Let Data Do the Talking in Your Digital Customer Experience Strategy

Good digital customer experience is key to retaining and growing a loyal customer base. Understanding this, however, is only the first step—so how do you design a customer experience strategy that works for your company and your clientele?

The answer, as is so often the case, lies in data. In order to satisfy your customers, you first have to understand who they are and what they want.

1. Figure out your most strategically important customer base

First, you need to find out who your most profitable customers are. This is not necessarily the same as your largest customer base! It’s typical for a relative minority of customers to be the ones providing the bulk of a company’s income. You need to know exactly where your revenue is coming from, and target your efforts there.

Who are your biggest spenders? How old are they? Are they male or female? What is their nationality? And perhaps most importantly, why do they use your company’s product or service? You should be able to create a complete, detailed profile of your most profitable customers.

2. Define your customers' priorities and pain points

Next comes understanding what those customers want. In a recent survey, 75 percent of executives stated that they had identified their most profitable customers, yet only 52 percent had a clear idea of how those customers would rate their experience on the things most important to them.

This is definitely a problem—knowing your most strategically important customers does nothing for you unless you know what they want. What do they like about your company, and what irks them? What are their priorities? What are their biggest pain points? What drives their purchasing behaviors? As a company, you should differentiate yourself based on what your customers most value.

Then, make sure you are delivering what your customers most want at every touchpoint. Map out your customers’ journey, so that you know each point of contact they will have with you, and so that you can deliver what they need at every point.

3. Brand yourself around what your customers want

Once you know what your customer base is looking for, you can also design your brand messaging around their desires. Come up with the key attributes you’d like people to associate with your brand—efficient, luxurious, fun, responsive, understanding, affordable, or wherever else your data points you. Be sure to involve and reinforce your key attributes at every customer touchpoint, and not just in your advertising.

4. Measure your success

Finally—as always—have a way to measure the success of your initiatives. Over 51 percent of executives in the survey discussed earlier reported that their company had no processes in place for measuring the success of their CX strategy.

Frankly, that’s flat-out ridiculous. There’s no point in funneling money into a project if you aren’t quantitatively measuring the results of your efforts. Ask customers to rate their satisfaction. Do they feel you’ve delivered on what they want? Would they recommend you to a friend?

At the end of the day, it’s the customer’s point of view that counts. Find out who your customers are and what their problems are, and then be their solution.