In recent years, the concept of "customer experience" has gone from something that was limited to a (sometimes short-staffed) customer service team to the forefront of every business decision for leading companies around the world.

Think: Kelly Kapoor from The Office

Today, customer experience is everything.

It has the power to make or break a business faster than ever before, and the ones doing it well are using customer experience to drive all major business and marketing decisions.

Being customer centric means having the end-user as the focus for every business decision. This applies across the entire customer journey; successful businesses today understand the value in providing the best possible experience every step of the way.

Why is this important?

• Understanding the customer ensures business decisions are tied to customer interests.
• Learn from valuable and often unexpected insights that come from listening to a wide range of customers and potential customers.

How is it done?

There are many ways to implement a "voice of the customer" program. Here are the basic components:

• Listen to customer feedback.
• Interpret results and take action to improve.
• Put a system in place to continually monitor and document key metrics.

What are key success metrics?

It's important to define metrics based on specific goals for your business. Here are some of the most common metrics for customer experience:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Reviews
• Referrals
• Churn Rate/Retention

Customer experience programs can be big or small, simple or complex. It all depends on your business, your customers and your individual goals. The most important point we want to convey is that every business should have some kind of system in place to solicit feedback from your customers. Wherever you are in the process, we are here to support you.

-- Margaret, Faryn, & the SocializeLA Team

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