Top Tips For Crafting the Perfect Customer Experience Strategy For New Clients

Did you know it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one?

As a business owner, one of the things that keep you awake at night is your company's ability to bring in more customers. This is the most effective way to increase sales and grow your business.

What are you doing to make the customer acquisition process easier? Are you giving the best experience to new clients?

In this article, we are sharing tips you can use to develop a customer experience strategy that'll make it easier for your business to acquire and retain new clients.

Read on!

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1. Know Who Your Customer Is

Who is your customer?

If you're the kind of business owner who's ready to produce a spreadsheet containing the names and addresses of all the customers who have purchased your product when asked this question, you aren't doing your business any favors.

Knowing your customer isn't about having a list of names of people you've sold to. It's about knowing their persona.

Why do they live? How old are they? What are their hobbies and interests? Are they married? What's their profession? What's their average income?

When you have a clearly defined customer persona, it's way easier to develop an experience strategy that's tailored to their way of life.

Here's an illustration.

You own Company X, which specializes in selling medical insurance to people who are 65 years or older.

If you don't know anything much beyond your customer's age, for instance, you might not know the best way to reach these clients. But when you have a detailed client persona, you'll know that you stand a good chance of reaching seniors using older communication methods, like good-old terrestrial television.

2. First Impressions Matter

Ever made a conscious decision to avoid visiting a certain brick and mortar store merely because of how it looked from the outside? Or, have you ever bounced off a website as soon as you landed on it simply because you didn't like the way it looked?

In business, as in most interactions in life, first impressions matter.

Those first few seconds when a potential client interacts with your brand will go a long way in defining their experience and determining whether they will become a paying customer.

The challenge is: how do you ensure your brand gives off the best impression?

In truth, creating a killer first impression isn't an easy thing to pull off. There are just so many moving parts, where one thing is off or out of place can turn off a new customer.

There are basics or non-negotiables you must get right, though. Here is a couple of them:

Website Design and Speed

In today's digital age, you're bound to get most of your new clients on the web. Your business' website is central to this.

When a new client lands on your website, what impression are they getting?

While you have little control over their perception of your site's overall theme, you have full control over how quickly they're able to access the site. Many people will leave a site if it takes longer than a few seconds to load fully, so you've got to ensure site speed is lightning-fast.

Also, the website's design should be responsive.

Since people are browsing the web using devices with varying screen sizes, responsive design ensures your site renders properly regardless of the user's device.

Fluid Website Navigation

So, a user has landed on your site.

Fast loading speeds? Check?

Responsive design? Check.

What are they going to do next? You want them to browse around the site, check out your service pages, and make a purchase or at least make an inquiry.

This is where site navigation comes in. A fluid, intuitive navigation makes it easy for visitors to explore the site and find whatever page they're looking for.

You can use customer journey software to monitor a site visitor's movement on your website and customize the navigation accordingly.

3. Rapid Response to Customer Inquiries

The modern customer expects a response to their queries as soon as possible, typically within the hour.

This rarely happens, though.

According to a recent survey, 62 percent of businesses don't even respond to emails. When they do, it's after about, wait for it, 12 hours.

This is a no-brainer, really.

If you want to give your client the best experience and thus earn their trust (and money), responding to their queries after several hours is no way to do it.

Near-instant responses will significantly enhance new client experience. An ideal way to do this is by offering a live-chat service on your website and ensuring that you have a dedicated team on it. Even if the team can't be on 24 hours a day, deploying a chatbot can help keep a new client engaged.

Along with ensuring a quick response, give your customers multiple ways to contact you. Email and phone calls are standard, but you also want your people to be able to get in touch on social media channels as well.

4. Your Brand's Values Speak Volumes

Long gone are the days when all consumers cared about was the quality of your product or service.

Today, they care about much more than what you're selling them. They care about what your brand stands for. More than 60 percent of consumers prefer to purchase from purpose-driven brands.

As you refine your products, design your website, and take care of all physical aspects that influence customer experience, don't neglect your brand's purpose. Most new clients will evaluate your brand's mission and value and establish whether they match what they believe in before doing business with you.

Your brand's value should be highly relevant to your target customer.

Remember we talked about knowing your customer's interests?

If you know that most of your customers are environmental enthusiasts, for instance, it'll help a lot if your company embraces green business practices.

Build the Perfect Customer Experience Strategy

Every business in your niche is in a chase to land new clients.

In such a competitive marketplace, the experience your company offers new clients can make the difference between acquiring and losing a potential customer. With this guide, you're now in a strong position to build a customer experience strategy that places your business heads and shoulder above the rest.

Keep reading our blog for more customer marketing tips and hacks.