As competition increases in an ever-crowded marketplace, customer experience becomes the key differentiator between businesses. In fact, 73% of customers say customer experience is a key buying factor.
And, the business impact is clear—great customer experience leads to increased sales and customer loyalty, while poor customer experience leads to directly churn.
As Lincoln Murphy, noted speaker and author of Customer Success explains:
The biggest reason for customer churn is unmet expectations... The seeds of churn are planted early, and those seeds are planted deep if the experience is terrible.
Create an experience, not a to-do list
Too often, customers have a terrible onboarding experience, as they are left alone to figure out what to do next and how to do it correctly in order to achieve their desired outcomes. This type of Do-It-Yourself experience is a recipe for churn.
Customers today don't want to follow a DIY checklist or watching webinars. They demand more. Customers expect vendors to help them hit-the-ground-running, stay on task, and achieve their goals.
As Murphy says:
The customer is looking to you to help them achieve their desired outcome... It's why you exist. It's why customers chose you over the next best alternative.
If you don’t have a strategy for guiding your customers to success, customers will be forced to learn through trial-and-error, a frustrating experience that often leads to buyer’s remorse and ultimately, customer churn.
Get a head start with our Customer Experience Playbook
Start improving your customer experience now with Pipeline's free Customer Experience Playbook, full of industry expertise and best practices.
Our playbook lists the 5 critical steps for guiding your new customers towards success: preboarding, onboarding, inboarding, execution, and engagement. In addition, the playbook lists all the key activities that should take place in each step—25 activities in total across all 5 steps.
Download Customer Experience Playbook »
Download Customer Experience Playbook: Companion Tracker (XLSX) »
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HBR: 7 Steps to Deliver Better Customer Experiences
Customer experience is defined as the sum of all interactions a customer has with a company, but most people understand it as only customer service or service excellence—without recognizing that service is only one element of the entire experience. -
HBR: Webinar: 7 Steps to Deliver Better Customer Experiences
Customer experience is the single most important factor for business success. Yet today, most companies still use an incomplete definition of customer experience and have incomplete tools and approaches to manage it. -
PWC: Experience is Everything: Here's How to Get it Right
Why are so many consumers disappointed? Call it an experience disconnect: companies tour the latest technology or snappy design, but they haven't focused on-or invested in-the aspects of customer experience that are the most meaningful.