Is your customer experience is winning customers?

How do you know if your customer experience is winning customers?

It can drive you crazy, wondering if the time and money you invest in your customer’s experience is working. Here are a couple of ways to tell:

Photo Credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery

Customer Loyalty

The number one factor of customer loyalty is the experience customers have with your business. More than price, more than service, the experience customers have with you determines whether or not they will purchase from you again. Are your customers loyal?

One way to determine this is to measure your customer retention. What percentage of your customers currently doing business with you one year ago, six months ago, one quarter ago, are still making purchases today?

Another way to determine customer loyalty is frequency of purchase. How often are your customers returning for repeat purchases? Measure that number against how often they should be coming back, based on the purchase cycle of your product or service.

Word of Mouth

Remarkable customer experiences spark word of mouth, which in turn generates referrals. Is this happening in your business? Use this tree step process to discover if it is:

First, measure the number of new customers.
Second, ask them how they heard about you.
Third, determine their motivation for deciding to give your business a try.

That third one is important. What you want to know is the specific reasons that motivate new customers to discover your business. If your customer experience is working, you will hear comments like:

I’ve heard so much about your business and how wonderful it is to shop here.

OR

My friend Ann said I had to try this place out because it is so fun.

In other words, you are looking for superlatives that talk about the experience. If customers are talking about your price or your advertising, that means your customer experience is not doing its fair share of generating new customers.

Take the pulse of you business today. Is your customer experience winning customers?

You may also be interested in:
The Customer Experience Manifesto
The Best Customer Experience Marketing Articles
Quote Spot: Customer Experience

If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to this blog and let future podcast episodes and articles come to you: Receive The Marketing Spot by Email or Get The Marketing Spot in a blog reader

EricUrbane 8 pts

Hey Jay, I have been thinking about this more and more lately. We have always put a lot of focus on Enhancing the Residents Experience at our company, and by many measures that may hold true that our efforts are successful. That said, it seems as though there is never a loss for words from unhappy residents and or prospects, and there are many social media channels in which they can broadcast their frustrations.

What about the brands that are not for everyone. By design, they are going to get complaints. How do you separate out the ego of "We aren't for everyone" and a true complaint? Any thoughts on that?

share flag

spam
offensive
disagree
off topic

JayEhret 10 pts moderator

EricUrbane Eric, the best brands are ones that create strong opinions on both sides of the fence. Apple is one example. You have always been up front about Urbane Apartments in that they are not for everyone. What's telling though is the nature of those complaints. I read some reviews recently for a local business that talked a lot about the owner dropping the ball on some orders. That's not good.

However, for Urbane, if someone were to complain about your "Go Solo" program, in that they complain that you have take self-guided tours, that's a different story. When you do get those complaints, it's important to answer them with a reply about your reasoning for what you do. And you have a very good reason for your Go-Solo program.

I like to judge the value of idea by whether or not it has detractors. If an idea doesn't have any detractors, it's probably not a good idea. It's just an idea that doesn't offend anyone.