What’s the most crucial aspect of growing a business? Of course, you need a feature-packed product that enriches your customers’ lives. Also, you need a rock-solid marketing strategy to attract paying customers to your product. But all these efforts would be futile if you fail to retain customers. If you want to take your business to greater heights, you need to focus on customer retention.
And the best way of doing that is by delivering a frictionless customer experience.
How to Build a Top-Notch Customer Experience?
First things first – customer experience isn’t just about offering an outstanding product or addressing customer complaints. Instead, it’s about ensuring a seamless experience at every touchpoint a consumer goes through before, during, and after a purchase.
If you’re looking to build or improve your company’s customer experience, you can seek inspiration from Refael (aka Rafi) Edry, a renowned businessman from Israel. He runs various profitable businesses in Africa and Israel with his brothers, Eyal Edry and Moshe Edree.
Professional achievements aside, Refael Edry had to overcome several hardships from childhood to adulthood before he managed to turn his life around. His story of fighting against the odds packs valuable lessons for every business owner looking to optimize the customer experience.
Focus on the Overarching Picture
Refael Edry had barely crossed his teenage years when he had to start working. His father’s earnings weren’t enough to meet the family’s needs. Instead of lamenting over his circumstances, he sought motivation from the heroic actions of his uncle, Refael Edry z|l, a freedom fighter who was martyred at the young age of 24.
Just like his uncle, Refael Edry (the nephew) focused on the bigger picture of becoming overcoming economic hardships and becoming financially independent. He didn’t let minor setbacks deter him from achieving his life’s ambitions.
As an entrepreneur, keep in mind that delivering a flawless customer experience isn’t straightforward. It involves various complex and time-consuming tasks, from audience research and product optimization to collecting customer feedback. Also, you have to provide prospects with relevant and valuable content at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
The toughest part is that you may not notice any significant improvement in customer retention rates or net promotion scores even after investing months of hard work. Worse still, a customer might leave a negative review on your Facebook page despite your earnest efforts.
Like Refael Edry, you shouldn’t let these setbacks demotivate you. Instead, you must continue to push forward in such situations. Keep your overarching goals in mind, identify gaps in your existing strategy, and find ways to improve customer satisfaction further.
Empathize With Your Customers
Despite his accomplishments as a business owner, Refael Edry is determined to work for the upliftment of underprivileged children and youngsters in Israel. The struggles of his childhood help him empathize with younger generations living in the country’s periphery.
It was his empathy that drove him to join hands with his brothers and start the Ahinoam Association for the Promotion of Equal Opportunities. The non-profit organization runs various welfare programs to support and nurture children in low-income households. The idea is to give them a fair shot at building a better life.
As an entrepreneur, that’s the kind of empathy you must develop to connect with your customers and build long-standing relationships with them. Go out of your way to understand and address their pain points. Put their needs first, and provide them with all the resources they need to use your product to the fullest. Don’t forget to inculcate these values in your customer-facing teams, too.
Anticipate Customer Problems
When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted routine life, schools in Israel swapped traditional classes for online lectures. Children in the country’s developed socioeconomic center didn’t have trouble adjusting to the transition. But for more than 400,000 students from underprivileged households, it translated into learning loss. While many of them didn’t own computers, others didn’t have internet access at home.
Philanthropist Refael Edry realized that depriving these children of their right to education would turn them into a generation of disillusioned individuals. They’d grow up harboring feelings of abandonment and resenting their fellow countrymen and government. That, in turn, could threaten Israel’s social integrity.
Frustrated with government apathy and bureaucratic delays, Refael Edry launched a fundraising campaign and urged the public to donate. His foresight and proactiveness helped provide computers to more than 30,000 students. They could attend online classes and stay connected with their friends during the pandemic.
Similarly, when building customer experience, you can’t always wait for a customer to raise a complaint before addressing an issue. Instead, you must have the ability to predict potential problems prospects and existing customers will face throughout the buyer’s journey. It’ll help you identify and implement suitable solutions to handhold customers through these problems.
In Conclusion
Customer experience involves optimizing every stage of the sales funnel, from awareness and consideration to decision. A forward-thinking approach, along with empathy for your target consumers, is crucial for delivering a seamless customer experience.
Also read: The Importance of Customer Service Excellence for All Businesses
