Improve your customer experience and you can improve the bottom line.

Researchers found that there’s truth behind the adage, you have to spend money to make money.

Almost half of customers are willing to pay more for a product or service if they can get a better experience, according to new research from Sitel.

Now, we aren’t suggesting you hastily throw money at every customer issue. But it will pay to invest in customer experience improvements.

Consider this: 49% of customers who have positive experiences and post online want others to know about their experience. Then their friends, family and followers will shop with the great service provider, the Sitel research found. Creating better experiences will increase positive word of mouth that is specifically intended to boost sales.

An emerging role

One way: Increase or initiate the customer success role.

“Help customers get more value from what they’re already buying,” said Gartner Advisory Director Tom Cosgrove at the Gartner Sales and Marketing Conference 2018.

Customer service is a primarily reactive role – which always was and still is important to resolving issues, answering questions and clarifying information. Customer success professionals can improve the experience through a more proactive approach.

Best practices for a better experience

Here are five ways customer success pros (or service pros who can take on more proactive work) can improve the experience:

1. Monitor customer health and satisfaction. Check customer activity to confirm they are having good experiences. Watch for changes in buying patterns and engagement. In healthy relationships, customers should buy more quantity and/or more frequently. Plus, they should contact service, interact online and engage in social media. If they aren’t, stay in touch to understand why.

2. Monitor progress toward customer objectives and expectations. Customers enter into business relationships with expectations on the quality of products and the attention they’ll receive. They also have objectives – usually to improve themselves in some way. Customer success can note those expectations and objectives and regularly ask if they’re being met and if they’ve changed.

3. Report value to customers. Experiences will seem better if you remind customers about the benefits of doing business with you. Monitor metrics that are important to them – money saved, quality improved, efficiency increased, and sales boosted, etc. – and send quarterly reports with improved numbers highlighted.

4. Offer best-practice support and guidelines. Give customers tips and techniques that were proven to work for others using the same products or services they do.

5. Teach them new tricks. Regularly offer training on the products and services they have so they can benefit from new or seldom-used tools or best practices.

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