SMEs urged to embrace customer experience services to boost sales

Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) take for granted the level of investment required to build and maintain a good reputation.

There is a growing acknowledgement of the importance of becoming a Customer Experience (CX) leader to help build that reputation, but too few are taking appropriate steps to embrace and prioritize a true CX culture.

This was the call recently by the ICX Kenya when they hosted a Gala Dinner for different organizations drawn from both the public and private sectors in celebrating the conclusion of the 2022 Customer Service Week.

Sheila Mugusia – Board Member – ICX Kenya highlights the importance of customer experience management in enhancing sales for local enterprises.

“You must understand that the road to failed customer experience management programs is paved with good intentions. According to Microsoft, 56% of global consumers say that customer service is an important aspect of brand choice and loyalty. 

With this in mind, before investing in any enterprise, the customer’s needs must be central to the design of any product or service sustained with a good customer support framework that helps create good customer experiences. 

I urge local SMEs to build a “customer-first” culture and ensure that every decision begins and ends with the customer in mind for ease of product or service adoption. ” comments Sheila.

She revealed that this year’s ICX Kenya Gala Dinner was the culmination of the Customer Service Week’s celebrations promoted under the theme ‘Sustaining Customer Inclusion’. 

“The key objectives of this event include acknowledging CS Week corporate participants and celebrating organizations that demonstrate innovation in their ways of engaging their customers both internal and external as well as enable the CX Fraternity share industry experiences, and encourage CX Advocacy in their organizations.

Firms that take part in CS Week carry out special activities to highlight the importance of great customer experiences to the success of their entities and thus help to reinforce a customer – centric culture.  We appreciate having customer inclusion as business-as-usual is what ensures sustainable customer centricity across organizations.” says Sheila.

She also advises SMEs to create three key steps that will help them create a memorable customer experience for their targeted customers.

Articulate Cultural Maturity

According to Sheila, this culture has to come right from the top of the enterprise owner and permeates through the whole organization.

“When one has created a service culture it means both staff and customers can see their ideas take shape and have their work-place and service challenges heard. As a result, for staff a more close-knit enterprise is created, making it easier for founders and co-founders to get their teams passionate about service excellence. 

By setting this standard from the onset, managers have a clearer picture on qualities to look out for when recruiting, to ensure applicants fit the enterprise’s existing customer-focused culture. “Affirms Sheila.

Customer Experiences must be Personal

This is another step that enterprises both startups and established ones should consider.  By doing so they deliver personalized service to their customers.

Sheila argues that “In order to deliver a truly personalized experience, SMEs need to use reliable sources of data from different customer touch points to understand how customers behave and respond to their products and services, and take corrective or remedial actions to deliver the right solutions. 

Additionally, data patterns on product or service consumption help enterprises proactively create exceptional experiences with their offering.”

Customer Feedback vital in steering business in the right direction

Research has showed that for SMEs to grow they must embrace customer feedback as this might determine whether the customer will come back or refer others to the service or products offered.

“With reasonably priced technology interventions, enterprises should be able to track their customers’ feedback and analyze it in order to put in place responsive strategies to enhance business growth and value offered. 

Customer feedback will help guide the future direction and growth strategies of the business supporting sales, advertising and general approach to engagement. In fact, 83% of consumers said they would be more loyal to a brand if they knew that brand would use their feedback to make improvements,” concludes Sheila.

SMEs do not fully appreciate the value of Customer Experience Management. Instead, they place more focus on product enhancements and sales. Forbes has reported that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience; Research by McKinsey & Co has also found that brands that improve their customer experience see revenues increase as much as 10 to 15 percent while also lowering the cost to serve by 15 to 20 percent.

Therefore, more SMEs need to become aware that customer experience and profitability come hand in hand.