Customer Experience on Modern Style Illustation. with Orange Arrow and Hand Drawn Icons Around. Customer Experience – Business Concept. Inscription on Brick Wall with Doodle Icons Around. 3D.
The SARS-Cov 2 pandemic and the related lockdown that was generated in a first phase and, today in a second one, have brought to light several problems left open over the years and above all they have accelerated various processes that would have had longer development and application times.
In particular the adoption of the home working, which maybe isn’t yet so smart, has widely spread due to the pandemic and lockdown period, even if not in all sectors.
Another further boost, as consequence of the obligation to be forced at home and the relative increase in the use of online contents, led to the generation of a “new customer“, lot more careful about the “customer experience” than in the past and even more sensible to the quality of the experience in itself rather than the price of the product.
A recent analysis done by S.A.S. (an Italian IT company) declares that price is no longer the determining factor during the purchase experience, furthermore the customer is willing to pay more to receive a more adequate customer experience if, of course, even the product satisfies the expectations.
However, this means that with a higher price there should be a customer experience in line with the services which customers expect from the company.
Specifically, factors which contribute to a positive consumer experience are:
- Flexibility in the return policy and related refunds;
- Customer after-sales assistance;
- Bargains;
- Company responsible conduct;
- Customer experience more important that the price or discount of the product.
All these factors show, perhaps even more today than in the past, that the winning move for the long-term sale of a product isn’t the low price or the discount, but what kind of customer experience you can offer to customers, how much you can do to facilitate and support the customer in the after-sale or for a possible return.
These factors have become crucial if we consider that today, even and mainly due to the forced lockdown, more than one customer out of 10 has started using online services (with an exponential growth of mobile / app) to make purchases; over two-thirds of buyers will continue to use these methods even when the lockdown will be over.
Just to remember that Amazon, which has made the customer experience its workhorse, during the lockdown, from April to June 2020, sold 57% more items than the previous year!
It therefore becomes essential to support the customer in the after-sale or the return phase, to allow him to make claims in the easiest way possible, manage claims, to avoid them in advance ensuring an adequate customer experience and live up to the product in sale.
Maybe the time has finally come to think about the product and how to promote it without focusing purely and simply about the price.
