Marketing Analysis | How to reshape customer experience and increase customer lifetime value!

Although everyone understands the general principles, they still fail to maintain existing customers. According to the 2015 Retention Marketing Survey, "More than half of retailers can only effectively maintain less than 20% of old customers." Therefore, there is still a lot that companies can do in terms of customer retention.

To maintain existing customers and prevent customer churn, we must start by reshaping the customer experience. How to attract customers to continue to participate in company-related activities and topics? How to meet customer needs? These are all questions you need to think about.

Avoid providing products and services that do not match customer needs.

“When marketers establish a relationship between customers and the products and services they need, the answers to questions such as what customers care about, where companies need to invest resources, and how to ensure continuous delivery of good customer service and improve customer experience will become clear.”

Increase customer lifetime value and build valuable customer experience.

Strengthen the emphasis on customer life value

A report by Econsultancy shows that "64% of companies view customer experience as the best tool to increase customer lifetime value." When companies provide customers with the products and services they need, customer loyalty will increase and their reliance on the brand will strengthen.

“LTV (Lifetime Value) is an important indicator for measuring brand value … It directly reflects the value created by the company, or the value generated by the company’s customers themselves and word-of-mouth communication.”

Customer lifetime value is not a static value. It is a result of a company's marketing activities, and its size is affected by a series of business activities and marketing strategies of the company - from sales to customer success to marketing.

“LTV should be actionable – it can guide activities such as lead generation, precision marketing, and cross-selling, and can be used to monitor and track customer behavior, support strategic decision-making, and provide a basis for the formulation and adjustment of relevant policies.”

When companies formulate marketing strategies and tactics, they must find a way to fully tap and utilize the potential needs and purchasing power of each customer and increase their contribution to the company.

“Companies should drive improvements in customer experience by improving customer service. Every contact with a customer is an opportunity to increase their lifetime value. Many surveys have shown that customer service quality plays an important role in preventing customer churn and increasing customer loyalty and advocacy for a brand.”

The higher the LTV value, the greater the contribution of each customer to the company's revenue. Therefore, increasing the customer's lifetime value can increase the company's sales profits.

Improve customer service quality

One aspect of improving customer experience is to ensure that the service provided to customers is the best within their capabilities. Customer service runs through the entire process before, during and after the customer's purchasing behavior.

Companies should avoid providing customers with subpar service: not responding to customer emails in a timely manner and being rude to customer inquiries are all manifestations of poor service.

You know, customers have almost zero tolerance for poor service and they won't pay for bad service.

A related study shows that "47% of users will switch service providers within one day after suffering unfair, unsatisfactory and poor service, causing the company to lose customers."

Setting aside the necessary resources to provide quality service to your customers is one of the best ways for a business to build a good relationship with its users.

“By using [LTV] to identify your high-value customers, you can help your company allocate resources where they are needed most, thereby increasing the lifetime value of your high-value customers and creating a virtuous cycle,” said Edward Gotham, head of demand generation at Ometria. “Focusing on high-value (high-profit) customers can effectively increase your profits while also helping you strengthen your relationships with them, killing two birds with one stone.”

So next, discover, understand and tap into your customers. Create some attractive and valuable topics to create a spiritual collision with your customers.

Research shows that "the telephone is still a better choice for connecting with customers and providing services to them."

However, today, in addition to telephone calls, social media is also a good channel to connect businesses and customers.

Millions of customers chat via Twitter , Facebook and other social networks.

The company's marketing team should seize the excellent platform of social networks to quickly respond to customer questions, resolve customer complaints, spread the company's brand and products, and increase its visibility.

▲ 78% of consumers believe that the next development trend of customer service is to integrate with social networks;

▲ 46% of online consumers hope that companies can provide more customer service on Facebook;

▲ 88% of consumers dislike companies that ignore or avoid customer complaints on social media, and they say they will try not to use or buy products and services from such companies.

"In addition to traditional communication channels such as telephone, email, and online chat tools, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms are now the battleground for corporate online marketing. Companies can directly reach customers and communicate with them through social platforms."

Customer service is an integral part of the customer experience. Companies should make full use of customer service as a tool to promote the development of online marketing.

Shape and improve customer relationships with personalized service

Studies have shown that customer customization can increase sales by 20 percentage points. Personalized interactions can build bridges between businesses and customers and enhance customers’ trust in businesses.

Automation plays an important role in product and service delivery. However, if you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors and stand out from your peers, you must make your products and services highly customized.

Tara Kelly, founder of SPLICE Software, once wrote in an article: "Customer relationships—whether built through good old-fashioned conversations or face-to-face collaboration—can inspire customer service professionals and product developers to innovate and provide them with opportunities to work with customers and consumers to achieve win-win situations."

In fact, every customer wants to be unique and hopes to enjoy special treatment. Customers want to feel that a company values ​​them.

Those homogeneous emails without any differentiation cannot make customers feel that they are valued by the company. In order to show sincerity, companies must provide each customer with exclusive personalized customized services to meet the psychological needs of customers.

Companies can provide targeted content that each customer is truly interested in based on their different preferences and needs, thereby motivating customers to take further actions such as following, subscribing, and purchasing.

Whether your company pushes information through email, social media or scrolling windows, remember that your goal is to persuade and drive the content audience to take the actions you want to see and produce the consequences you want.

Companies can classify users based on their behavioral data, historical purchase records, browsing habits and other dimensions, and then push information based on their characteristics, pushing the right content to the right people at the right time, thereby improving marketing accuracy.

“For online retailers, the first month of contact with a customer is the most important period of time to build a customer relationship,” said David Williams, content expert at RJMetrics.

Therefore, don’t miss this best period, seize the opportunity to build good customer relationships, and strive to establish customer trust in the company.

Rewarding loyal behavior and loyal customers

If you want to increase LTV, you also need to continuously instill corporate-related concepts and culture into customers while improving customer experience, so as to enhance customer loyalty to the brand. Loyal customers will be more supportive of a company's products and services, and will be more likely to identify with the company's mission and values.

The report shows that "73% of customers who have participated in loyalty programs (become members of a company) are more willing to recommend brands with excellent loyalty programs to others." This good membership experience will ultimately create benefits and bring revenue for the company.

Giving rewards to loyal customers isn’t the only way to reward them. There are other ways to give feedback and rewards to the company's diehard fans.

"Providing loyal customers with gifts, prizes, or exclusive content information is a good way to build brand intimacy and bring companies closer to customers," said Graham Charlton, former editor-in-chief of Econsultancy.

The prizes could be VIP tickets to a concert, cash back on purchases, or a free basket of the customer's favorite candies, etc. Rewards should be what customers need and like, rather than giving away useless things that customers find dispensable without sincerity.

“Given the diverse needs of loyal customers, in order to ensure the smooth implementation of loyalty programs and ensure the variety and value of rewards, companies should look for a partner who can provide a variety of rewards specifically for the company to meet the needs of all members within the program,” said Dan Martin, commercial product manager at Collinson Latitude.

Sporting goods retailer REI has a unique approach to rewarding loyal customers. Customers can join REI's loyalty program for $20. The company believes that after customers join the loyalty program, they can get much more rights and rewards than $20, which is well worth it.

For example, by joining the program and becoming a member, you can enjoy member-exclusive discounts, participate in special events held exclusively for members, and participate in classes and tours organized by REI at very low prices.

▲ Create a loyalty program (membership system) to upgrade the customer experience. In this way, companies can retain more customers.

Building an LTV-Driven Team

Develop a UX strategy with your team. This ensures that every member understands the company's goals and their role in achieving them.

“The best R&D managers consider ROI and LTV when collaborating and planning product development and software updates.”

The key is to equip your team members with the skills to make good decisions. Your staff must be ready to expand into new channels and build a dedicated user experience team to increase understanding of consumers.

“Digital customer experience is becoming an increasingly important part of marketing strategy, but many marketers lack the tools and know-how to leverage the technologies that can improve their business,” writes Maureen Morrison, a reporter for Ad Age.

Measures companies are taking to improve user experience — from user experience decision makers around the world (2016.05) ▼

Sometimes, internal problems persist when collaborating. Prepare a plan to encourage open communication among your team.

The eMarketer report states that “50% or less of the respondents in its survey said they have a work environment that encourages collaboration, and only 41% said they have dedicated business, design, and development teams working in close proximity to facilitate information sharing.”

If you want your business to be focused on LTV and have a collaborative work environment, then train your employees on UX.

Lifetime Customer

Improve your bottom line and retain more consumers, starting with improving the user experience.

By creating a company atmosphere with everyone involved, make LTV a company-wide high priority. Discover creative ways to improve customer service. Create personalized user experiences whenever possible and reward your most loyal fans.

Reinvent your business processes and gain customers for life.