Ghosting your customers won't lead you too far

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By default, we all know that ghosting someone will not lead to a better and stronger relationship, and this is no different in business. Many businesses tend to neglect their customers or ghost them without even realizing it.

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Just think about it from your perspective: How many times have you been frustrated with a chatbot that, instead of addressing your problem, made you read a bunch of irrelevant articles or didn’t connect you with a real person? Maybe it took a long time to reach an actual human who could fix your issue, or in the worst case, you never got in touch with an agent because there were no options for that. After sifting through irrelevant articles, you ended up with a request to rate the interaction with a thumbs up or down, and that was it. Complex issues often require the intervention of a customer service agent for resolution, which chatbots cannot handle.

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While these procedures are not set up with bad intentions—in fact, they are designed to help—they often end up ghosting your customers. And how does this look in numbers? Let’s see:

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• 52% of US consumers sometimes or always walk away from purchases due to a bad customer experience (Emplifi)
• 49 percent of customers who left a brand to which they’d been loyal in the past 12 months say it’s due to poor CX. (Emplifi)
• 86% of consumers would leave a brand after as few as two poor experiences (Emplifi)

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Ignoring customers or providing subpar service can quickly lead to lost sales and eroded loyalty. It's essential to engage with customers promptly and consistently to avoid losing them to competitors.

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Discuss with your support agents on a recurrent basis

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Communication is extremely important in many areas. Effective customer communication is crucial for enhancing operational efficiency and strengthening relationships. Discussing issues openly can lead to solving those issues easily. Regular discussions with our teammates can definitely improve our business outcomes. In addition, clear and transparent communication tools play a crucial role in optimizing our business results.

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• 74% of agents say that having access to more tools and data will give them more opportunities to personalize interactions (Zendesk CX Trends Report).
• 54% of organizations stated that their biggest barrier to leveraging data was fragmented or siloed data (Treasure Data).
• 72% of leaders believe that merging teams and responsibilities around the customer experience will increase operational efficiencies (Zendesk CX Trends Report).

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As we mentioned, recurrent meetings and clear communication can positively impact your outcomes. However, too many meetings and check-ins can have a negative effect on teamwork. When it comes to customer experience, instead of wasting time in recurrent meetings, utilizing customer feedback or customer experience intelligence tools can significantly reduce time spent.

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These tools can showcase the entire customer journey in a single dashboard, displaying shifts in customer sentiment over time. Additionally, using a co-pilot assistant to ask questions about how your customer support or customer experience has evolved over time can provide instant answers with precise and accurate outcomes.

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Prioritize even better

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Field of customer experience is thriving right now because poor CX can result in immediate customer attrition and can directly influence not only your brand’s reputation but also your revenue.

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• 90% of businesses have stated that they have made CX their primary focus (CX Index).
• 80% of organizations expect to compete mainly based on CX (Gartner).
• 80% of leaders plan to increase customer service budgets over the next year (Zendesk CX Trends Report).

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When it comes to investing in or enhancing our overall customer experience, clear communication and prioritization play important roles. But how should we prioritize our customer experience tasks? How can we determine which improvements to prioritize? In order to prioritize tasks like these, we need proper metrics to determine and track which outcomes are more impactful.

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Customer relationship management (CRM) plays a crucial role in organizing and managing client relationships. By analyzing data from customer interactions, CRM enhances sales and marketing efforts and complements customer experience automation (CXA) by providing a centralized platform for accessing customer data and personalizing interactions throughout the customer lifecycle.

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Proper metrics and analytics tools can help us determine where to shift our focus. Some businesses may prioritize solving problems for clients with a higher financial impact on their business, while others may prioritize solving problems that affect a larger number of people. If we have customer feedback tools available that help automate our work, the time spent identifying and solving these problems can be significantly reduced.

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Personalized CX

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Customers desire personalized interactions. In fact, over 90 percent of consumers are likely to spend more money with companies that offer personalization. Provide your agents with access to hidden customer information such as emotions, desires, and sentiment drivers so they can tailor individual support experiences accordingly.

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• 88% of online shoppers are more likely to continue shopping on a retailer website that offers a personalized experience, including 96% of Gen Z and 97% of Millennials (Elastic).
• 60% of consumers report that they will become repeat buyers after a personalized purchasing experience (Twilio).
• Companies that grow faster drive 40% more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts (McKinsey & Company).
• 62% of consumers agree that personalized recommendations are better than general ones (Zendesk CX Trends Report).

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Personalization in customer experience is essential, but putting it into practice is challenging. Without using customer experience automation (CXA) tools or sentiment analysis software to extract valuable insights from a large amount of customer data, achieving personalization becomes much more difficult, if not impossible. These tools can categorize, summarize, and identify customer sentiment and underlying preferences.

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For instance, ClientZen can provide crucial insights in three key areas: business focus, requests, issues, and questions. This information can help you understand your clients’ true needs and how addressing them can positively impact your business.

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Collect customer feedback

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Collecting customer feedback is not easy because customers don’t want to leave feedback. Is this really the case? Did you know that customers are actually open to leaving feedback if they know that the company will take action based on their feedback?

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• 66% of consumers say they will share personal data about themselves if they think it will elevate their customer experience (Redpoint and Harris).
• 73% of customers now say CX is the number one thing they consider when deciding whether to purchase from a company (PwC).
• 87% of consumers consider user reviews and ratings to be the most authentic interaction they have with brands (Emplifi).

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It is important to collect feedback throughout the entire customer lifecycle to ensure all interactions are considered for improving customer experience.

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Did you know that customer feedback goes beyond traditional surveys or automated review requests? Customer feedback can be collected from various sources including simple email interactions, social listening, chatbot conversations, or any type of customer touchpoint where you’ve had a direct or indirect conversation with your clients.

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Improve your customer feedback collection method and process. You can directly communicate to your customers that their feedback will be used to improve customer satisfaction, or you can indirectly collect all customer interactions with CX automation. Automation platforms that use sentiment analysis with various integrations can be used for this purpose.

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Use automation and AI

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Businesses looking to drive and sustain growth must focus on automation and artificial intelligence (AI). By using automation and AI tools, such as chatbots, your company can communicate with customers in real-time, at any time.

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Customer experience automation (CXA) enhances customer satisfaction and engagement by automating communication processes and streamlining workflows, allowing companies to provide faster, more personalized services while also benefiting internal teams across various departments.

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It’s no secret that AI can change your customer experience (CX) game forever.

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• 72% of business leaders agree that expanding the use of AI/bots across the customer experience over the next 12 months is very or somewhat important (Zendesk CX Trends Report).
• 80% of executives have reported demonstrable improvements in customer satisfaction, delivery of service, and overall contact center performance as a result of implementing conversational AI (MIT Technology Review).
• 54% of support teams use some form of chatbot, VCA, or other conversational AI platform for customer-facing applications (Gartner).
• AI can increase business productivity by 40% (Techjury).

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To make your workflow more efficient, it’s best to use a single software for all your CX tools, such as ClientZen. This allows customer support teams to track interactions and progress, ensuring no relevant information or tasks are missed.

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AI can be utilized in various ways. While it’s impossible to cover all its capabilities in a single blog post, let’s focus on the most frequently used use cases that we’ve discovered from our users. AI tools can also provide fast, personalized service to customers, enhancing their overall experience.

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Gen AI can be used for the following:

• Automatizing customer feedback analytics process as a whole
• Cleaning data and removing unnecessary noise
• Structuring and tagging customer interactions for better data analysis
• Predicting customer churn
• Delving deeper to find the root cause of your customers’ pain points
• Conducting sentiment analysis

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Define few metrics and KPIs but track them properly

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In order to optimize our workflow and make strategic decisions, it is crucial to track changes over a specific timeframe and understand how things have evolved, for better or worse. Based on these performance evaluations, we can take necessary actions. While this plan sounds promising, to make decisions that positively impact our business, we need to establish specific metrics and KPIs.

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Tracking the customer lifecycle is essential in improving customer experience, as it encompasses the entire journey from initial engagement to post-purchase communication.

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• Organizations that demonstrate how customer satisfaction is associated with growth, margin, and profitability are 29% more likely to secure more CX budgets (Gartner).
• 95% of leading organizations cite CX job roles as important to achieving business growth — the highest of any job role (Econsultancy).
• 41% of customer-obsessed companies achieved at least 10% revenue growth in their last fiscal year, compared to just 10% of less mature companies (Forrester).

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When it comes to evaluating our impact on various aspects of our business, KPIs and metrics play critical roles. These metrics help us justify our work and actions and can even influence the allocation of budgets for specific ideas or departments. While KPIs and metrics are essential, they can also negatively impact. Sometimes, less is more, even when it comes to metrics. Fewer KPIs and metrics can work wonders instead of being overwhelmed with unnecessary options.

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While many data analysis software tend to showcase numerous data interpretation or visualization models because they look complex and impressive, defining just a few well-defined KPIs for our work is sufficient. For instance, ClientZen was designed based on input from customer success and customer experience professionals, considering C-level managers’ desires. This is why the platform focuses only on the most important business metrics without overwhelming any user, ensuring that businesses make the most of it. It’s no wonder that Plannable and Prestashop saw results in their work within a few months of using ClientZen, as they had the right tools to understand data more accurately and quickly and take immediate action.

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When it comes to KPIs and metrics, investing in tools that help you make the most of your business is crucial, rather than opting for tools that overwhelm your work.

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Refine UX not just CS

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Refining the user experience (UX) across all touchpoints, not just in customer service, is vital for meeting customer expectations and driving purchase decisions. Speed, convenience, and overall satisfaction are key to a successful UX.

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• 73% of customers now say CX is the number one thing they consider when deciding whether to purchase from a company (PwC).
• Consumers place high importance on “previous good CX with the brand” and “speed of availability/delivery” as their top two criteria when considering a new purchase (Emplifi).
• 72% of customers want immediate service (Zendesk CX Trends Report).
• Research shows that 88 percent of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a poor digital experience. (99design)

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The design and functionality of your website are crucial yet often overlooked aspects of the user experience (UX).

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It’s important for company decision-makers to prioritize this aspect of the business. Users should have a satisfying, reliable, and intuitive experience whenever they engage with your brand and customer support team online. Customer service representatives play a crucial role in enhancing user experience through self-service portals, which streamline requests and improve efficiency.

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Your website is often the first interaction between your brand and a customer, so it’s essential to review it thoroughly, especially if you haven’t done so recently. According to 99designs, there are seven principles of UX design:

1. Focus on the user (create a customer-centric UX)
2. Consistency
3. Hierarchy
4. Context is crucial
5. Empower the user
6. Accessibility
7. Usability testing

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UX and customer support have similar goals and use similar methods to achieve them.

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When a customer encounters an issue or has a question, it’s the support agents’ responsibility to assist them effectively and promptly. Similarly, UX team members must anticipate customer concerns and questions as part of their role. Their job is to design websites that make it easy for users to locate what they require.

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Tools that integrate customer insights throughout the entire customer journey, such as ClientZen, can provide businesses with a comprehensive understanding of their customers’ expectations. Teams such as Customer Service (CS), Customer Experience (CX), User Experience (UX), Operations, and Marketing can greatly benefit from these tools, as they provide clarity for each team’s specific needs within minutes.

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Label every customer interaction and map your customers journey

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Labeling and mapping the customer journey is somewhat similar to defining KPIs and customer metrics. Defining and labeling our clients’ journey maps is as important and critical as defining those metrics.

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• 72% of leaders believe that merging teams and responsibilities around the customer experience will increase operational efficiencies (Zendesk CX Trends Report).
• More than 19 in every 20 CX leaders have invested or plan to invest in data integration, data integrity, or data enrichment technologies (CX Today).
• 70% of customers expect anyone they interact with to have full context (Zendesk CX Trends Report).

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Customer service agents can utilize automated workflows to improve efficiency by responding promptly and accessing relevant customer data, ensuring better service and improved efficiency.

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Mapping the customer journey and labeling every interaction helps in creating a cohesive and personalized customer experience. This approach ensures that all teams are aligned and customers receive consistent service.

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Don't take customer loyalty for granted

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Customer loyalty is delicate and can be lost quickly if the customer experience falters. Brands must consistently strive to maintain high standards in CX to retain their customers’ loyalty and satisfaction. Customer experience automation (CXA) plays a crucial role in managing the entire customer lifecycle and enhancing customer loyalty by automating communication processes and streamlining workflows.

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• 86% of consumers would leave a brand after as few as two poor experiences (Emplifi).
• 49% of customers who left a brand to which they’d been loyal in the past 12 months say it’s due to poor CX (Emplifi).
• CX drives over two-thirds of customer loyalty, which represents more than brand and price combined (Gartner, via CMSWire).

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When it comes to retaining customers, it’s beneficial to find simple ways to acknowledge and reward their loyalty to your brand. This can range from providing financial incentives to sending a thank-you note.

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If a customer has experienced a particularly time-consuming or frustrating support issue, simply resolving it may not be sufficient. Offering a complimentary gift card or a discount on their next purchase could be the gesture that helps them move past the difficult experience.

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Another highly effective approach is to offer exclusive content or updates that cater specifically to certain segments of your customer base. This can help build loyalty and also provide valuable feedback from customers.

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Conclusion

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Moving into 2025, delivering an exceptional customer experience is more important than ever. This article outlines the statistics and strategies that emphasize the key areas where businesses need to concentrate their efforts to stay competitive and nurture long-lasting customer relationships. Whether it’s improving communication with support teams, using automation and AI, or enhancing the user experience, every aspect of CX requires careful attention and ongoing improvement.

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Customer experience automation (CXA) can help reduce operational costs by automating repetitive tasks, allowing businesses to allocate resources more efficiently. By prioritizing these initiatives and monitoring the right metrics, your business can cultivate customer loyalty, foster growth, and ensure that your brand stands out in a crowded marketplace.

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If you want to streamline your work, schedule a demo with no commitment, and find out how ClientZen can enhance your customer experience.

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