Loyalty is defined as “the quality or state of being true and constant in support of someone or something.” For a business, customer loyalty is everything. Nurturing customers into loyal customers is the optimal way to ensure long-term success, and can be the difference between stagnancy and growth.
Did you know? Establishing a solid experiential relationship management (XRM) strategy can boost customer satisfaction and increase customer loyalty. But how, you ask? As an important element in a customer engagement strategy, XRM is the process of managing the personalized experiences you deliver to your customers at scale. The focus on providing that truly unique, personalized human-to-human connection is going to give your customers an unparalleled experience that translates into loyalty.
Here are three ways building an XRM strategy can help you increase customer loyalty:
A customer-first approach
Customer-centricity is nothing new - but it is something that should remain core to your business. Every aspect of your business and every experience you provide should be centralized around the idea of how to exceed your customers’ expectations. A recent study shows that 70% of consumers say a company’s understanding of their needs influences loyalty. And according to Accenture, “to be truly customer obsessed, companies need better ways to dig deep and uncover these needs.”
By making it a goal to uncover the unmet needs of your customers, thereby thinking of ways to make your customers happier and more loyal, you can truly deliver an exceptional experience that will increase customer retention.
One of the ways you can uncover these needs is through comprehensive customer data. Using analytics allows you to develop insights on customer segments and behaviors to more precisely target and tailor products and services. This shows your customers that you understand them on a deeper level - and that you care.
With XRM, you are building a customer experience based on individual needs and preferences. It’s all about personalization - and finding an XRM platform that provides in-depth but easy-to-digest analytics data will help you build the types of experiences that keep your customers coming back for more.
Enabling human-to-human connection with technology
The increase in digital transformation over the past year has certainly changed consumer behavior, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the need for human-to-human connection. Human-to-human engagement is one of the keys to an XRM strategy, and is the reason why a great strategy can help you increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Embracing technology to enable digital transformation at scale is crucial, but businesses need to keep humans at the center of it. With artificial intelligence, chatbots, machine learning, and more - it’s even more important to have this focus on the human-to-human element. Because as much as we love technology, the truth is that 75% of consumers want more interaction with a real person as technology improves.
But, having the right technology in place will enable the human aspect of your interactions at a new level. A strong XRM strategy and the right XRM platform will help you keep the focus on your customers - humans who want to purchase products and services from other humans. Humans who want real advice from other humans on the things that matter most to them. With the right technology, your organization can get to know every customer on a deeper level, giving them the human connection they crave.
Innovative and memorable experiences
An XRM strategy is also about thinking outside of the box. It’s about finding ways to connect with your customers in ways that are not only positive, but memorable. Creating an experience so unique that your customers will not only become loyalists, but will share how much they love you with their friends, family, and peers.
What does an innovative and memorable experience look like? There are many ways that retailers and financial institutions are gaining a competitive edge and standing out from the crowd with innovative experiences. Retailers should keep a keen eye on experiential retail and look at creating immersive shopping experiences. Banks and credit unions should embrace digital transformation and find new ways to provide their customers more banking options, like a mobile branch on wheels. Looking and thinking ahead to how you can exceed customer needs is exactly what an XRM strategy can help you do.
With an XRM strategy, you will be putting the customers at the forefront, which will in turn increase customer loyalty. But what does this look like and how can it be accomplished at scale? According to Accenture, “You can only enable customer-centricity at greater scale if you integrate technologies, tools, data, and processes.” That’s why we are excited to talk to you about how our XRM platform can help you build and implement a strategy at scale. So if you are interested in learning more, then feel free to schedule a time to talk to us!
If you aren’t quite ready to take that leap, but want to learn more about XRM and how it can help you build stronger customer relationships, improve loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value (CLV), then check out the following resources:
