How to improve key customer touchpoints

How to improve customer experience has been at the top of marketers’ minds for years. We know that customer conversion and retention are based on the experiences we deliver. As brands grow, we start looking for new ways to surprise and delight our customers.

It’s at this point that marketers need to turn their attention to the user experience (UX).

Customer experience vs. User experience

CX and UX are often confused or used interchangeably. But this isn’t the case. Originally user experience was considered to be what we now call customer experience. That is, every action interaction a customer has with your brand across every channel. This creates an overall perception of your brand based on how customers regard every exchange.

Today, user experience has developed to become much more specific. UX is how a customer feels about a specific, stand-alone interaction.

Should you focus on UX or CX?

The answer is both. User experience is simultaneously part of the customer experience, and separate from it.

As a customer engagement platform, we talk a lot about the customer experience. The better customers’ experiences are, the more engaged they’ll be. We frequently look at ways to improve the overall customer experience, from personalizing interactions, to delivering a consistent omnichannel journey.

UX dives deep into a single element of one interaction. As such, you need to make time to consider the user experience as you continue to develop your overall customer experience.

How to improve key customer touchpoints

When we think about customer touchpoints, things like sign-up forms, welcome emails, and abandoned cart emails come to mind. But if you look at these exchanges from a user experience perspective, you’ll discover that several elements within these touchpoints can be improved.

Diving into UX can give you an overwhelming number of things to update, test, and develop. That’s why we’ve selected three key UX improvements you can make and apply across your omnichannel marketing. You can take these elements and apply them across your marketing to improve your overall customer experience.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a great place to start.

1. Dark mode

Dark mode is about more than design and color palettes. It has massive implications around usability and customer perception.

If you have a smartphone app, plan on creating an app, or provide your customer with software, you’re probably more than aware of the growing interest amongst users for dark mode. But it’s starting to make its way to the web, so it’s time all marketers starting thinking about offering users a dark mode option.

A lot of mobile operating systems promote the use of light and dark modes – or day and night modes – that can be set automatically or chosen and set manually by the user. In simple usability terms, dark mode is less glaring and aggressive on users’ eyes if they’re using your app or website in darker environments.

But it’s also important to remember that dark modes consume 90% less energy than their light counterparts. Responsible and sustainable business is increasingly becoming a factor in customers’ decision-making processes. By offering dark mode you’re meeting consumer needs while improving their perception of your brand.

As demand for dark modes in-app and on websites grows, it’s important to begin considering the positive impact this will have on the user experience and CX as a whole.

2. Calls to action

Throughout all our marketing, we’re driving customers, readers, subscribers, and users to complete an action.

Our content may have various purposes. To promote a new service, to educate, to entertain. But at the end of it all, there is a business purpose and that is what makes our efforts measurable. As we sell ourselves and our ideas to the audience, we ask them to act on what they’ve read through our calls to action (CTA).

The actions you want users to take can be varied. They might include:

• Sign up for a newsletter
• Buy a product
• Download an ebook
• Call for an appointment
• Register interest
• Submit a pricing inquiry

Calls to action can often be a sore point for marketers. While we want to drive results, we don’t want to seem pushy and turn potential customers off. At the same time, we focus on creating content that engages readers and inspires them to want to know more. As a result, our CTA can often be thrown in at the last minute with little thought or consideration.

A powerful CTA should be both visual and verbal. They should use the right words and stand out visually, enticing your readers to act. Your CTA button or link copy should reinforce the benefits of your offer. Don’t just opt for “Submit”, “Buy”, or “Download”.

Testing will be your best friend as you start looking at how to improve your calls to action. Begin by testing your most important buttons and CTAs. These will probably be spread across your social media, email, and website. By regularly testing your CTAs you’ll be working to constantly improve the customer’s experience across every touchpoint.

3. Landing pages

Landing pages are a powerful and often overlooked tool in a marketer’s stack. In some ways, they go hand-in-hand with your CTA. A good landing page can be the difference between a conversion and a bounce.

As customers demand unique experiences, marketers have started to meet these demands in email interactions. We don’t need to demand you about the importance of personalization. But brands that are committed to improving customer experiences should be thinking about how to bring one-to-one communication to more key touchpoints.

Landing pages can be your homepage, blog articles, or standalone pages created for a specific campaign, sale, or product. Each page has a purpose, that is, to inform and act as a springboard to launch people onto the rest of your site. It’s important to remember this when building your landing pages.

Make sure that it’s easy for users to navigate to your main site while giving them actions to complete on the page. A really good, high converting landing page will contain:

• A short, sharp, and snappy headline
• Informative subheaders
• Engaging and educational copy
• Eye-catching visuals
• Clear and powerful CTAs

Customers’ experiences are determined by these interactions. Adding personalization to these pages will surprise and delight. Once again, you should be testing the effects of these tactics on the user experience.

Creating better customer experiences

By focusing your attention on these three UX elements, you can improve the customer experience and create an unforgettable omnichannel journey. You start trialing these improvements in email campaigns or on your website, but testing is essential.

To learn more about CX and how to create powerful omnichannel customer experiences, check out our ultimate checklist to help you there faster.