Understanding the Customer Experience - and What Insights to Measure
Updated: May 13
What Is Customer Experience (CX)?
Customer Experience (CX) by definition is the overall perception and interaction of a customer with your company through their journey, from initial awareness to post-purchase support.
Because customer experience encompasses every aspect of a customer’s journey and their perception of your business, it became Encompass-CX's mission to optimize customer experience. CX will be the deciding factor of your customer’s next decision: give you their business or take their business elsewhere. As a customer experience management platform, Encompass-CX deep dives into your customers' experiences, and business relationships, and provides actionable advice for improving each one.
The 3 Key Principles of Customer Experience
According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, "75% of consumers will spend more money to buy from businesses that provide them with a good experience."
So how can your business make a good customer experience? Here are 3 key principles to keep in mind:
Remain engaged and attentive to your client’s problems
Be honest and helpful with prospects and current clients
Make a lasting impression by making honest recommendations
Now Let’s Look at an Example:
Bob is in the market for a new car. While each car dealership has similar options, Bob doesn’t know enough about cars to decide on his own. At each dealership, he tells the car dealer he’s looking for a safe car with good gas mileage. He shares his price range and asks for a recommendation.
His first stop is Dealership A, one of the largest dealerships in Bob’s area. Dealership A has a wide range of cars in different styles, colors, and prices. Bob is overwhelmed by the options, but hopeful there will be something on the lot that fits his needs. Bob finds a salesperson and begins to describe the type of car he’s looking for. The salesperson seems dismissive of Bob’s concerns and points him, instead, to a group of cars that might work for him. While impressed with the quantity of cars, Bob decides to keep looking for other dealerships.
At Dealership B, Bob is greeted at the door by a car dealer. While a smaller selection of cars than Dealership A, Bob is impressed by the dealer and their willingness to guide Bob through this important decision. The dealer recognizes they have limited car options, but continues to give Bob his/her professional and honest recommendation. The dealer suggests a safe model with good gas mileage that is within Bob’s requested price range; however, they don’t have the model in stock. The dealer says they can order the model for Bob or find a dealer in the area with the model in stock.
In this situation, Bob decides to go with Dealership B. While Dealership B has a smaller selection of cars, the customer experience Bob received (compared to what he received at Dealership A) was unmatched. Bob couldn’t imagine taking his business elsewhere after the dealer at Dealership B was so willing to help Bob with his endeavor, even if it meant they didn’t get Bob’s business. Bob even refers his friends to Dealership B and continues to go back whenever he needs help with his car.
The Impact of Good Customer Experience
Think of a time when you had a good customer experience and how it made you feel. Now think of how you felt after a bad customer experience.
These memories make a lasting impression on customers, which is why a good customer experience is crucial to the success of a business. A happy customer is likely to become a loyal customer, which means more potential clients and an increase in revenue.
Providing a good customer experience is the difference between your customer giving his/her/their business to you or taking it to your competitor. In our example, Bob had a business decision to make, which was decided based on where he perceived he had a better experience. Bob was so pleased with the experience, that he not only became a loyal customer but also brought more loyal customers to Dealership B.
Measuring Your Customer Experience
There are many ways to measure and analyze customer experience. To name a few, data can be collected through:
conducting surveys
asking customers for testimonial reviews
analyzing customer support ticket trends.
While these methods can provide great feedback for a business, they can be time-consuming and there’s no guarantee of accuracy. So what would be a better metric than NPS and CSAT?
With Encompass-CX, we put more value on your Sales Equity and help you build it with your customers. We measure your SEQ Score and analyze Average Climate Scores. Using AI technology we show you how your business performs across the 6 Dimensions of Loyalty:
Integrity
Competency
Recognition
Proactivity
Savvy
Chemistry
Customer Experience Insight Is Available
As a customer experience SaaS company, Encompass-CX uses leading-edge AI tools to optimize your customer's experience. Our customer retention software is designed to collect data from disparate systems, with a core goal of measuring customer experience.
Encompass-CX provides real-time visibility into the health of your accounts, products, and service teams, along with meaningful insights and automated actions that can be used from the executive-level boardroom to customer-facing teams, including access to a customer success dashboard. Knowing how to scale customer success is one of many elements that makes Encompass-CX stand out from other customer experience companies.
Our customer experience management software measures perception and fact-based data for maximum accuracy. Learn more about Encompass-CX's mission here.
Want to Test Drive Encompass-CX?
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