TheresaBusiness buzzwords come and go like the wind. One day, a particular term, tool, or strategy is all-pervasive. The next, it’s yesterday’s news.
But recently, a business trend has emerged that seems to have staying power— holistic customer experience.
It’s been discussed in heavyweight publications like Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, and UXPA Magazine, with industry experts heralding it as best way to improve customer satisfaction.
Yet, despite all the praise, many entrepreneurs aren’t familiar with it and thus aren’t implementing it within their own businesses.
Personally, I’m convinced that taking a holistic approach to customer experience is one of the most impactful methods of generating success— especially when businesses support their holistic customer experience with the right systems and processes.
For this reason, I’ve decided to dive deeper into this topic in today’s blog post and provide you with all core information you need to begin building a holistic CX strategy of your own.
What is Holistic Customer Experience (CX)?
To better understand what this term means, it makes sense to focus on the definition of the word “holistic”.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, holistic means:
“Dealing with or treating the whole of something or someone and not just a single part.”
Thus, a holistic customer experience is one that considers and addresses all of the concerns, pain points, emotions, and thought-processes a customer has throughout the duration of their relationship with a particular brand.
The Importance of Holistic CX
Business owners want to know how a strategy will benefit them well before they make the decision to invest in their time, energy, or money— and a holistic CX strategy is no different.
So, what results can entrepreneurs expect to see if they decide to shift to a holistic approach to customer experience?
Below are the three primary advantages associated with this approach to customer success:
1. Longer Customer Life Cycles
It’s no secret that when customers are happy with their experience, they continue to purchase from that brand and support the business by engaging regularly. Thus, when a brand successfully executes a CX strategy that proactively and insightfully cares for a customer at every stage of their journey, they are most likely to retain that customer and get more value out of each connection.
2. Exceptional Complaint Resolutions
When a customer’s expectations have not been met, they (rightfully) look to the brand to provide a resolution. Unfortunately, when brands take a more atomistic approach to customer experience management, they can often overlook (or be completely unaware of) other touch points or interactions an individual has had with their business. This can lead to a less-than-satisfactory solution and could potentially damage the customer’s brand loyalty to the point it is beyond repair.
When brands have a high quality holistic CX strategy in place, however, they are able to connect a customer’s specific issue with their greater goals and offer a solution that addresses the whole problem, rather than just a single symptom of the problem.
3. Continuous, Omnipresent Service
Too often, businesses focus on one component of their customer service operations. Whether it’s ensuring incoming emails are responded to quickly, training a customer to use a product or service, lowering abandonment rates, or cross-selling existing customers— it is possible to pay too much attention to a single aspect of your customer service delivery.
When businesses make the shift to a holistic customer experience approach, they make themselves available to customers at all times, and use data from across the entire customer journey to provide a tailor-made solution no matter how or when a customer reaches out (or what problem they are facing).
How to Make the Shift to a Holistic Customer Experience (In 3 Simple Steps)
1. Start Mapping Your Customer Journey (And Account for Detours)
In an ideal world, every customer would follow the exact same path when traveling through your sales cycle— but this simply isn’t the case. Thus, it’s important for business owners and customer service managers to begin viewing the customer journey as a web of possible actions, rather than consistent linear movement.
Ask yourself:
Will my various target audiences maneuver differently through my sales cycle? (Younger generations are more likely to reach out using a ChatBot, for example.)
Where can I strategically place safety nets along my customer journey to recapture potential leads if they drop off?
What is the purpose of each stage of my customer journey?
2. Prioritize Seamless Interactions
In order to achieve a truly holistic CX strategy, your business must be able to resolve issues quickly and effortlessly at every touch point. This is why it’s so important to identify how you can respond to customer inquiries intuitively at every stage.
What information should customer service representatives have access to and use as a reference when resolving issues at this point in the customer journey?
How can we deliver personalized feedback at this stage in the sales cycle?
What unique propositions or benefits should customer service representatives mention at this stage to entice potential leads to move further along in the sales cycle?
3. Leverage Omnichannel Systems and Tools
Tools like Dubsado, Freshdesk, and Genysys allow brands to provide feedback to customers via a broad spectrum of channels, including email, social media, website chatbots, SMS, etc.
They also allow businesses to automate customer service communications, ensuring the right messages are sent to customers at the right time.
When choosing an omnichannel customer service tool for your business, be sure to consider:
Does this tool integrate with all the channels my business utilizes?
Does this tool use AI to automate customer service activities?
Does this tool provide real-time analytics and monitoring capabilities so I can improve my customer service journey based on verifiable data?
Are You Ready to Revive Your Customer Service Strategy?
Get started with my client experience manual.
It includes fully-customizable checklists, templates, and standard operating procedures you can use to create the experience your customers deserve!
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