What is the value of a happy customer? Quite a bit.

According to research, hanging on to existing customers boosts your bottom line: a 5% increase in customer retention can result in an increase in revenue of between 25 and 29%. It’s also much simpler (and less expensive) to keep customers than it is to find new ones. With the cost of customer acquisition about 5 to 25 times higher than the cost of customer retention, it makes sense to focus on keeping your customers happy.

It’s not surprising that Customer Experience (CX) is a strategic focus for many companies right now; according to McKinsey, improving CX is a priority for customer care leaders, although Forrester data shows that 90% of CX leaders aren’t sure where to start when it comes to improving customer journeys and experiences.

What is customer experience?

Gartner defines customer experience (CX) as “perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels or products.”

In other words, customer experience is your customers’ entire experience with your brand, and their feelings about your brand based on that experience. A positive and memorable customer experience can create loyalty among customers, reduce churn, and encourage repeat business.

Happy customers are likely to make more purchases from your business, refer friends, and even be your brand’s ambassadors online and in person. Word of mouth is the best advertisement, after all.

The difference between customer service, customer success and customer experience

It might be tempting to use customer experience interchangeably with customer success and customer service, but although the terms are related, they don’t mean the same thing.

Customer service helps resolve problems for clients. Customer success is focused on helping clients achieve their goals. Customer experience, however, provides a memorable experience at every single point of your customers’ journey with your company. In other words, both customer service and customer success fall under the CX umbrella.

CX challenges faced by companies right now

There have been some unintended consequences of companies’ intense focus on customer care: buyers have been conditioned to expect more. Rising customer expectations can be hard to meet, especially when paired with other challenges, such as increased call volumes, inflation, and contact center employees leaving their jobs.

More than half of customer care managers told McKinsey they were losing employees, both to burnout and to competitors poaching their CX talent. With calls from increasingly savvy customers on the rise – customers who aren’t afraid to take their business elsewhere if customer care isn’t up to par – companies are having a tough time improving CX.

How can customer training help?

With call volume up and a reduction in CX agents, customer care managers can turn to customer training to help improve the customer experience. ​​How? By empowering customers to effectively and independently utilize a product or service on their own. Here are a few ways customer training can improve the customer experience:

1. Improve product knowledge: Customer training provides customers with comprehensive knowledge about the product or service they have purchased. Consider the training Apple provides for customers: buyers are able to take courses on everything from photography to basic computer courses. This type of customer education goes beyond features, functionalities, and benefits: it also includes tips and tricks that will make them power users of your product.
2. Self-service: When customers know all about your product, they become self-sufficient. They’re able to do some of their own troubleshooting, and they’re less dependent on customer support. No one likes to have to call in and ask for help, so training customers to handle issues on their own is a positive experience for your buyers and your agents.
3. Make support engaging: You likely have a lot of customer support materials already:  user guides, tutorials, videos, or FAQs. These resources anticipate and address common customer questions or concerns, but they’re probably not terribly engaging. Very few people read manuals for fun. Turn the information you have into engaging customer training.
4. Personalized learning: Customers expect a personalized experience from you. By tailoring your training to individual customers or customer segments, you allow them to learn at their own pace and focus on the areas that are most relevant to their needs.

Driving recurring revenue with exceptional customer care

Customer care is part of an organization’s culture. It’s not something that is just the responsibility of your CX team, and in fact, it requires a long-term commitment to building relationships, delivering value, and exceeding customer expectations.

Training arms your buyers with the tools they need to use your product well. When you demonstrate that you care about their needs, customers are more likely to stick with your company for the long term.