Customer service is a top priority of companies all over the world, or at least it should be. This is the key difference between a business goal (making money) and the company’s mission (helping people). However, when it comes to setting priorities, should the almighty dollar be your guiding light when doing business?

Let’s take a note from one of the greatest marketers of all time: Walt Disney. Disney once said, “do a good job. You don’t have to worry about the money; it will take care of itself.” Essentially, what he was telling us is that if you treat your customers right, everything else will fall into place, including the money. But how do we improve on customer experiences so that they walk away happy and satisfied, while we turn a profit?

And why are we talking about this as marketers, rather than leaving it to the sales and customer support teams?

Marketing Is All About Experiences

Nearly all of us have been on the receiving end of a disgruntled customer or unhappy client. We may have been that disgruntled customer or unhappy client. But when situations like this occur, as a business, we should take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We need to think about what the true root of the problem is. Why is there so much unhappiness in the product or service?

According to an article published by Hubspot, it’s the customer’s experience along the way that may lead up to frustrations and dissatisfaction. Customer experience is the overall sentiment of every interaction a person has had with your company. That includes marketing, which is why it’s important for the marketing team to be involved in discussions about customer service.

The marketing team’s efforts are usually a customer’s first interaction with the company and can set certain expectations in the customer’s mind. Those expectations need to be in line with the rest of the intended customer experience through the sales cycle, or customer journey, making it necessary for marketing, sales and customer support teams to work together closely on strategy, messaging and more.

So, if someone has had a poor customer experience, how do you think they will react to you and your customer service team? How do you improve upon the customer experience, so you are rarely (if ever) on the receiving end of one of those heated calls or face-to-face meetings?

Steps to Improve Overall Customer Experience

Hubspot offered several easy steps to get back on track with your customers and improve their customer experience.

1.  Map Out Your Customer’s Journey

A customer journey map outlines every step your customer goes through with your company. This map includes things like each interaction they have with a company, whether it is a salesperson, customer service person or with the product or service you provide. It also includes all social media interaction and online advertising, even your website – especially your website.

Knowing what happens during each of these interactions is important because they will give you a better picture of what is going on in your customer’s head and how to match those expectations with the reality of your marketing and sales materials. Speaking with each person that worked with that customer will also help you put the pieces together and solve what the bigger issue is. Knowing each touch point a customer has will allow you to pinpoint where in that process, from anonymous follower to potential lead to customer, fell apart so you can improve performance and refocus efforts to better meet your customer’s needs and expectations.

(Learn more about customer journeys)

2.  View the Customer’s Journey from Various Perspectives

A customer makes many stops along their customer journey and interacts with various people and teams or departments. It is important to view their journey at each department as well as the whole journey. The top three teams you should look closely at when a customer has had a less than stellar experience are:

• Marketing, to help you understand how people are finding your business and what you can do to better shape your reputation
• Sales, to provide insight into the early stages of the customer’s relationship with your business
• Customer Service, to give you honest feedback from the customer

Each of these teams can help give an insight into what your customer is seeing, doing and thinking. Once you know the good, the bad and the ugly, it is time to assign someone to be in charge of the customer experience as a whole.

3.  Dedicated Customer Experience Professional Needed

Having one person designated to execute your customer service plan is key if you want it to succeed. They’re the person in charge of coordinating the efforts and expectations across the three main teams. The person must be able to be consistent across the board when it comes to executing the plan. By doing this, you will be able to create consistent interactions between your company and your customer.

Long gone will be the days of gating information and lack of coordination between internal teams. If everything flows through one person, who acts not as gatekeeper, but almost as a test case for your customer experience through all stages of the customer journey, you have a better chance of finding the deficiencies in your strategy and plan.

4.  Keep Employees in the Loop

When it comes to working through customer service situations it is always best to keep employees in the loop. Distributing customer experience data to your entire team is key because it helps to address customer needs faster, improve product or service quality, as well as increases the likelihood of upselling. You’re all one team working towards the same goal. You never know what piece of information will be the key to unlocking a specific team’s strategy to make it more effective for everyone.

5.  Learn from Your Mistakes

Obviously, we all want to learn from our mistakes so that they don’t happen again. There are many different ways to do this, including using various forms of analytics. Analytics can give you a great snapshot of where things went wrong. You should also have various ways customers can leave feedback and their opinions. Knowing these things will help you retain customers and improve on your customer experience.

Important data points to measure:

• Website traffic
• Conversions
• Sales cycle length
• Seasonal and/or regional variations
• Customer feedback

ROI of a Better Customer Experience Strategy

Offering good customer support at the end of the customer’s journey is not enough to provide a good customer experience. Starting with a well thought out strategy for the entire customer journey by following the tips above will lead you on a path to satisfied customers and increased sales.