Great customer experiences are pivotal to building a successful business with a loyal customer base. But unfortunately, these exceptional experiences can be quickly tarnished by one negative encounter.

Consider the following tips to improve the customer experience in your business:

Leverage data
Do your own research to discover what your target market is really looking for. Do they want better customer service, more availability of appointments or more variety of products and so on? Focusing on addressing the customer’s needs helps to improve your business practices accordingly.

Deliver more value
Acting on customer feedback is critical. Find ways to deliver more value through your business’ processes, products and/or services. For example, provide more training for staff, improve your customer database to deliver a more personalised experience, work on fixing recurring issues such as improving technology in your business and so forth.

Point of difference
From your research and self-reflection of your business, you should be able to establish what your competitive advantage is – that is, what your business does better than others in the industry. Promote this point of difference to your customers through your marketing efforts, i.e., on your website, business cards, brochures, social media accounts, advertisements and so forth. Also, be sure to continually deliver on your point of differentiation.