What does it mean to be your customers' “first choice” and why does it matter?

Customers buy products or services to solve their problems, and they have more choices than ever about where to go and who to buy from. They do all the research about products, prices, online reviews and who might be on the shortlist before walking out the front door. This is true for almost any service, whether it's buying a couch or choosing a caregiver or assisted living facility for elderly parents. If you're not already shortlisted, you're out.

Customers want certainty about what to buy, how much to pay and who they can trust to provide the right advice to solve their problems. Being their “first choice” means that you stand out above all others to meet all the above needs.

In our 25 years of global experience implementing customer experience (CX) improvement programs, we hear from clients that first-choice companies deliver higher levels of SENSITIVEthey have a proactive approach to building strong relationships with clients and them treat their employees very well. Customers see employees who are inspired and committed to delivering exceptional service experiences that provide an unmatched competitive advantage.

Here are three tips on how they do it and how their CX programs help them manage the process.

Connected: 5 Actionable Ways to Improve Your Customer Experience

1. Listen and learn

The traditional approach to CX is to measure customer satisfaction and sentiment about a product or service. “Best practice programs” (with a focus on being their customer's first choice) take a different approach. They focus on understanding customer expectations and train their teams to anticipate the type of experiences a customer will expect when it's an exceptional experience.

A simple way to explain it is that traditional CX programs measure how likely a customer is to recommend them. CX best practice programs already know that advocates are recommending them – instead, they focus their attention on recognition why and repeating this experience to create more and more customers who consider them as their first choice. This, in turn, creates more advocates who promote them on social media, visit them more often and spend more. Their CX strategy is all about driving growth.

How do they do this? They adapt their own CX feedback questions for each customer profile. They understand the details to take action (eg what, who, why and how to improve).

By asking the right questions, customers tell them everything they need to know to listen, learn and take action. Team members move from being reactive to being proactive and trying anticipate customer needs. For customers, it feels like the team members understand everything they need and really care about finding the right solution for them. They feel heard, it builds trust and makes you better than your competition… and that's why you're their first choice.

Connected: Do this to level up your customer experience management game

2. Personalization

Best practice CX programs personalization a key factor. Personalization in the context of your CX program applies to how salespeople solve customers' unique problems. In your CX program survey, you can branch out to specific questions for specific product groups to learn more about how the vendor presented key products and accessories. So your CX program is “personalized” in terms of the questions that are asked to track the exact purpose of their visit and understand what was discussed. For your customers, question branching will feel completely relevant to them because it only asks about what happened in relation to the products and needs that brought them today.

But here's the best part: Because you know who served them, when and where, you can then diagnose what worked and what needs improvement. So you are “customizing” your skills development plan for your teams.

Here's an example of why this matters. One of our clients launched their CX program and quickly discovered that some team members were cutting corners in the way they were demonstrating the product range, with many not mentioning the relevant accessories. When they compared the average transaction value results, they found that team members who provided the full demo achieved a 64% higher value ($648 per transaction vs. $396 for those who did not provide the full product demo).

It was the personalization of the survey that revealed it skills gaps and allowed the client to increase sales results immediately without having to spend a cent more on marketing. Customers also commented on the improved service and NPS scores increased.

Connected: Your online customer experience is more than just a word – It's the backbone of your business. Here's how to optimize it.

3. Correct measurement

Management guru Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed,” and CX Best Practice Programs recognize that from measuring the right thingsteams will take appropriate action.

Specific key performance indicators (KPIs) will be different for each industry. For example, if you're a retailer, you might measure “average transaction value,” while if you own a veterinary clinic, you might measure “work rate.”

Our recommendation is to focus on your rate of improvement and close the performance “gap” between your top 10% and your bottom 10%. Wherever each team member starts, set your targets to close the gap between their results and proven best practice (ie 10%) over the next quarter – if they're too far behind then aim to improve by 10 % during the next quarter.

Your ultimate goal is for every team member to deliver such experiences create lawyers. If you recognize and reward improvements and reinforce best practices, it will focus your team members on action and reinforce the right behaviors.

So to conclude – first take the guesswork out of understanding why certain experiences delight your customers and position you as their first choice. Then, anticipate what they expect and personalize every experience. Finally, consider how you plan to measure success. We suggest you focus on “improvement rates”. Remember, your team members will make or break the experience, so your CX program needs to be easy to manage, motivating and empowering them to be accountable for improvement and able to celebrate success .