Our A to Z of Wide Format - C is for Customer Experience

Applications, Bleed, RIP Software…. We get asked lots of questions about the world of Wide Format on a daily basis. At Signmaster we are here to help and our lovely team of experts have pulled together a handy A to Z guide answering the most frequently asked questions.

Introducing the Signmaster A to Z of Wide Format

This is a series of helpful blogs, guides and articles that we hope you will find useful. We will post a new blog every fortnight and we’d love to know what you think so please comment or drop us an email.  We'd love to hear from you!

This week it's all about Customer Experience.

C is for Customer Experience

We all know the importance of good customer service, delivering on time, managing orders, payments and complaints but what about a customer’s experience of trading with you.

Customer Experience (or CX as its often known) covers every touch point that a customer or prospect has with your business – online and offline. At the heart of Customer Experience is the customers perception of your brand and at the end of the day this can make or break a customer’s future relationship with your business.

Why is Customer Experience important?

These days consumers have a vast amount of choice available at their fingertips and often make their buying decisions before even speaking to an organisation. If they are searching for “wide format printing”, “signage” or “exhibition banners” what will they find? Will they come across your business via a search engine, will they find you on social media and if they do find you do you fulfil their search requirement? Will they feel happy after contacting you by phone or email?

As social media and our online world develops, consumers are quick to make judgements (rightly or wrongly) about the businesses that they will trade with and many come to these conclusions through reading online reviews and the quality and authenticity of your web presence way before they even call or interact with your brand.

Therefore, it is important that a customer’s experience of your brand is authentic, consistent across all channels and dealing with you is easy and straight forward. CX is vital for customer retention and creating brand champions who will happily promote your business over your competitors.

What happens when CX goes wrong?

Gone are the days when customers remained loyal simply by being offered the best product or price. In the digital age that we now live a company’s success is measured by Customer Experience and their emotional perception of your brand.

1. Here are two negative effects of poor Customer Experience:

1. 1. Move to competitors resulting in a loss of revenue and market share
2. 2. Share negative feedback online, resulting in loss of future custom, revenue and market share.

What happens when CX works?

When a company gets their Customer Experience right, they can reap many benefits.

1. 1. Customer retention and loyalty. Happy customers are more willing to spend more with a business and remain loyal.
2. 2. Improved customer satisfaction and positive reviews. Happy customers will promote and share positive stories of their interaction with you.
3. 3. Increased likelihood of upselling and cross selling. Happy customers are more likely to consider other purchases from a brand that they may not have originally been searching for.

So, what can you do to ensure a good Customer Experience for your customers?

Every company will have a different way of approaching Customer Experience but there are 3 key elements to consider.

1. 1. Be consistent across your communication channels. Website, social media, emails, telephone and face to face so that a customer has the same emotional reaction to your brand and a positive Customer Experience wherever they interact with you.
2. 2. Respond to your customers likes. Find out what makes your customers happy and give them more of that! Educational content, offers & discounts or entertainment?
3. 3. Make dealing with your business easy and hassle free.

By offering your customers the best products and services that match their needs, communicating in a consistent way across your marketing channels and making their transaction with you easy and hassle free will improve customer satisfaction and hopefully their loyalty.

Here at Signmaster we believe Customer Experience is key and are always looking for ways to improve ours and we would love to hear your tips and examples of great Customer Experience.