Most customer experience (CX) experts define customer experience as the perception that customers have of interactions with your organization. The word perception is key, as this is how your customers or potential customers think and feel about what you do. Basically, what your customer will share with others—word of mouth rules!

Another keyword: interactions. Interactions is plural for a reason. It’s important to recognize that the customer experience includes every interaction that your customer or potential customer has with your organization. And yes, that means literally everything a customer may encounter with your brand and company: websites, social media, emails, phone calls, texts, ping notifications, the sales cycle, project implementation, project closes, follow-ups… all of it. Salesforce’s numerous tools, like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and the embedded features in each, are all perfect solutions to building up the customer experience in any medium.

But before you race to implementation talks, you have to plan your customer experience transformation wisely. To make sure your company is tackling customer experience with the best approach, we’ve compiled some questions to ask both before and after you make customer experience changes to measure your success.

What does the customer experience look like in your organization today?

For any business, the bottom line comes down to money. But the unspoken bottom line for knighting your company into the echelons of business branding royalty is an amazing customer experience. The interactions your customers have with your business are a reflection of your business culture and business processes. It is, truly, the foundation from which your company grows. As Bruce Tempkin notes, “Great customer experience can’t be tacked on. It must be embedded within your operating fabric.”  

So, is delivering an amazing customer experience really embedded in your culture and processes? To find out, ask yourself these simple questions when you think about your customer experience today:

In your company culture, do you feel amazing CX is important? Or does your brand promise require an amazing customer experience?

How do you analyze your CX today? Do you look at CX specific dashboards? Or do you have a balanced operational scorecard which includes CX metrics and how they correlate?

Do you have clear customer promises? Or do your employees have a clear understanding of their specific link to delivering on your brand promise?

Do you have employee engagement programs? Or do you embed employee engagement in your HR processes?

Do your execs support CX? Or do your Execs live and reinforce customer-centric values?

Do you review customer feedback? Or do you correlate and make business decisions based on insights from the customer journey?

Honest answers to these questions should give you an idea of just how mature your organization’s customer experience methodology really is. Any business can say customer experience is important, and they know it should be. But very few business truly act on and exemplify a commitment to customer journeys. You have to acknowledge where your business is on that spectrum and make clear goals for where you want it to be. Salesforce is built to customize your business’s branding for stellar customer journeys, and Simplus is dedicated to making that transition seamless.

Success outcomes: How should the customer experience look after?

When implementing Salesforce and customer experience solutions, knowing how the customer journey landscape should look afterward is vital information before you even start implementation. Having success outcomes to measure from the very beginning discovery phase is imperative to a successful implementation and further integrations. This is because knowing the desired results is crucial for designing and building the customer experience platform.

This doesn’t just mean guiding the technical point and click features of your solution, but it also guides the behaviors behind the point and clicks. This sets a strong foundation for your implementation. Whether you’re moving to the Salesforce platform or implementing new software and solutions, it’s important to arm yourself with answers—answers to that grand customer experience vision you’re aiming for. Establishing this trend of clear before and after standing will set a strong foundation for continued success in CX maturity, customer loyalty, and overall business growth.  

Related: Digital strategy for the contact center: be where your customers are

CX is more than just a buzzword to check off the Executive to-do lists. It’s an all-encompassing phenomenon that can make or break your future growth and brand presence. If you haven’t already, it’s time to address CX in your company seriously, with a clear understanding of the before and even clearer goals for the after.

Do you want to see long-lasting partnerships, loyalty, and growth become the norm for your company? It starts with providing great experiences to your customers. Contact Simplus today for expert advice and services. #LifeMadeSimplus