Within any organization, the customer experience and marketing teams have important jobs to do, and it’s critical for these teams to realize just how much overlap there can be between their departments.
In fact, Forbes reported that 75 percent of marketers shared that they are responsible for the “end-to-end experience” spanning a customer’s lifetime or a buyer’s journey.
Marketing plays a pivotal role in creating the customer experience, even though the customer experience and marketing teams are often not connected. The problem? Today’s consumers don’t differentiate between the brand experience and the customer experience. This means that to create a customer-centric journey, customer experience and marketing teams must work together to connect the brand and customer experiences.
Marketing and the customer experience are so intertwined that it just makes sense for the two strategies to collaborate. Here’s what you need to know about how customer experience and marketing can connect, and how they can help the other grow.
Why Customer Experience and Marketing Matter
Of course, customer experience (CX) can have a huge impact on the overall customer journey. But like marketing, it can be hard to track the exact benefit. Organizations should understand the possibilities that go along with CX (and marketing, for that matter) to see the long-term ROI potential present in CX technologies and strategies.
Just how can CX impact an organization? Here’s some pretty compelling evidence:
● Boosting customer retention by just 5 percent can increase profits anywhere from 25 to 95 percent.
● Consumers crave great CX so much that they’re willing to pay more for it. In fact, 86 percent of customers will do so.
● 68 percent of customers will stop shopping with a particular brand if they feel like the organization is indifferent towards its customers.
● 50 percent of customers within the digital marketplace have switched brands or companies because of a negative customer experience.
Similarly, marketing can have a positive impact. Here is a look at how marketing can impact the customer journey:
● 52 percent of marketers share that they adapt their tactics based on interacting with customers and receiving feedback.
● 80 percent of customers reported saying that they would be more likely to do business with an organization if the brand offered personalized experiences.
● Companies that establish an emotional connection with their customers have been shown to outperform their competitors by 85 percent.
● 70 percent of marketers state that they will be using more online data within the next two years.
When looking at these kinds of statistics side by side, it’s easy to see how closely linked customer experience and marketing really are—and just how essential it is to align these two strategies.
Customer Experience and Marketing: How Do They Play Into One Another?
Custom experience and marketing are undeniably linked to each other. But what is their true relationship?
As shared on CMSWire, “Not all of a customer’s experience is digital marketing—but all marketing is definitely part of a customer’s experience.”
There’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that today’s consumers increasingly expect exceptional customer experiences. Millennials and Gen Z in particular seem to have very high expectations for the digital customer experience. So in a climate where the focus must be on the consumer, it makes sense that CX and marketing would be intertwined.
For example, digital marketing should all be filtered through the lens of the customer experience. Think about the goal of digital marketing: “To help establish long-term relationships with individual customers, which can, in turn, support the renewed purchase of products and services as well as open the door to potential upselling and cross-selling opportunities.”
The same could be said of a truly customer-focused CX. Indeed, marketing—and digital marketing in particular—is an integral part of a customer experience strategy.
Who Is In Charge of the Customer Experience?
Within an organization, which team has ownership of the customer experience? Does the sales team take responsibility? Or is it marketing? Customer service?
A stellar CX experience must belong to the whole organization.
Digital marketing allows marketing teams to connect with customers—even on an individual level—at every point in the customer journey. This means that marketing teams are integral to managing the customer experience. They have the connection points needed to listen to customer insights, analyze what they are hearing, and advocate for strategies that will improve the overall CX. When given access to data about CX, marketing can help unify and align departments to provide first-rate customer experiences.
“Customer experience” is a term that’s thrown around so much, it can be easy to forget what it really means. It’s all about how people feel throughout their customer journey in each interaction across every touchpoint. Why does this matter for marketing teams? Marketing teams are charged with creating buyer personas, collecting and analyzing data, and driving engagement with leads and prospects. This means marketing collaborates with sales, service, and the whole organization to create a memorable, seamless customer experience.
Set Expectations with Marketing—Then Deliver with CX
One of the main reasons that it’s so important for organizations to unite their marketing and customer experience teams is that together, they can create a consistent experience. There should be unity between what customers expect when they interact with marketing and what they experience throughout the customer journey.
Retail Touchpoints put it succinctly: “In order to be successful, brands need to tell a coherent and authentic story—and customer experience needs to adhere to that brand story consistently across all touch points.”
Marketing and CX teams both play interesting roles within their organizations. They both must “work across departments,” taking a hard look at the entire customer lifecycle to collect feedback and implement change. Both teams share similar expertise, and when they work together, they can create experiences that are truly centered around customers to drive results.
What’s more, this kind of collaboration encourages consistency. If marketing teams create a certain expectation, but the customer experience does not feel like a reflection of this strategy, it creates a jarring experience which results in a loss of trust with customers. Likewise, a unified, streamlined marketing and CX journey puts customers at ease; they know what to expect.
How Customer Experience Can Improve Marketing Strategies
Customer experience teams have a wealth of knowledge at their disposal. They see how customers interact at every touch point in the customer journey and can analyze feedback to see where there may be gaps in the CX strategy.
This information is invaluable to marketing teams, who can use it to adjust their strategies, review their processes, and turn insight into action throughout the customer journey. The North Face is one such brand that has aligned its marketing at CX strategies to better connect with its customers and enhance the customer journey. How does the activewear and outdoor sports gear brand make this happen?
For starters, The North Face’s marketing and CX teams are seeking out opportunities for additional revenue. They are targeting customers who haven’t purchased anything with even better visual merchandising in the store to connect their in-store and digital experiences.
One of the realizations The North Face CX and marketing teams discovered through customer feedback is that there were several key touchpoints along the customer journey that they could adjust to improve customer satisfaction and increase spending. For example, they found through customer feedback that 25% of non-purchasers were having a hard time finding a particular product in the right size.
With this information in hand, their marketing team partnered with CX professionals to connect the in-store experience with the great CX they receive online. Just this small change in one touchpoint of the customer journey had a huge impact; leading to a $13 million boost in annual revenue in a single market.
Customer feedback is data. This data is indispensable; it tells both CX and marketing teams what customers want, where the customer journey may be lacking, and what kinds of improvements they can bring into their strategies. And sometimes, like in the case of The North Face, just a few small, CX-informed adjustments in marketing strategies can lead to a major payoff.
Build Powerful Marketing and Customer Experiences
At OvationCXM, we understand that exceptional customer experiences start by connecting your entire organization to foster alignment. That’s why our CXM platform so seamlessly integrates with your existing technology ecosystem to track and analyze the customer experience throughout their buying journey, without affecting legacy systems.
Our tools are designed to unify your marketing and CX teams, as well as your entire organization.
Think of it this way: Customer experience is really the ultimate marketing tool.
What better way to drive brand loyalty, convert leads, and nurture growth than through an incredible customer experience?
At OvationCXM, our philosophy is that CX is everyone’s responsibility. We’ll connect and align your existing ecosystem so that everyone from marketing to sales to CX can create a stellar, growth-oriented customer journey. When everything is in one place, all your teams can track and guide your customer’s journey to prevent problems before they happen.
Now is the time to create meaningful connections between departments to initiate the growth you are all looking to see. Collaborate, share data, and take your CX to the next level: Contact the OvationCXM team today to learn more.
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