Please note that this page contains affiliate links. While we only recommend products that we believe in, we may benefit financially from any purchases you make.
Now more than ever, millions of businesses worldwide are setting out to engage and capture a large customer base.
With so many companies now competing for these customers, it has never been more important to invest in a strong customer experience.
This not only helps attract, but also retain customers – giving companies an edge against their competitors.
What Does Customer Experience Entail?
Customer experience is every single interaction a business has with its customers. It’s a way to build loyalty, grow a relationship with customers and fuel the business.
These could include:
Branding: A big part of the customer experience is how your audience sees your brand – and how this shines through. For example, if you are a supermarket that promises high quality products, this branding should be evident in your stores, in the items you sell and online. This helps customers trust that you are selling top quality products to them.
User experience: User experience, especially online is incredibly important. If you have a complicated interface, consumers are going to get fed up quickly and you’re going to face a lot of churn. Investing in an experience that your audience will like will help them stick around and enjoy using your product.
Consistency: Customers like companies that they can trust, and a huge part of this is consistency. Making sure that stores are open and available, that websites and apps are running correctly and that products are in stock is incredibly important for the customer experience.
Improvement: You’re never going to get things right all the time. Making sure you are getting feedback, improving and engaging with customer needs can set your company apart.
If you need some help working out where to start, here are some of the best books to help:
The Effortless Experience
This book is all about how winning customers is important, but fostering loyalty is the secret to success.
The book proves that sometimes ‘dazzling’ customers with bells and whistles distracts teams from what they need to do best – which is retention.
Through data and insights, this book is a master in focusing teams on what’s important for keeping customers happy.
Buy the book here
Customer Experience 3.0
This book gives businesses a full guide to creating an effective customer experience strategy.
Goodman talks about using data and insights to ‘delight’ customers, using a mix of tech and human elements to improve service.
Buy the book here
What Customers Crave
Knowing how to improve customer experience starts with knowing what your customers want.
This book is all about how anticipating what your customers love can help improve the entire customer experience.
Buy the book here
The Customer of The Future
As technology is becoming a bigger part of the customer experience journey, this book talks about how to integrate tech and strategy to create great experiences.
The book talks about how to define, implement and measure the success of these techniques so that they are truly improving the lives of customers.
Buy the book here
The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences
This book covers 10 principles that business leaders can use to make real improvements to customer experiences.
The book simplifies the process, helping to make implementation easier and more cost effective. With the right principles in place, companies can set themselves up for long-term success.
Buy the book here
Never Lose a Customer Again
Joey Coleman talks about the importance of the first 100 days of the customer relationship, and how businesses can use this time to turn casual buyers into lifelong customers.
The book talks through eight phases of the customer journey and provides ways to engage customers at every step.
Buy the book here
The Cult of the Customer
This book talks about how in today’s world, you can’t just satisfy your customers, you need to impress them.
Through his 5 phases from uncertainty to amazement, Shep Hyken shows companies how they can turn their customer experience from good to great.
Buy the book here
