Having your cake and eating it.

Having your cake and eating it: making customers and keeping them too

Historians would have a different tale to tell were Marie Antoinette a little more focused on great customer experiences. The outcome may be vastly different to what actually transpired and Marie Antoinette may not have met her fate looking into a basket.

Happily in today’s modern world, delivering (or not) on customers’ expectations, needn’t have such extreme outcomes, but never has it been more important to really dig down into the customer experience, than it is today. Why? It’s simple. Understanding your customer and tailoring the experience to elevate their journey with your brand or product is what will set your business apart and give it staying power, no matter the economic (or even revolutionary) environment!

Easier said than done?

This depends on how seriously you take your customers and if you do, then you’re already headed on the right track. However, great customer experiences should become part of the furniture, an intrinsic element of your strategic objectives if you will, and this ideal outcome starts with your own employees– the first step in the lifecycle of the customer journey. Happy employees feed happy customers.

How data analytics is changing the game

Digital data growth is expected to rise by 4,300% by 2020, an astronomical growth in terms of the vast amount of information out there. Never before has business had so much intricate knowledge at their disposal. Having said this, the imperative is in the how and why. How does one tap into the data and why is it being tapped, are crucial guiding questions in the initial thought-process.

Presently, it has become so important to contextualise and personalise the customer experience because customers not only want interaction with a helpful, knowledgeable employee who addresses them on a first-name basis, but they also expect recommendations which they didn’t realise they wanted. Until that very moment.

Where to from here?

As mentioned, the first step is keeping your internal customers satisfied – they are invariably the brand ambassadors that can make or break a company’s image. Secondly, listening to the needs of the customer and truly understanding what makes them tick and thirdly, using insights from data analytics to improve and contextualise one’s approach in order to stay fresh in the mind of the customer all steers a business in the right direction.

So, having your cake and eating it too is the easy part. It’s understanding the importance of the holistic customer experience from start to finish that proves staying power. The proverbial proof is in the eating.