, making it essential at the point of purchase. 

• Identifies and solves real problems 
  While it's easier said than done, maintaining a solid customer focus from the outset is crucial, whether it involves product design, usability or customer support. To optimize the customer journey, you must put yourself in the customers' shoes and determine if the current path to value can be made more effortless.  
  
  For instance, if you run an e-commerce company, meticulously auditing the end-to-end process—from random browsing to checkout, payment and receiving confirmation via SMS—is essential. Any gaps in this process could lead to a negative customer experience, deterring customers from future engagement. 

• Increases customer lifetime value 
  In today's market, offering a personalized customer experience, a seamless purchase process and products or services tailored to customers' needs significantly increases the likelihood of repeat business. When customers choose to return despite numerous alternatives, it indicates they are either satisfied with your offerings or had a memorable shopping experience. While competitors can replicate your products or services, replicating a superior customer experience is significantly more challenging.  
  
  A well-defined customer experience strategy enables you to transform every customer interaction into a memorable one. This can be achieved through exceptional customer service representatives and effective customer experience mapping that prioritizes the customer at every step. This focus on customer experience ultimately leads to higher customer satisfaction, repeat purchases and increased customer lifetime value. 
  
  Also Read: 7 Customer Experience Trends for Businesses in 2024

Customer experience strategy vs customer service strategy

We have a detailed blog on customer service vs. customer experience to help you understand the differences between the concepts. Here is a tabular comparison between the two, before we delve into the key customer experience strategies.   

How to build an effective customer experience strategy 

Irrespective of your business size, here is a step-by-step guide to build an effective customer experience strategy.

🤵Step 1: Create detailed user personas 

A user persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on real data and insights. To build a comprehensive customer persona, you need to gather and analyze the following information:  

• Demographics: Include location, job role, age, gender and household income.   

• Motivations: Identify core values and drivers behind their purchasing decisions.  

• Hesitations: Understand potential concerns such as price sensitivity or support needs.  

• Channel preferences: Determine preferred interaction channels such as website, app, in-store or social media.  

Incorporating tools such as customer surveys, social listening and website analytics can refine your personas and provide a more holistic view of your customers. Utilizing contact center CRM systems to track and analyze customer interactions also aids in continuously updating and validating your personas as market conditions and customer preferences evolve. 

👥Step 2: Segment your customers 

Customer segmentation is essential for categorizing your customers, allowing you to craft personalized messages and experiences for each group. Effective segmentation helps tailor your approach to meet different customer types, their unique needs and preferences. Consider classifying customers into the following segments:  

• Early adopters: These customers are curious about new technologies and products and eager to purchase them as soon as they become available. They value innovation and often pay a premium for the latest offerings.  

• Impulsive customers: This type of customer makes quick buying decisions, often influenced by immediate needs or appealing conditions. They respond well to time-sensitive offers and engage in marketing tactics.  

• Discount seekers: These customers see value in your products but are unwilling to pay full price. They actively seek discounts and special offers, often converting when presented with a significant price reduction.  

• Loyalists: Repeat buyers who stick with your brand despite the availability of similar options. They appreciate your brand's consistent quality and service and often become brand advocates over time.  

• Wanderers: Individuals who unintentionally land on your website or store without a specific intent to purchase. While they may not convert immediately, effective engagement can pique their interest and turn them into customers.  

Since each category has distinct intents and behaviors, personalized assistance is crucial to ensure they feel valued and understood throughout their customer journeys. By leveraging segmentation, you can create targeted marketing campaigns, recommend customized products and offer tailored customer support that resonates with each specific group.

💡Step 3: Keep customers at the heart of innovation 

Involving customers in the innovation process by seeking early feedback and offering testing or trial access to selective customers (preferably loyalists) is a strategic move with numerous benefits for product development and overall business strategy. Early feedback helps determine if the product meets market needs or if adjustments are necessary, preventing costly mistakes and ensuring a positive reception upon launch.  

Additionally, customers who participate in beta testing often develop a stronger connection to the product and brand. These customers feel valued and appreciated, which can lead to increased word-of-mouth promotion and a positive brand reputation. 

🏅 Netflix’s remarkable CX strategy Netflix understands, on a deeper level, that it is in the business of capturing 'attention' rather than merely providing entertainment. It recognizes that its competition extends beyond other streaming services to anything that distracts consumers from its platform.  The streaming giant has always emphasized two key aspects:  

1. Delivering high-quality content: Ensuring a vast library of movies and TV shows for streaming.  

2. Leveraging customer insights: Utilizing viewing preferences to provide relevant recommendations and advertising similar content as soon as they are available on the platform.  

Netflix places the customer at the heart of its innovation strategy by continually scrutinizing user behavior. They rely on personal profile data to recommend the right movies and series and engage in extensive focus groups, usability sessions, one-on-one interviews, demographic surveys and cancellation surveys. The insights gained from these activities are rigorously tested through A/B testing to refine their assumptions.  

This customer-centric approach extends beyond data and algorithms. Netflix's obsession with understanding and enhancing the customer experience through real-world testing and feedback has positioned it as the largest streaming service globally, with an impressive 269.6 million paid subscribers.  

Source 

Do you know: With modern omnichannel survey software, you can seamlessly track customer feedback across digital and social channels, including voice. AI-powered CSAT prediction enhances customer service by allowing real-time adjustments based on customer sentiment. You can also automate feedback collection by converting survey questions into interactive chatbot conversations for higher response rates and actionable insights.

 
🔭 Step 4: Map end-to-end customer journeys 

Creating a visual map of your customer's end-to-end interaction with your brand is crucial to a compelling customer experience strategy.  This process involves identifying touchpoints and challenges at each customer journey stage, allowing you to offer real value and address specific issues effectively. By asking targeted questions at each stage, you can examine the issues your customers encounter on a granular level. For instance:  

• Initial awareness: Did the customer sign up for the company's information emailers? Were they able to easily find and understand your brand's value proposition?  

• Ease of use: Was the price filtering feature on the website intuitive and easy to use? Did the website provide a seamless navigation experience?  

• Purchase/delivery: Were the payment options clear and convenient or did they feel overwhelming? Was the delivery process smooth and timely?  

• Account management: Did the customer receive proactive and contextual support or were they bombarded with irrelevant promotional spam? Was account management simple and efficient?  

By systematic customer journey mapping, you can ensure that every interaction is designed to meet customer needs and exceed expectations, ultimately leading to positive customer experiences.  

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🔍Step 5: Review customer service workflow regularly 

If customer preferences evolve, how can your customer service workflow remain unchanged?  Taking a dynamic approach to customer service and integrating technology and customer service automation is essential to keeping your customer experience strategies relevant and effective.   

• Utilize chatbots for routine queries: Implementing chatbots and customer self-service can efficiently handle common questions, providing customers with faster resolutions. This allows human agents to focus on more complex issues, ensuring that high-intent customers feel valued and assured of their importance. 

• Adopt automation: Automate processes such as ticketing, customer case management and follow-ups to improve efficiency and ensure consistency in service delivery. 

• Integrate AI into customer service: Use AI to analyze customer interactions, predict needs and offer personalized solutions. AI can help anticipate issues before they arise, enabling proactive customer service. 

Good to know: Sprinklr AI+ empowers your agents with generative AI-powered features like summarization and call notes automation, eliminating the need to take notes during live conversations. Moreover, it can automatically extract answers from the knowledge base directly within the platform, ensuring accuracy and consistency. As a result, your agents can resolve queries 50% faster, boosting overall contact center productivity.     

📊Step 6: Measure key CX metrics (Regularly)

Measuring critical customer experience metrics with every product update or feature enhancement is crucial to ensure that every improvement aligns with customer expectations. 

Key CX metrics to measure:  

• Net promoter score: It gauges customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend your product or service to others. A high NPS indicates strong customer satisfaction and loyalty.  

• Customer effort score: Measures the ease of customer interactions with your brand. A lower CES means customers find it easier to engage with your services, leading to higher satisfaction.  

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Captures immediate feedback on specific interactions or overall satisfaction. Regular CSAT surveys can pinpoint areas for improvement.  

Step 7: Instilling responsibility across stakeholders 

It is crucial to instill a sense of responsibility, particularly among your R&D, product development, UI/UX teams and service delivery departments, with each team comprehending and aligning with customer-centricity in all their endeavors. Here’s how to go about it:     

• Customer-centric culture: Foster a culture where every decision is evaluated based on its potential impact on the customer experience.   

• Cross-functional collaboration: Encourage collaboration between teams to ensure that customer feedback is integrated into every stage of development and improvement.  

• Continuous learning: Provide training and resources to help teams stay updated on the latest CX trends and best practices.  

📣Step 8: Keep an eye out for user reviews  

Consider the following scenario:  

• X: "Who takes one week these days for a refund?"  

• Y: "I totally relate bro! The last time I ordered from their app, the screen froze and it took me almost 10 minutes to complete the payment. Luckily, my payment didn't get stuck, but their payment interface seriously has some issues."  

Negative feedback can quickly spread on social media and review platforms, harming your brand reputation management efforts and driving away potential customers. Therefore, closely monitoring user reviews is vital to identify factors affecting customer experience and how to tackle them.

📲Step 9: Go omnichannel  

Adopting an omnichannel approach is the final yet crucial aspect of any customer experience strategy. Here is why it’s important:  

• Enhanced customer convenience: By offering support on various customer service channels such as email, phone, live chat support, social media and in-person interactions, you make it easier for customers to reach out to you using their preferred method.  

• Continuity of conversations: Omnichannel customer service allows customers to start a discussion on one channel and seamlessly transition to another without losing context. This ensures a smoother and more personalized support experience.  

• Efficiency and consistency: Your support agents can access a unified view of customer interactions across all contact center channels, enabling them to provide consistent and timely assistance regardless of the channel used by the customer.  

• Reduced customer effort: By eliminating the need for customers to repeat themselves or rehash their issues when switching channels, you reduce customer effort and frustration, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty. 

Good to know: With Sprinklr’s AI-powered omnichannel routing software, you can create a unified routing logic that enables seamless cross-channel case handling. This allows you to utilize your workforce efficiently without needing channel-specific configurations. The intelligent routing workflows assign cases to the best-suited agents based on their skills, capacity, historical utilization and more. Know more about omnichannel routing.  

3 Best practices to improve customer CX strategies 

Beyond foundational steps, leading customer-centric companies uphold these practices to elevate consumer experience.  

#1 Personalize customer interactions  

Personalizing customer interactions is key to creating meaningful and memorable experiences. By leveraging customer data effectively, you can tailor your communications and offerings to meet individual preferences and needs. This can include dynamic content on websites or emails, personalized product recommendations based on past purchases and targeted promotions or discounts. 

Watch Event: The Human Touch: How personalised experiences can drive business growth 

#2 Foster customer engagement  

You can foster customer engagement by actively soliciting feedback through surveys, reviews and social media interactions. Creating interactive experiences such as quizzes, polls or contests can also encourage participation and deepen customer connections.   

#3: Empower your customer support team  

Empowering your customer support team with the right tools, training and resources is essential for delivering exceptional service. Comprehensive training on products and services ensures that support agents are equipped to address customer inquiries and issues effectively. Additionally, enabling support agents with unified agent desktops and knowledge bases can streamline workflows and improve efficiency.   

Turn your CX strategies into reality with Sprinklr

Every interaction, from the first touchpoint to post-purchase support, influences customer loyalty and shapes brand perception. Negative experiences can quickly spread on social media, impacting brand reputation and revenue. By prioritizing personalization, customer engagement and empowering your support team, you can strengthen your customer experience strategy and differentiate yourself in a competitive market.   

However, implementing these best practices requires the right tools and technology. This is where Sprinklr's Unified CXM platform comes in. With Sprinklr, you can seamlessly map the entire customer journey and gain valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior.   

By consolidating customer data and communication channels, Sprinklr enables you to deliver personalized experiences, drive meaningful engagement and provide exceptional support from a single, integrated platform. Wondering how it's possible? Let our experts take it from here.