How Negative Customer Experience is Hurting Your Conversions
Today, customers have more channels to interact with brands than ever before. That makes it harder than ever for businesses to consistently deliver on customer experience (CX).
In an era of fast-moving consumer expectations and increasing social media use, CX has never been more important. Unsuccessful CX can slow down your digital marketing efforts and even derail a company’s growth.
Businesses must understand exactly how their CX is impinging on their sales conversion rates and revamp their processes to turn these negative experiences into positive ones. Let’s take a look at some of the effects that subpar customer experiences are having on your business’s ability to reach its target market.
You do too much product selling
One of the biggest challenges in selling is getting the message across. Too often, people hear only part of a story. They hear about a new product or service, but not about the customer experience that goes along with it. This can lead to confusion, bad experiences, and even lost sales. There are several ways to avoid this trap.
- Be aware of the importance of storytelling as the best products are those that tell a story about why they’re better than their competitor’s offerings, and how they can benefit customers.
- Make sure every aspect of your sales process is clear and easy to follow.
- Be sure to leave room for questions and dialogue during all interactions with customers.
- Ensure that you have the right personnel on hand who can answer questions and resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
Above all, remember that less is more. If you’re selling too much product at once, it will likely confuse customers and slow down the overall buying process. Instead, focus on one key product offering per customer interaction and make sure that you’re delivering on that value promise with every interaction.
Bad sales conversations
As more people become accustomed to digital interactions, they tend to expect a certain level of CX from online retailers. The problem is that many of the customer conversations between brands and their customers are poor.
Sales conversations involve talking to customers, who may or may not be buying. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for salespeople to get in the way of customer conversations. By asking questions that are too focused on sales, or by being too pushy, they can interrupt and annoy customers. This can lead to a bad CX and even loss of sales.
What makes a good sales conversation? It’s all about empathy and understanding your customer. The best sales conversations are those in which the salesperson takes the time to understand the situation, the needs of the customer, and their desired outcome.
A good salesperson understands their customers’ needs and wants, looks for common ground, understands what motivates them, and treats them as a person with feelings, not just another transaction.
Lack of consistent content marketing
Poorly executed content marketing can result in a negative CX when a customer is unable to find the information they are looking for or when they are unable to access the content that they need at the time that they need it. In addition, not having a clearly defined process for content creation can result in inconsistent content that is not well-targeted or highly relevant to your customers.
This can have an impact on your ability to build meaningful relationships with your customers and drive engagement. Lack of consistent content marketing can also lead to low customer satisfaction rates, which can lead to you losing out on opportunities to engage and retain customers.
The solution is simple: create a content marketing plan with clear goals, timelines, and KPIs. Set up regular communication with your team members so that everyone knows what’s going on, what pieces are working best, and what things might need updating. Keep track of your performance so that you can learn from your mistakes and find ways to improve.
Ineffective email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels. It’s easy to put together, inexpensive, and has a high open rate and click rate. Really effective email marketing campaigns can increase conversions.
One big problem with email marketing is that it is often too slow (or too fast). It’s important to send emails at the right time – and preferably in real-time. If you send too many emails too soon, your customers will have no time to respond. This can result in bad CX and lost conversion.
Another issue is that email leads are not always reliable. Sometimes people just don’t open your emails or click on links in them. This means you might miss out on valuable signups and new customers.
Many factors play a role in the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy and one of which is your email marketing automation system. An effective system can help you create high-quality emails and respond to customer inquiries quickly.
Another important factor is your subject line. A well-written subject line will grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to open the email and read further.
Finally, the content of your emails is also important. Keep the message concise and focused on one topic to increase the likelihood that your reader will act on the message. See to it too that you include a call-to-action button that encourages people to take action.
Lack of a customer loyalty program
Brands will often focus on acquiring new customers. After all, these are the ones that are more likely to buy from them again. However, this will never be enough to sustain growth.
To convert these new customers into regular paying customers, businesses must maintain the loyalty of their present customers. What’s happening here is that many businesses are failing to keep customers happy.
This could be in the form of frustrating glitches on the retailer’s website, a long wait time for a product, or a poor service experience. When a customer is unhappy, they are likely to search for other options. And when those options are other brands that are providing CX improvements, that’s bad news for the business.
A customer loyalty program can help ensure that your existing customers will stay happy. There are several ways to build customer loyalty, such as offering discounts or special deals and extending better customer service, such as providing faster delivery times and taking care of any issues that customers may have.
Consistent delivery of positive customer experience is the key
Today’s customers expect a seamless digital experience wherever, whenever, and whatever they want. They ask for it, and businesses are starting to deliver it. A poor CX will not only alienate your current customers, but it may also keep new ones from coming back.
If you’re not taking care of your customer-centric processes, you could see your conversions plummet as soon as someone discovers what other companies are doing with better customer experiences. To keep up with this demand, businesses must continuously improve their CX just like any other business would to remain competitive.