How to improve the customer experience: 5 high-impact strategies

Customer experience (CX) considers the overall impression you leave on your customers. It’s shaped by all the different interactions a customer has with your business across all possible touchpoints.

A good customer experience results in happy, loyal customers. A bad customer experience drives customers away — potentially damaging your reputation and hampering your customer retention efforts.

Whether you’re focusing on how to make money online, running a brick-and-mortar enterprise, or looking at how to scale a business in the creative services industry, providing a positive customer experience is crucial to your success.

But, with limited time and resources, how do you make sure that customer experience (CX) gets the attention it deserves?

Keep reading. We’ve got five low-cost, high-impact strategies to help you improve the customer experience — and none of them require a dedicated CX team or an official customer experience strategy. 

What is customer experience?

When planning how to start a business, there are many different factors to consider — such as what pricing strategies you’ll use, finding the best location or venue, developing an effective marketing strategy for your small business, and, when the time comes, figuring out how to hire employees who can help you achieve your goals.

All of these individual factors influence how your customers perceive and interact with your business. In combination, they shape the overall customer experience. 

The customer experience begins when a customer first discovers your company — be it through a local ad, a social media post, or a recommendation from a friend. 

From that moment, and with every interaction thereafter, they form an impression of your business. 

If those interactions are largely positive, the customer will feel like they’re having a good experience. However, if the customer encounters delays, inconveniences, poor quality products or bad customer service, they’ll have a negative experience.

Customer experience isn’t a fixed or tangible entity. It’s the sum of all the parts; an accumulation of impressions and interactions that ultimately determines how the customer feels about doing business with you.

What is customer experience management?

Customer experience management (CEM or CXM) is the ongoing process of optimising a customer’s entire journey with a business. 

It considers all the different touchpoints a customer might go through, both online and in-person, with the goal of improving the overall customer experience. 

In larger organisations, customer experience management is a strategic endeavour — often involving a dedicated CX team who continuously monitor and review the customer experience from a holistic perspective.

For sole traders and entrepreneurs on a small business budget, customer experience management can be woven into day-to-day operations, without the need for a formal strategy or specialised team (as you’ll see when we get to our customer experience strategies).

Either way, anyone looking at how to run a business successfully must consider the importance of customer experience management. 

Why is customer experience important?

Maybe you’re looking at how to get clients and build customer loyalty. Perhaps you’re ready to start exploring business growth strategies, or simply want to maintain a steady cash flow and keep your year end accounts in good shape.

Whatever your goals right now, you can’t do any of those things if you don’t have customers — and it’s very difficult to attract and retain customers if you don’t provide a positive customer experience. 

If you’re in any doubt as to why customer experience is so important, consider the following.

• A positive customer experience helps with customer acquisition by enhancing your reputation, increasing your chances of referrals and good reviews, and generally positioning your business as an attractive option.

• When you improve the customer experience, you boost customer satisfaction. This fosters customer loyalty, prevents churn, and encourages positive word-of-mouth.

• A good customer experience drives revenue. Loyal customers are more likely to spend money, and it’s widely reported that most consumers (over 80%) are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

Customer experience (CX) directly impacts client relations, profitability, and overall business success. It’s not only crucial for maintaining and growing your business; it’s also an essential part of any small business risk management strategy.

What makes a great customer experience? 7 key factors

Imagine popping into your local café to buy a coffee. There’s a long queue and you’re in a hurry, but you’re prepared to wait. When you finally order and go to pay, you find the card machine not working. The cashier simply shrugs and says you’ll have to pay with cash. Unfortunately, you don’t have any cash on you, so you’ve got no option but to abandon your long-awaited coffee.

Now imagine an alternative scenario where you get to the front of the queue and the cashier apologises for the long wait. They take your order and, once again, your card payment doesn’t go through. This time, however, the barista tells you not to worry, you can have this drink on the house.

That’s just one example of a good customer experience versus a bad one — and it doesn’t only boil down to customer service. As we established earlier, the customer experience is made up of many different moving parts.

So what is a great customer experience, and what are the main factors that contribute?

The quality of your products or services

Consider being served a hot, tasty coffee versus a tepid beverage with the wrong milk, or ordering a beautiful piece of handmade jewellery which, when it arrives, looks completely different from the photos and is clearly made from low-quality materials.

Friendly, helpful customer service

Going the extra mile to meet your customers’ needs, communicating in a friendly manner, equipping yourself and your team with strategies for how to deal with difficult clients, and resolving issues promptly and effectively. 

Convenience

Think streamlining the checkout process, providing multiple payment options (including cashless payments), aligning your business hours with your customers’ schedules, and offering a simple process for returns and exchanges (to name just a few).

Security

A good customer experience feels safe and secure — whether it’s through watertight payment security, taking appropriate measures to protect customer accounts, such as two-factor authentication, or ensuring privacy and confidentiality when a customer visits you in-person.

A welcoming environment

For businesses with a physical venue, the overall customer experience will be shaped, in part, by how accessible and welcoming your on-site premises are, as well as the general ambience.

Effective tools and technology

From a user-friendly website to speedy point-of-sale technology, from efficient card machines and self-service kiosks to automated appointment reminders — the right technology at the right touchpoints can significantly enhance the customer experience.

An emotional connection

Whether it’s addressing your customers by name, remembering their preferences, or using email marketing to send customised recommendations — the best customer experiences feel relevant and personal.

How to improve the customer experience: 5 high-impact strategies 

We know what factors contribute to a positive customer experience. Now let’s turn them into actionable strategies you can apply to your own business.

1. Start with customer experience journey mapping

In order to improve the customer experience, you first need to understand what your customer experience currently looks like. 

Start by creating a customer experience journey map: a visual representation of all the steps and touchpoints a customer goes through when engaging with your business.

This will encourage you to step into your customers’ shoes and consider the experience from their perspective — allowing you to better understand their needs, goals, preferences, and pain-points at various stages. 

Using pen and paper, Post-it notes, or a blank Google Doc, try this simple customer experience journey mapping exercise to get started:

• Note down all the different points of interaction between you / your business and your customers. For example: serving customers at the till, your company website, social media, email marketing, taking online payments, sending invoices, and so on.

• For each point of interaction, identify the customer’s main goal. What do they want to achieve at that specific moment or touchpoint? What do they expect from the interaction? If you’re focusing on the checkout process, for example, you might assume that your customers want to be able to pay quickly, easily, and securely. 

• With the customers’ goals in mind, identify pain-points within the customer experience and come up with solutions. Your customers want the payment process to be fast and smooth, so what’s currently preventing that? Cash-only businesses might see an opportunity to improve the customer experience by exploring alternative payment options for small businesses, for instance.

Your customer experience journey map doesn’t need to follow a specific format or look particularly fancy. The goal is to zoom out and get a holistic overview of the entire customer experience — then zoom back in to specific touchpoints and find areas for improvement.

2. Deliver great customer service

There’s no such thing as a good customer experience without good customer service — and this is one factor that can make or break a customer’s decision to continue doing business with you. 

So what is good customer service and how can you improve yours?

• Communicate in a friendly and supportive manner

• Provide relevant communication and customer service channels such as phone, email, or a website contact form (depending on your target market and their preferred channels) 

• Respond to queries and complaints within a reasonable time frame

• Take accountability when things go wrong; offer solutions and compensation where necessary, and empower your team to do the same

• Follow up with customers and provide adequate aftercare 

Whether you’re exploring flexible side hustle ideas or setting up a limited company, working solo or in a team: providing an exceptional customer service experience must be a top priority.

3. Create a welcoming environment

If you run a brick-and-mortar business such as a salon, café, or shop, make sure your customers feel comfortable when they visit your premises. 

A welcoming environment sets the tone for the entire customer experience, helping to put customers at ease, create a pleasant atmosphere, and ensure that your venue is accessible, convenient, and inclusive. 

Pay attention to:

• Décor, furnishing, and lighting. Do you have comfortable seating where necessary? Is the space inviting and appropriately lit? If you’re looking at how to improve the customer experience in retail stores, for example, you’d want adequate lighting for browsing. In a cosy restaurant, on the other hand, you might opt for softer lighting.

• Accessibility. Make sure your venue has step-free access, as well as wheelchair accessible restrooms and baby changing facilities. When organising the space, leave plenty of room for wheelchairs, prams, and mobility scooters.

• Organisation and layout. Design your shop, salon, or venue in a way that’s logical and easy to navigate. Consider things like where you’ll position the till in relation to the door, where people will queue, and how to arrange any seating or dining areas. Provide clear signage to help your customers find their way around.

• Cleanliness. Most customers expect a clean and tidy environment — especially if you’re in the hospitality, beauty, health, or personal care industries. Be diligent about cleanliness, hygiene, and general health and safety to ensure a comfortable customer experience.

• Privacy. If you run a service-based business like a beauty salon or photography studio, make sure your customers have enough privacy to enjoy their appointment. Provide individual treatment rooms and keep the waiting area separate. 

An inclusive, welcoming atmosphere greatly enhances the customer experience — and it’s an important factor to consider if you’re thinking about how to create a positive working environment for yourself and your team.

4. Reduce customer wait times

Long wait times can be incredibly frustrating. At best, your customers will feel slightly disgruntled. At worst, they’ll abandon ship altogether. That’s bad news for the customer experience — and for your operating cash flow.

In your quest to improve the customer experience, look for opportunities to boost efficiency and cut wait times down. Depending on the nature of your business, you might:

• Implement self-service and self-help options such as an FAQ page on your website to answer common customer queries, a self-service kiosk to speed up the ordering process in your café or restaurant, or scannable QR codes for contactless self-checkout.

• Plan staff shifts and opening hours to accommodate busy periods. If you have queues out the door in the morning, followed by a late afternoon lull, schedule more people to work the early shift. If Saturdays are highly popular but hardly anyone books in on Mondays, consider opening longer at the weekend.

• Leave plenty of buffer time between appointments in case a customer is running late or an appointment takes longer than planned.

• Set up a separate window for takeaway orders. If your customers have the option to dine in or take away, consider having two separate queues and counters.

• Invest in point-of-sale (POS) systems to reduce queues at the counter. Enable quick, straightforward payments with state-of-the-art POS technology such as SumUp POS Lite or POS Pro.

• Take tableside payments. Save your customers the time and hassle of queueing to pay. Instead, facilitate tableside payments with portable card readers, or take payments via your smartphone (with Tap to Pay on iPhone, for example).

• Streamline online payments. If you’re running an online store or web-based business, don’t make your customers jump through hoops or spend longer than necessary at checkout. Explore suitable online payment methods and make the process as quick and straightforward as possible. 

Despite your best efforts, there will inevitably be instances where delays and longer wait times are unavoidable. In that case, communicate clearly and transparently with customers about the hold-up and let them know how long they can expect to wait. 

This helps with managing client expectations, shows that you respect their time, and reassures your customers that you care about their experience.

5. Learn from your customers 

Improving the customer experience is an ongoing commitment. Listen to your customers, seek out their feedback, and optimise accordingly. 

Your customers know first-hand what’s great about your customer experience — and what could be better. Use those insights to identify troublesome pain-points and fix them as quickly as possible. 

Here’s how you can gather and leverage customer feedback to enhance the customer experience:

• Monitor customer reviews to gauge how people feel about your business and the overall customer experience. In particular, pay close attention to negative reviews and look for recurring issues; these will point you in the direction of what needs to be improved.

• Keep an eye on social media. If you’re exploring how to use social media for your small business, note that platforms like Instagram and Facebook can give great insight into how your customers feel about you. You might actively solicit feedback through polls and engagement posts, or look for clues in comments, direct messages, and mentions. 

• Encourage direct feedback when interacting with customers in-person. You might ask specific questions relating to their experience, or a more general “Was everything to your liking today?”

• Send a timely follow-up. Engage with your customers shortly after their visit, appointment, or purchase. Send an email with a short survey embedded directly, or an SMS with a link.

• Survey your customers yearly or twice-yearly. In addition to follow-up emails, consider sending a generic feedback email once or twice throughout the year. Keep it brief and explain why customer feedback is valuable and how you intend to use it (to improve the customer experience). 

Besides considering when and how to ask customers for reviews, think about how you can act on their feedback. Look to double down on your strengths, address your weaknesses, and identify new opportunities to deliver value within the customer experience.

Key takeaways and next steps 

As you navigate everything from how to register a business and how to price your services, right through to operations management and creating a positive workplace culture, it’s easy to lose sight of the customer experience.

But customer experience (CX) is a crucial success factor. A good customer experience:

• Enhances customer satisfaction

• Fosters customer loyalty and boosts retention

• Facilitates new customer acquisition through positive word-of-mouth

• Drives revenue

The sooner you start thinking about customer experience, the greater your chances of building a sustainable and profitable business. 

Next steps

If you’re ready to improve the customer experience, here are some tips to get you started:

1. Think holistically. While optimising individual aspects of the customer experience, it’s helpful to zoom out and consider how all the different moving parts work together. A customer experience journey map is a great place to start, giving you a visual overview of all customer touchpoints and how they connect.

2. Prioritise your CX efforts, addressing the ‘weakest links’ first. Earlier in this post, we outlined 7 key factors that contribute to a positive customer experience. Refer back to those factors with your own business (and customers) in mind, and identify one or two most in need of improvement.

3. Come up with 3-5 manageable action points. For each priority area, ideate small steps you can take to improve this specific aspect of the customer experience. Refer back to our strategies and action points for inspiration.