Customer expectations influence the perception of service quality. They reflect the customers’ hopes and dreams they want to be fulfilled when interacting with your brand. When you exceed these expectations, customer satisfaction is achieved, creating a significant impact on your bottom line.
Customer expectations, however, are never static. They evolve over time, and your ability to adapt to these changes will greatly influence your ability to remain competitive and relevant in your market.
Rising customer expectations
How COVID-19 further shifted customer expectations
Meeting customer expectations today and beyond
Using Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to exceed customer expectations
Power your customer experiences
Customers today have more choices than ever. They are more informed and have become more accustomed to constant innovation. As a result, their expectations for top-notch experiences have increased as well.
Let’s look at the key trends in customer expectations that have emerged over the last few years.
The expectations listed above still ring true today. Your brand has to keep an eye on them to continuously deliver the best service possible.
But as mentioned earlier, these expectations are not fixed. They change with the times. Today, lockdown restrictions, economic uncertainty and premium attention given to health brought by COVID-19 have caused new consumer behaviours to emerge. This results in a further shift in expectations which will likely endure even after the pandemic.
Trust and transparency
People are now turning to brands they trust. Transparency and compassion matter most. People are paying attention to how responsive companies are to their needs and how they are supporting their customers and employees.
During the global crisis, brands are no longer just entities people do business with. People also expect brands to guide them and help keep them safe.
Human interaction
A PWC report pre-COVID-19 showed that 59% of customers believed companies had lost their human touch as they focused more on technology. As the world continues to deal with the effects of the pandemic and slowly move towards the recovery phase, a brand’s ability to connect with customers at a basic human level will be more critical than ever.
Expectations based on past experiences
Switching from brand to brand has become a lot easier nowadays.
With more choices, access to information and an increasing preference for trusted brands, people are more likely to shop around to find the best differentiated experience possible. Their past experience with other brands will influence their expectations for your services or products.
Whether you surpass these expectations or not will directly affect your ability to retain customers and acquire new ones. If you can ‘stick the landing’ with customers who are trialling your brand for the first time, and your existing customers love you enough to stick with you, you can gain a significant advantage from this trend.
Communicating content
Lockdown and self-isolation have driven millions of people to turn to their digital devices to stay informed and entertained.
While expectations for production value have lowered, the type of content and stories brands tell remain important for customers. Even if people are not purchasing, they’re actively scrutinising the content you’re publishing. From the tone of your messaging to the value you’re providing to your audience.
Connectivity
From mobile wallets to emails and social media, customers now have a more complex mix of touchpoints in their buying journey. This access to multiple touchpoints has increased their expectations for more seamless and consistent interaction across all channels they engage in.
The shifting customer expectations do pose a great challenge for brands today. However, it’s also opening opportunities for greater brand trust and customer loyalty.
So what can you do to ensure you meet and ultimately exceed these expectations?
Understand your customers
Understand your customers’ underlying needs, especially at this particular time. What’s driving their purchase decisions? What products or services do they want to buy the most right now?
Get a clear picture of their current attitudes, behaviours and preferences. It will help you better understand their journey as well as the key moments that matter along the way.
Encourage feedback
Establish trust and foster a positive relationship by maintaining an open line of communication between you and your customers. Encouraging feedback from customers shows you recognise and value them, and gives them a feeling of power they may not have with other brands.
Knowing what your customers think also provides you with valuable insights to make smarter business decisions. By gathering feedback, you gain insights on how to deliver products or services your customers truly want and need.
Create seamless customer experiences
Meet your customers wherever they are in their journey. Identify your customers’ touchpoints and work out areas for improvement and opportunities.
By having a seamless integration between your online and offline channels and a centralised customer data system, you’ll be able to create a frictionless and more customer-focused experience.
Allow them to pick up where they left off using their data and your technology wherever you can.
Communicate authenticity
Customers recognise whether a brand is authentic and true to its purpose or not. As expectations towards trust and transparency continue to rise, you have to ensure your brand is able to communicate genuine empathy and care.
Empathy, however, is difficult to build without a deep understanding of your customer. It is only when you know who they are, their pains and their motivations that you will be able to communicate authentically, anticipate their needs and build more meaningful experiences.
Tailored customer engagement
Customer engagement strategies boost brand experience and increase customer loyalty. It becomes even more powerful when they are tailored based on a customer’s preferences, interactions and history with your brand.
When your customers receive offers, rewards, recommendations, and messages relevant to their journey and preferences, they feel more connected and valued. This results in higher engagement and advocacy, increased chances of higher transaction value and increased customer retention rate.
CDPs unify and aggregate customer data into an accessible and regularly updated customer record. They give you a centralised and real-time view of your customers’ profiles as well as their historical transactions and interactions. CDPs also break down data silos, ensuring the consistent flow of customer information between all departments.
With the dynamic changes in customer expectations, CDPs help you to better understand your customers’ behaviours and their unique journeys. This deeper understanding enables you to create useful content, and rewards programs, and give recommendations that are highly personalised. And because CDPs make customer data available at a faster rate, your teams can proactively engage with your customers providing timely messages and targeted offers at the right moments.
Meeting and exceeding customer expectations is a never-ending process. What’s important is that you continue to adapt and innovate while tuning in to your customers’ changing needs, so you continue to win their loyalty and trust.
Power your customer experiences
Are you looking for the right platform to help your Customer Experience efforts become more effective and insightful? Get in touch with us today.
