–By Tripti Sharma–
No matter what story you tell to your customers, make them a part of a successful sales team because happy customers are the biggest advocates of a brand.
Quantifying customer experience is deciding the worth of customers in terms of cost and gain. Such worth is built upon the lifetime value of a customer. Customers’ purchase or disposal of product or service decision affects company revenue. Imagine a grocery shop that you visit daily to buy some items to fulfill your needs, as a customer it is not a strong brand loyalty rather it exhibits a habitual pattern. There can be many reasons behind customer purchase decisions but making them brand loyal will ensure a continuous flow of revenue. Research shows that customers are most satisfied when they get what is expected. Satisfaction does not necessarily mean loyalty. A retail shop that keeps low inventory at its store to avoid the cost associated with holding inventory can face a situation where customers can’t find the item, they came in to buy. Before visiting the same shop in the future, they will probably think twice. The out-of-stock experience will damage revenue and word of mouth.
As per the research which was undertaken by Harvard Business Review, there is a direct link between customer experience and annual revenue increase.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = Annual Revenue per Customer times customer relationship – Cost of Customer Acquisition. A high customer acquisition cost (CAC) to CLV can lead to a startup’s early demise.
How to Start With?
It all starts with learning about the customer journey covering multiple touchpoints that can be managed by different functional areas of the organization. It’s said that the cost of acquisition is more than retaining existing ones, positive customer engagement means a greater likelihood of higher revenue and happier clients that will lead to client retention, advocacy, enrichment, and loyalty-driven experience. Before opening its retail store Apple decided to send its store manager to attend the Ritz-Carlton (luxury hotel chain) training to deliver the best possible customer experiences for their customers and stay focused on reducing the customer wait time by simplifying the checkout process with mobile credit card readers. Happy customers will have fewer complaints that can be solved with limited company resources saving time and effort thus ultimately reducing the cost.
What Is the Key to Optimizing Revenue From Existing Customers?
As such, there is no key but the simple ways that can be used by companies to generate revenue are by understanding customers’ holistic needs as it will communicate in a way that you understand your customers better than competitors. For example:
• By ensuring your commitments to customers through performing quarterly or annual reviews
• By asking customer opinions on future product offerings
• By retargeting customers on social media
• By keeping pace with product release
• By improving buyer experience (UX) and data
• By adding service offerings, by offering loyalty incentives
• By value addition on customer touchpoints and by taking follow-up on post-service
It’s rightly said that “Love for customers is the springhead of the cascade of innovations and the river of revenues”.
Looking at your customers as innovative investments will provide a return by enriching of experience. Companies generally don’t see consumer complaints as an opportunity as a lot of time and energy go in vain but focusing on the worst customer experience can help companies in finding those gaps that can be worked upon for the satisfaction of current and potential customers.
Technology solutions like conversational IVR and Virtual Assistants have evolved to keep pace with customer expectations, such solutions are not only cost-effective but can also deliver more personalized services and maximize return on investment. Approach each customer with the idea of helping to achieve a goal or to solve a problem and not with the idea of selling a product or service.
