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5 Great Ways to Adopt Customer Experience in 2021

Quality and pricing is what count, not customer experience! This is what, till not long ago, all marketer Gurus were shouting about. Wining customers in, was all about the quality of the product or service provided and it pricing! This started changing during 2019 and then, the evolution accelerated thanks to the pandemic and the many lockdowns!

Today, what really makes the difference is, first “customer experience” and second the quality of the after-sale service and support! The trick here is to look at “customer service” as an integral part of the whole “experience concept” and leverage on it to bring your sales to a totally new level!

A recent survey that I’ve been looking at shows how almost 2,000 business professionals were prioritizing experience, by far, before product’s quality and pricing!

Customer experience (CX) comes in first beating product and pricing.

Rephrasing the above and looking in a quantification of these percentages, we can expect a minimum increase of 50% in our sales performances providing we will be able to create a new, exciting and unique customer experience. 

Being able to create a positive and happy experience in customer from the moment they show a light sign of interest for your product or service, will bring conversion rates up to the star for the happiness of many business owners and, this is even more valid and relevant for property developers!

A research that I’ve recently gone through, states that the smoother and more personalised is the “purchasing journey” the higher are the chances to win heart and wallet of your prospects!

Let’s start from the root of this new trend by understanding what, precisely, customer experience or CX is!

What is customer experience?

Customer experience is how your customers perceive their relationship with your company, how the company treats them. This perception influences their behaviours and, when the experience is good, built long lasting good feelings and loyalty. 

This could be rephrased by getting them to say:

“I like your product, I will continue to buy it for a long time and recommend it to others”

This explains why, it’s so important for businesses to focus on CX.

The above is the kind of “dream situation” that all marketers strive to achieve, how can we? To get your customers to like you, the first step is to know them, become their “friend” till the extend of asking questions on how would they like their needs to be addressed.

Successful marketers are constantly building relation-ship with their customers by asking questions and making them part of the business/product journey!

This practice is known as “relationship marketing” and it happens in many different ways, worth an article on its own. However, just to give some examples, imagine you ask your customers, through online survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Qualaroo, questions to gain insight as to what you can do to improve how they perceive your business and its offerings.

• What is the one thing we can do to improve your customer experience with us?
• What feature would you like to see in our next project to help improving the security of the residents?
• What type of services would you like to receive from a management company to have a better perception about management fees payment?

A research conducted by a MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) professor, Eric Von Hippel, showed that out of almost 1,200 innovative ideas generated by businesses more than 60% were “inspired” by customers! 

Ask them, listen to their replies, apply their ideas and win them over forever! 

The good news is that it doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in – improving the experience for your customers has been proven (time and time again) to increase retention, satisfaction and revenue.

Reading the above through a “property focused” lens, automatically brings us to the next question, how to create a positive, possibly the best possible, customer experience?

Customer experience is the new battlefield

No one wants to do business with a company that treats you poorly and, above all, doesn’t take you seriously. Communication is the key word!

Positive interactions with your call centre have huge impact on the future decision of the prospect. A good and positive interaction keeps your customers happy and satisfied, while a poor communication experience could lead to losing the possible buyer. 

Call centres, nowadays, must provide pleasant experience and here comes why, according to a study conducted by Deloitte, almost 90% corporations prioritize customer experience in their contact/call centres. 

This explains why ProSales has invested time and efforts in a strategic partnership with Avanser which is highly specialized in cloud call centres and  enhanced communication technology!

The importance of omni-channel to make sure everyone can reach you!

Property developers interact with their customers across multiple channels, which can be through cloud call centres, forms on their website, live chat, social media and more.

However, while customers will be happy about this flexibility, what is a MUST to provide a very consistent communication. Are you providing a consistent experience across all channels, both online and offline? It is definitely challenging, however, IKEA, could be a very good example of a perfect omni-channel communication with a high standard of consistency!

If you visit any IKEA store around the world, you will get the same experience. IKEA invests heavily into its customer experience and makes sure it is always the best and the same doesn’t matter which area of the world you are in.

And the payoff has been huge! Not only IKEA is one of the most liked corporations in the world, but the annual global revenue of its 445 stores has surpassed, in 2020, the $40 billion worldwide.

Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC), in their 2020 report, has found out that in the past 10 years the number of companies investing in the omni-channel experience has grown from 20% to above 80%!

The above explains why, ProSales, has partnered with Property Hunter a great example of omni-channel communication platform which allows our property developer’s clients to widen up enormously the reach in the market and generate more consistent and better quality leads. 

Mobile customer experience is priority

Providing a great experience across different channels, of course, drives in the need to have a great mobile designed website and integrates it with all different sorts of virtual experiences! A recent study by Statista has found out that the market penetration for mobile devices in Malaysia is above 125%! 

Website needs to be mobile friendly but then, most importantly, property developers should start using as much as possible what the modern virtual technology allows to have! 

It is definitely not a surprise to see 84% of companies, claiming to be customer focused, to concentrate their efforts in creating the greatest virtual experiences in their mobile friendly websites.

The above explains very clearly why ProSales, once more, has chosen the best 4D, virtual tours and virtual events service providers, such as SilverSea and Virtually, to enhance the digitalization of the whole Property buying journey for the customers. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, from the first approach of a prospect to a development project till the completion of the project with delivery of vacant possession, the whole journey has to become a new, exciting and mostly virtual experience. It has to be easily reachable on different devices and making sure that prospects from all ages will find it awesome!

Soon we will see more and more property developers competing mainly on customer experience. It will be the ones taking customer experience seriously to the next level, that will stand out from the noise and win loyal customers over and over again.The Experience will have to be as more consistent as possible and this has brought many property developers to choose a truthfully End-to-End Digital Property Solution, ProSales. 

Through a continuous effort and research, ProSales has kept enhancing the entireness of the customer experience integrating a highly diversified range of virtual service providers, the best in the market, to create the most unique, exciting and seamless experience for prospects from all ages and walk of life. 

“If you make sure their interaction with your company is smooth, pleasant and continuously improving, you will drive brand loyalty. If not, you’ll give your competitors the best gift you can – your customers”

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

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