When we talk about sustainable growth of any business, we talk about two things,

< The present revenue model should be stronger enough to cover up all the ongoing expenses, positive CAGR and future investment and

< The growth pathway should be aligned with its strategy to achieve the long-term vision of the company.

Considering the above context, for any business, the most important metric is Return on Investment, be it the time value of money of some financial investment or simply the time of any executive; while investing in strategies, we always opt for the greater return out of it; and this return must create impact, either by increasing revenue, by decreasing expenses or by creating strong brand equity which will give leverage in the future growth of the company. 

If we dissect the revenue model of any business, we will get that one part of the revenue is earned by the newly acquired customers, and the other part is by increasing the wallet share of the existing customers. The ultimate goal for any revenue model is to maximize the wallet share of existing customers and minimize the customer acquisition cost of newly acquired customers by making the channels more efficient.

If we look closely at expenses, we will see that a large part of expenses is incurred to acquire new customers, increasing the wallet share of existing customers and creating brand leverage for ensuring future growth.

Whether we are in a traditional RTM business model, in a D2C business model, in electronic/quick commerce or even in a retail business, no matter what, being the lead in bringing in revenue, profit and growth are one of the most important tasks for us is to understand the decision-making process of our customers and take enough initiatives accordingly to win their heart and mind with our product and services.

What is customer Experience? 

When we talk about customer experience, we limit ourselves to customer service, point of sales experience, some offers and promotions and a surface level of consumer research, but in reality, customer experience is establishing the total business culture keeping the customers in the centre; from designing the right product and service to hiring the right people to establish the right matrices for business process evaluation to choosing the right marketing tools and communication channels, designing the right customer experience includes everything under its umbrella.

Precisely, Customer Experience (CX) is the totality of cognitive, affective, sensory and behavioural consumer responses in every stage of consumption, such as pre-purchase, consumption and post-purchase; and this experience varies from product to product and service to service.

How is it beneficial to the company’s PnL? 

As I already said that a large part of the expenses is incurred for customer acquisition, multi-channel advertising and incentivizing customers for further retention; for technical or logistics limitations, in many cases, the return of these investments cannot be determined or calculated properly; and months after months, the cash just keeps on burning!

The right customer experiences ensure to pull the customers to the company instead of pushing the solution to them by the company; it will decrease the above-mentioned expenses, increase customer loyalty and make them champions.

In simple words, the more we create brand evangelists or brand champions, the less will be our marketing expenses; because our customers will recommend and advocate our solution.

How to design integrated customer experiences to increase sales?

In today’s world, marketing is not just marketing; it is a good blend of behavioural economics, neuroscience, applied psychology and data science. The more we know our customers, the more we will be able to address their pain points easily and create a heart-to-heart connection with them, which will not only ensure their long-term journey with us but will reduce the company’s retention cost.  

Know your customers and identify their pain points

The most important thing is to know the customers and their pain points we are planning to solve. The more we will know about them, the more we will be able to design the right product/services.  

Emphasize on Why not What

While identifying the pain points, we usually empathize on “what” instead of “Why,”; but if we really want to know their real pain points and create a solution accordingly, we must figure out the “why are those creating pain in our customers’ life.”

Know the cultural values and traditions of the targeted customers

Once the pain-points identification is done, the next most important thing is to know the cultural values and morals of the targeted audiences; because the decision-making of a human being is mostly influenced by his/her cultures and values; so is for designing a solution to address their pain points and choosing the right communication channels and tools.

Hire the right people

The employees are the first representation of the customers; the human resource must be identically representative of the customers you are opting to serve.

Launch a prototype, take feedback and Scale

After knowing the what & why of the pain points, design a prototype and experiment on the control environment. If the feedback of the customers is positive, scale the solution.

Identify the touch points and prioritize the touch points

Once the scaling is done, identify the major touch points which influence the customers for making any decision; prioritize and assess the customer-centricity of those touch points.

Customers feedbacks and value personalization

Take customers feedback regularly and offer personalized values so that customers feel empowered and motivated to continue the journey.

Create an emotional bonding instead rational

We human beings are emotional sentient. Usually, we feel more connected with those who offer some emotional values instead of logical and rational ones.

Moreover, rational quantitative offers can be judged easily, so to create a competitive advantage over competitors, and it is better to offer quality over quantity.  

Create a culture not functions

Most importantly, create a culture where every department and every employee considers customers the most important stakeholder and ensure customer centricity in all their activities.

Author – Mehjabin Badhon