In the battle to win and retain customers, one single poor experience with your business can mean the loyalty and trust you’ve been building vanishes overnight, writes Jason du Preez, SVP Asia Pacific, SugarCRM.

If you can’t deliver a seamless, frictionless and effortless customer experience (CX) that delights your customers and cultivates brand loyalty for life, they will quickly move on to your competition.

A recent study, based on a survey of 1,600 global sales and marketing professionals worldwide including 400 in Australia, found Australian customers are leaving at extraordinary rates and most Australian companies are ill-prepared to counter this trend in the rebound from the pandemic. Whilst 70 per cent of Australian sales and marketing leaders agree that it is more cost-effective to keep existing customers than closing a new sale, the same percentage report increased customer turnover, compared to 52 per cent in a survey conducted the year prior.

Below are four steps Australian companies can take to cultivate customers for life and minimise the great customer resignation.

1. Understand why your customers are leaving 

Despite the cost of churn, a staggering 61 per cent of Australian companies surveyed admit they do not understand the reasons for churn and 63 per cent struggle to quantify and track churn rates effectively.

More than three-quarters of Australian respondents suspect customers are leaving due to poor customer service or experience. Likely, this is why 78 per cent of Australian respondents said they need to do more to improve customer trust and why 76 per cent underscored the need to act on customer feedback for improved customer service and experience.

The scary truth is most companies don’t even know they’ve lost a customer until well after they have moved on to the open arms of a competitor. Overcoming customer flight starts with knowing when customers are at risk of churn. Every customer interaction is a decisive moment for identifying the gaps between what a customer expects and what they actually experience. Implementing CX processes and data collection to close this gap is critical to understanding the potential for churn and taking the right steps to improve retention.

2. Enhance your customer data 

The key challenge for many companies is having an incomplete view of customer activity. A unified view of sales, marketing, and service is critical to delivering an optimal CX, but the lack of data infrastructure is fueling a customer relationship crisis. Even if organisations have the required information, many do not effectively share it across teams, leaving insights trapped in inefficient organisational silos.

Utilising a shared CRM data platform and business intelligence system can provide actionable insights that sales, marketing, and service teams need to act decisively at every critical touchpoint throughout the customer journey.

3. Make technology easier to use

Technology is supposed to make the hard things easier, but our survey suggests it is often too difficult to use, resulting in low adoption and wasted resources. A staggering 68 per cent of Australian respondents report their CRM system is wasting time and money, while a massive 71 per cent say their current CRM system cannot be customised properly to meet their specific needs. CRM struggles are the highest in Australia, compared to 46 per cent of US respondents and 56 per cent of respondents in the UK.

So if you use a CRM, make sure it is accessible and easy for you and your team to use daily to update, expand, and capture and share customer information. This will provide a better context for teams to take action earlier, and allows for personalising interactions and optimising experiences to boost revenue.

4. Leverage AI to turbocharge customer experience 

Innovations in AI mean businesses no longer have to look in the data rearview mirror; instead, they can look into the future, understand trends and what is emerging, and crucially spot actionable insights earlier.

And with more data available – especially from digital channels – AI can enable better customer experiences, more personalised engagement, more accurate predictions, and better decision making. AI and CRM are a natural pairing; deploying AI takes advantage of your existing CRM data by transforming it into useful information that improves decision-making and predicts customer needs.

The time to improve customer retention is now. By leveraging your data and AI to enhance operational efficiency and deepen your understanding of customers’ needs and preferences. Then you can enhance CX and transcend the great customer resignation and build customers for life.

Want more? Get our newsletter delivered straight to your inbox! Follow Kochie’s Business Builders on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Now read this

https://www.kochiesbusinessbuilders.com.au/the-top-10-technology-trends-for-retailers-revealed-no-surprise-customer-experience-tops-the-list/