The best and worst customer experiences stick with you, either making your day or ruining it. Think about it. You’ll always remember the waiter who, without you even asking, removed an item from the bill because it came out cold. But just as much, you’ll never forget the customer service rep who, after you waited on hold for 45 minutes, grumpily denied you a well-deserved refund for a faulty product. It’s no wonder that businesses with the best customer experience strategy create the most faithful customers.
Many companies think they only need to create quality products that customers need and — voilà — customers will be loyal. While that’s part of building a customer experience strategy, it’s not the whole story. A customer experience strategy considers all interactions customers have with your company at every stage of the customer journey.
The Importance of Scaling Your Customer Experience Strategy
Even with a great product, a hiccup in the customer journey can lead to unhappy customers. For instance, 74% of consumers will ditch a brand if they find the purchasing process too complicated. Over time, that kind of repeat abandonment can hurt revenue. In the U.S., as much as $1.6 trillion is lost each year by companies whose customers switch brands due to bad customer experiences.
On the other hand, a quality customer experience strategy can drive revenue. As many as 84% of companies that try to improve their customer experience strategy say they have boosted their revenue. Yet, building a sustainable customer experience strategy takes work as you grow.
As your company expands, it’s important to scale your customer experience strategy to grow with it. Customers today expect fast, seamless, personalized experiences. That means you need to maintain quality customer service, support customer relationships, use resources strategically, and sustain efficient processes — all at scale.
We’ll help you get started. Here are three best practices to keep in mind when scaling your customer experience strategy.
3 Best Practices When Scaling Your Customer Experience Strategy
1. Put Customers at the Center of Your Culture
Your customers should be the main character of your customer experience strategy. That means your strategy discussions aren’t only about hitting a specific revenue goal, making your product more innovative, or keeping your employees productive. Don’t get me wrong, all of that is important. But when you lose sight of your customers, you’ll create and market products with features that customers don’t need or want. And then, it will be tough to even hit your revenue goals, let alone exceed them.
When you’re scaling your customer experience strategy, don’t get lost in the weeds. Keep customers at the center, then build a customer journey map that supports every touchpoint. This starts with your culture. From the top leadership through all levels of the org, you should value customer service, prioritize customer feedback, and consistently think about how you can improve customer experience.
2. Train Your Employees
To scale a customer experience strategy, invest in training your team. Your customer experience is deeply intertwined with the employee experience. So, when you invest in your employees, you’re also investing in your customers, which supports your bottom line. A report from Harvard Business Review found companies that invest in delivering excellent experiences to consumers and employees can charge a premium of as much as 16% for their products and services. Why? Because they’re providing quality.
As you scale, don’t neglect your employee training. Help your employees grow and develop so they can be more productive and more engaged. And they’ll only get better at their work. Guide your employees to see how their roles contribute to your customer journey, whether they’re talking to customers on the frontline or working behind the scenes.
3. Use Technology to Maintain Efficiency at Scale
Scalability is only possible with the right tools in your toolbox. You can’t support a massive corporation using a CRM built for small businesses. You can’t protect data at scale if you’re keeping track of everything by hand in a spreadsheet. While that might work for my personal side hustle, it won’t fly for a mid-market company.
Choose your partners and technology wisely. Look for platforms that can handle increased customer interactions, data, and provide insights for better decision-making.
Add automation and AI tools for manual and routine tasks. This way, you can offer personalized experiences without adding to your task list. Invest in a contact center platform that can scale with your business. This makes it easy to add channels, document valuable customer insights, and support a seamless customer experience strategy.
>> To learn more about products you can use to scale your customer experience strategy, schedule a demo with one of our team members.
3 Reasons Why Outsourcing Should Be Part of Your Scaled Customer Experience Strategy
Scaling your customer experience strategy is easier said than done. Customer service can be hard to maintain. Your contact center likely faces high turnover, absenteeism, employee burnout, and exhaustion. Sometimes, there are staffing gaps that make it even harder to serve your customers and keep overhead costs low.
That’s why businesses are turning to outsourcing to bridge these gaps. Here are three reasons outsourcing should be part of your scaled customer experience strategy.
1. It’s Cost-Effective
Outsourcing your customer experience operations can lead to significant cost savings. By partnering with an outsourcing provider, you can deliver services more efficiently and at a lower cost than with 24/7 in-house operations. Outsourcing also eliminates the need for substantial investments in infrastructure, technology, and training that are required for an internal support team. So, when you have to scale rapidly, outsourcing helps you avoid upfront costs.
2. You Get Access to Specialized Skills and Technology
Outsourcing providers often have the latest technologies, tools, and skilled professionals dedicated to customer service. When you outsource your customer service, you can tap into a pool of specialized skills and resources that are challenging to develop and maintain in-house. You support a better customer experience without adding strain to your existing team.
3. It’s Scalable and Flexible
Why add outsourcing to your scaled customer experience? Because it’s scalable! When you experience peak seasons or sudden increases in customer inquiries after a new product release, an outsourced team can quickly scale up to handle the extra workload, ensuring customer service levels are maintained. With outsourcing, you can stay flexible to meet customer demands.
How CXHub Can Help Scale Your Customer Experience Strategy
You get it: outsourcing can help scale your customer experience strategy. But it can be time-consuming and intimidating. You don’t want to be stuck micromanaging your outsourcing partner. So, how do you stay agile, maintain a seamless brand experience, and ensure you still meet customer needs? CXHub is one way to make outsourcing a whole lot easier.
CXHub is a global business process outsourcing (BPO) marketplace that streamlines contact center outsourcing. It covers the scope of your staffing needs, provides you with a list of possible providers, manages the RFP process, and helps match you to the best vendor. Lean on CXHub to manage your relationship with partners so you can focus on scaling your customer experience strategy for sustainable growth.
Want to see for yourself how CXHub can help you scale your contact center? Reach out for a demo.