How your small business can harness the power of customer experience

In the field of Customer Experience (also known as CX) you’ll mostly see big businesses cited as examples, because CX is quite often a large and complex machine with many parts. For this reason I find many of my clients look at me blankly when I add CX to a marketing strategy.

The more complex the business and the more customers you have, the more complex systems you need. The field of CX is therefore more challenging, more insightful and makes more money when it’s applied to big businesses like banks, educational institutes, airlines and the like. It’s no wonder that small businesses and even community service based organisations aren’t across it or are perhaps confusing it with customer service.

Customer experience is not just for big business

Customer experience is really just a way to describe the entire journey customers take with your business - all the moments, all the touch points. If you’re a small business owner or even a community organisation, customer experience is still incredibly vital to your success and should never be forgotten.

👉 In this article, I’ll give you some thought-starters - some answers to popular questions, in the hope that it might prompt you to look inward and make sure you have everything you need for ongoing success.

When does the customer experience start?

Immediately and ongoing! It starts when a person first hears about you and continues through a number of stages leading up to purchase, use and even customer service if something goes wrong. Maybe that sounds obvious, but within each stage of the customer experience journey there are micro stages or magical moments - some you can control and others you can’t.

What is the difference between customer experience and customer service?

Customer service is specifically about the help and support you provide to customers when they have questions or problems. It's like when you call, email, or chat with someone from a company to get help or fix something. The goal of customer service is to make customers happy by resolving their issues and making sure they're satisfied.

Customer experience is all about how a customer feels about your business based on their interactions and experiences throughout their entire journey with you. It's about how they see your brand, how easy things are, if they feel like you understand and care about them, and how they emotionally connect with the whole experience.

To sum it up, customer experience is the overall picture of a customer's journey, including all the interactions and feelings, while customer service is more about the direct assistance and support given to customers when they need it. Customer service is an important part of delivering a good customer experience, but CX includes more than just those direct interactions.

What are the main elements of customer experience when it comes to small business?

Customer journey 

This describes the trip your customers take with you from beginning to end. It’s important to remember that customer journeys are rarely linear but will usually include a few key stages: awareness, consideration, decision and purchase. After that they go into a post-purchase journey with you and that includes key stages like; delivery, packaging, product or service use, recommendation and maybe customer service if there’s a problem. 

First impressions

Seems obvious, but the first few times that someone interacts with your business is very important to their ongoing perception and what the next step is in their customer journey with you. If you were a recommendation from a trusted source, they might buy or book straight away. If they followed an ad to your website and it was difficult to navigate or they couldn't find what they were looking for, they might never come back. 

Interactions

Any of the ways customers interact with your business. Including, but not limited to, visiting your physical store, using your website, connecting with you on social media, talking to you or a team member on the phone or via email, opening your packaging, using your product or experiencing your service. Every single time they connect with your business it alters their customer experience.

Emotions

How your customers feel when they interact with you is key. Positive emotions like happiness, excitement, and satisfaction make an experience enjoyable. Negative emotions like frustration, disappointment, or confusion can make it unpleasant. Understanding and managing your customers’ emotions throughout their journey is important for creating positive experiences and mitigating or making up for negative ones.

Satisfaction

Perhaps the most positive emotion a customer can feel is satisfied. Meeting or exceeding their expectations will be one of the most positive drivers of satisfaction. When your customers have a good experience and you meet their needs, they are more likely to be happy, come back for more, and recommend you to others.

Recommendation

This is what you’re aiming for with your customer experience. A positive recommendation from peer to peer is the fastest and cheapest way to win a new customer. A recommendation is a shortcut to trust and trust is a key driver of purchase.

Perceptions

Customer experience is shaped by how they see your business. This can be influenced by things that you can control; brand, marketing messages, imagery, consistency, quality of good and services, customer service etc. There are also a number of things that are beyond your control like delivery delays, items broken in the post, customer error when ordering, booking the wrong service for their needs and more. The customer is not always right, of course but how they react to negative situations will change depending on how they feel about you and your business.

Need an audit of your customer experience or help developing a customer journey that makes yours and your customers’ experience better? Please get in touch to find out how we can work together.

Now, before I finish I want to add one more element to the list - friction. Friction describes any step or process in the experience or journey that adds unnecessary time or steps to the process. I’ve put it here to remind you when you are looking at your processes to be aware of how easy or difficult it is to do business with you. The customer is not always right but they are often time-poor. Eliminating friction, making their journey quick and easy shows a respect for their time.

Thanks for reading, I hope I’ve made you think about the experience your customers or clients have with your business, products or services.

Got questions? Send me a quick email.

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❤️ Hi I’m Erika ✌️ I’m a marketing specialist with a BA in Media and Comms, Masters of Marketing, Certificate in CX (Customer Experience) and over 25 years marketing experience. I’m well placed to help you navigate the sometimes overwhelming world of marketing and social media. I work with you one on one or create fun and action-oriented workshops and webinars for groups, organisations and businesses. Book a free discovery call with me or simply email me to get the conversation started.

For more tips, connect with me on Facebook and Instagram or just get in touch, I'm always happy to help.