Customer experience (CX) is the new battlefront that will determine who sinks or rises in the SaaS industry in 2023. The main reason for CX’s importance is that no customer wants to do business with a firm that treats them poorly. How clients feel after interacting with a customer service center significantly determines their future buying decisions.
A positive CX pleases and satisfies customers, while a poor one does the opposite. No wonder 88% of companies prioritize CX in their contact centers. So, if your customers use your SaaS solutions based on excellent CX, you rest assured your solutions are outstanding.
Additionally, a Gartner survey reveals that two-thirds of companies compete primarily based on CX, up from only 36% in 2010. What do these figures tell SaaS and UX design company executives? The future is the customer, and the customer is the future! Keep reading this post to understand how you can boost your SaaS CX in 2023.
What Is Customer Experience?
Let’s define CX before exploring the eight ways of boosting it in 2023. CX is your customers’ perception of how your SaaS company treats them. These perceptions affect their behaviors and build memories that motivate loyalty.
But how do you get your customers to like your brand? It starts with you and not them. You should throw the first stone by working to know and understand them. It would be best to gain an in-depth understanding of their needs by collecting customer data to retain customers. Also, invest in long-term relationships to offer them personalized experiences across their entire customer journey.
Top 8 Ways to Improve SaaS CX
So, how do you improve your SaaS CX? Below are eight ways to do it.
Focus on Total Customer Experience
Moving into 2023 requires you to go beyond your CX strategy. You should pay attention to other underlying issues that promote CX. For instance, satisfied employees directly determine your overall customer satisfaction. This holistic approach is called TX, or total experience.
No wonder Gartner predicts that TX is the new focus for businesses because it looks at customers’ experience journey. So, SaaS business leaders must consider various factors like business, user, and employee experience.
Optimize Omnichannel Customer Experience
Optimizing omnichannel practices is another way to enhance CX in 2023. While omnichannel interactions are not new, the 2023 environment will get more complicated. Many customers want a consistent experience with companies across all physical and digital channels. Sadly, only a few firms meet these expectations.
Embracing omnichannel connections means your customers can switch effortlessly between channels. This seamless transition is sure to let them carry their conversations’ contexts with them. Thus, SaaS firms should create seamlessly connected environments in 2023 to succeed, this is not the be all and end all and it merely a suggestion, take in mind there are also many other considerations to make in regards to omnichannel vs. multichannel structures.
Address Privacy and Security Issues
Addressing privacy and security issues is another way SaaS companies can enhance their CX in 2023. Many companies using SaaS experience security-related incidents from a third-party app or service. Unfortunately, most organizations lack the resources to address these security challenges.
What does that mean to a forward-thinking SaaS company? It’s vital to capitalize on this problem to boost CX by adding security-bolstering solutions to its marketing strategy.
You must prove to your customers that you store and use their data securely, correctly, and efficiently. Remember, customers remain loyal if you make them feel safe in your hands.
Focus on Predictive and Proactive Care
While customers will always face challenges that require your attention, preventive care is the best approach. Any rationally thinking customer knows you can’t anticipate all problems, but your reputation may suffer if customers encounter preventable issues. Thus, you should show the efforts you take to foresee and prevent avoidable challenges.
No wonder Gartner says by 2025, proactive customer outreach and service solutions will overtake reactive customer care, which sometimes becomes customer scare. Fortunately, SaaS enterprises can utilize AI and big data analytics to shift to predictive and proactive customer support. These tools gather data to help identify trends for predicting potential challenges.
Embrace Customer Experience Tech Trends
Embracing CX tech trends and tools is another way to remain afloat in this area next year. Most IT experts complain about wasting time on repetitive, manual jobs. Solve this problem by automating these processes. Integrating your SaaS with any of the following technologies improves your overall CX:
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Machine learning
- Internet of things (IoT)
- Cloud computing
- Blockchain
- Virtual reality (VR)
- Augmented reality (AR)
Develop Empathy
SaaS can succeed in CX by infusing customer empathy into their overall customer support systems. Understanding your customer’s needs is a good baby step. However, how customers feel when interacting with your brand is more important.
Their feelings and your customer support team’s ability to empathize with them increase overall customer loyalty. Therefore, don’t just focus on your business’s bottom line. Instead, instill empathy into your customer support training to focus on boosting customer satisfaction. In turn, satisfied customers will directly boost your bottom line.
Go Phygital
Going Phygital is another way to succeed in CX in 2023. While you might think “going digital” is the main goal, your customers still have flesh and blood and live in a physical world. Therefore, balance realities between the physical and digital worlds to create a perfect phygital reality.
How do you achieve a phygital effect? By perfectly blending offline and online marketing efforts. For instance, you may optimize QR codes (digital realities) in strategic places for customers to scan with their smartphones to have satisfying physical experiences. This feature is particularly popular in mobile banking industry right now. The scans can redirect them to your website or other social media platforms.
Set and Communicate Service Standards
Lastly, set and communicate clear customer service goals to make your team know your expectations. Provide quality assurance checklists to your customer support executives to help them understand what it takes to satisfy customers.
Closing Remarks
Winning the CX battle gives you a superior head start to surviving and excelling in 2023. Use our eight actionable, research-backed, and expert-generated insights to satisfy your customers and move to a new level of service next year.
