Photo credit: www.entrepreneur.com
In today’s competitive landscape, businesses are increasingly gauged on the customer experience they provide. While approximately 66% of organizations believe they are excelling in this area, consumers often see it differently. Research indicates that 54% of customers feel that their experience is frequently overlooked by companies.
Moreover, insights from McKinsey reveal that a staggering 70% of digital transformation efforts aimed at enhancing customer experience fail. This gap in satisfaction raises an important question: what is causing this disconnect?
A significant factor lies in an overemphasis on technology at the expense of content. Effective content—encompassing text, visuals, audio, and video—is foundational to customer experiences across various channels such as websites, emails, social media, mobile applications, SMS, IVR, chatbots, and customer service centers. In fact, customers engage with a company’s content far more often than they do with its staff.
To enhance customer experience, companies need to prioritize content in their strategies, focusing on areas such as onboarding, feature adoption, order status updates, and self-service capabilities.
1. The Role of Content in Onboarding
Acquiring new customers is a costly endeavor, often more expensive than retaining existing ones. However, many businesses miss the mark by poorly managing the onboarding process. Common pitfalls include:
- Absence of welcoming content, risking customer disengagement.
- Inconsistent messaging that doesn’t align with sales promises, creating confusion.
- Providing overly technical documentation rather than user-friendly guidance, leading to frustration.
Exemplary companies in the Software as a Service (SaaS) sector, such as Mailchimp and Airbnb, set a standard by implementing friendly, clear onboarding content like orientation tours and helpful guides. Retailers like Target and Crate & Barrel also utilize engaging content that enhances the customer experience through practical tips and special offers.
2. Facilitating Feature Adoption Through Content
For businesses selling products, encouraging customers to explore features is crucial for continued engagement. Effective content can guide customers in using and fully benefiting from products. Issues often arise from:
- Lack of supportive content for users.
- Overly aggressive promotional language when introducing new features.
- Generic advice which lacks personalization.
- Irrelevant feature suggestions.
- Focus on product details instead of showcasing how features add value to the customer.
- Poorly crafted guides, particularly for complex products.
- Guides that are not accurately translated for international users.
3. Communicating Order Status Effectively
For businesses that handle orders, maintaining clear communication about order status is vital to customer confidence. Successful communication can help mitigate concerns during unforeseen delays, while poor communication can lead to frustration or cancellations. Common issues in this area include:
- Failure to communicate order status or providing insufficient updates.
- Using a detached tone when notifying customers of delays.
- Inconsistencies between different communication channels.
- Vague notifications concerning changes or issues.
- Overloading customers with too many updates.
- Linking to poorly crafted or unclear content about policies and procedures.
4. Empowering Self-Service Through Content
Many consumers prefer self-service options, making it essential for businesses to provide informative content that supports this preference. Effective self-service content includes notifications, guides, and contextual help. However, challenges remain:
- Lack of information on self-service options available.
- Poorly articulated instructions or misleading labels.
- Confusing error messages that don’t clarify next steps.
- No demonstrated advantages of using self-service tools.
- Poorly structured guidance for complex self-service tasks.
- Lack of seamless integration between self-service features and the content that supports them.
To harness the power of content in enhancing customer experience, organizations should weave content strategy into their broader digital transformation efforts. Establishing a content center of excellence can unify teams and ensure coherent governance across customer communications.
Investment in modern content roles, such as content designers, is crucial for creating experiences centered around customer needs. Collaborating with experts in content strategy can further expedite advancements and achieve meaningful outcomes.
Source
www.entrepreneur.com