13 Strategic And Effective Ways To Critically Analyze Your Customer Experience

Members of Forbes Business Council share smart ways to analyze the quality of your customer experience.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS.

Organizations rely on their leaders to continually analyze, identify and optimize areas of opportunity in the business. With so many moving parts, there are countless ways to strategically approach different factions of a business.

One of the most important pieces of any company's sales process is the customer experience. 13 experts from Forbes Business Council shared insights on the top strategic ways to critically look at customer experience. Read on to learn why these methods are so effective.

1. Listen, Review And Reiterate

Listen first and foremost. Revisit what your customers' biggest pain points were and identify their challenges before utilizing your product or service. Confirm the results you've helped them achieve. Review what hasn't worked and where the experience may have fallen short. Refine your solution across multiple customers to achieve the biggest impact. Reiterate this process for continuous improvement. - Seth Page, ThroughPut Inc.

2. Don't Focus On Doing Everything Right

To substantially increase customer experience (measured by NPS or CSAT), don't focus on doing everything right. The Peak-End rule shows us that it only takes two points in the entire journey with exceptional performance to make people evaluate the entire experience as extraordinary. This way, you'll get 80% of the result at only 20% of the cost. - Joost Van De Velde, ktc

3. Request Feedback At The End Of A Project

Completed projects and engagements should always include a customer follow-up request for feedback and suggestions on improvements, including improvements for each stage of the customer journey. Responses can sometimes be a bit uncomfortable but when performance is measured, the rate of improvement increases dramatically. - Nate Nead, DEV.co

4. Seek Word Of Mouth Feedback

One of the best ways to verify customer experience is word of mouth. If customers aren't referring their friends to your service, then there is a problem. Other important indicators are if your employees want to be your customers or if they refer their friends. If your employees don’t want to refer people to you, there is a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed. - Adam Rudman, Apartments Near Me

5. Visualize The Path To Purchase

Mapping the customer journey to visualize the path to purchase is key. There are a few software (like Uber Media) that can support this. This visualization allows you to access the location and give input on different areas to focus on what matters most to customers, what they want to achieve and what the organization can do to meet their needs. - Abigail Aboitiz, 247 Health Solution LLC

6. Go On Your Own Customer Journey

You have to regularly eat your own cooking. Be a customer of your own business and experience it completely from beginning to end. Ask questions and change directions multiple times as a potential consumer might. Many times, something as inconspicuous as a poorly designed customer site or cumbersome process flow is enough to turn off potential customers from an otherwise well-run business. - Adam Povlitz, Anago Cleaning Systems

7. Send Out Automated Surveys

We’ve become so digitized that too often we lose touch with our customers’ experiences. You can combat that by sending out automated surveys through text or email, making it easy for them to respond. The benefit of a digital survey over a paper survey—besides making it more convenient for your customer—is that their responses can be easily captured and put into reports. - Ty Allen, SocialClimb 

8. Anticipate Customer Needs At A Micro Level

Anticipating the customer's needs at a molecular level has been a key way we have improved our customer experiences. Think about all interactions the customer has with your business. Creating "wow" moments that enhance customer experiences can come from the smallest of actions. For example, if you run events, send a video to each attendee showing them exactly what the walking route to the venue looks like. - Shaz Memon, Digimax Dental

9. Use Your Own Product

In case you're building a product, nothing gets better than using your product yourself. This allows you to be in your customers' shoes and know their pains and struggles. - Vladimir Lugovsky, Akveo

10. Annually Measure Your Customer Capital

Annually measure your Customer Capital from two perspectives: the company's perspective and then the customer's perspective. Using a scale from one to six—with one being the worst, six being the best, three being slightly below average and four being slightly above average. If the company knows where they land on the scale, they can implement improvements annually to their customer experience. - Scott Snider, Exit Planning Institute

11. Understand Your Customer Data And Feedback

Customer feedback is the core basis for understanding their experience. Different customers have different experiences with your company and/or different use cases for your offerings. Understanding a cross-section of data points and weighing them across your customer base—particularly your most important customers—and then continuously improving the processes delivers best-in-class results. - Victoria Lakers, Calibre One

12. Forge Emotional Connections With Customers

Inculcate an emotional connection at every step and allow your team to build a personal connection with the customers. It helps in building brand loyalty and trust amongst users. A positive connection encourages users to spread positive word-of-mouth for the brand. - Caroline Lee, CocoSign

13. Study The Business You Lost

One strategic way to critically look at your customer experience is to study those customers who left your platform or dropped your subscription. Conduct a focus group or one-on-one conversation with those customers. They will reveal critical learning and insights for you to think differently in order to innovate your product or change your customer service to improve your customer experience. - David Qu, Joint Commission International