In today’s age of the customer, brands have embraced customer experience (CX) as a key competitive differentiator. Deloitte recently documented this trend in a survey in which 90% of respondents flagged improving CX as a strategic focus. Only 3% said revenue growth was the primary driver for their customer contact centers. The days of relentlessly focusing on cutting costs and offshoring are over, and inside sales and customer service teams are under fire to adapt to the new rules of the “CX Economy.”

The challenges that sales and service professionals face in this new economy include increasingly sophisticated customer expectations and the pressure to handle more complex customer interactions across a variety of channels: voice, web, social media, self-service chatbots and interact voice respondents (IVRs). More than 60% of consumers expect (registration required) companies to interact with them in real time — on any device and any channel. They want to move seamlessly from one channel to the next, pick up each conversation right where they left off and enjoy the same level of service across each interaction. They demand quick resolutions to their problems with the least amount of effort, and — above all else — they want to feel good about their experience.

Forrester’s most recent CX Index survey (registration required) revealed that emotional experience accounts for almost half of customer loyalty to a brand. Similarly, a study published in the Harvard Business Review found that on a lifetime basis, emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly satisfied customers. That research also identified some key customer emotional motivators, including the desire to feel a sense of belonging (“that brand really ‘gets me’”) and to be thrilled by the shopping experience.

For brands to compete — and win — in CX, inside sales reps must focus on making strong emotional connections with prospects and understand and document the emotions that will drive the prospect to purchase. Service leaders must ensure their teams optimize processes and communication in ways that create positive emotional experiences for customers. Many businesses still struggle with operationalizing these emotive aspects of sales and service.

Getting Started — Implementing A CX Program

A good first step in establishing more emotive customer interactions is to think about the high-level touchpoints in your customer experience. There’s no need to map out every single step of the customer journey — that’s inflexible and counterintuitive. Instead, take a macro-level view of the customer experience and live by the Peak-end Rule, which states that the “memory of a past experience (pleasant or unpleasant) doesn’t correspond to an average level of positive or negative feelings but to the most extreme point and the end of the episode.” Figure out the “peak(s)” in your customer experience and how you can proactively create positive emotive peak experiences.

Ensuring That Technology Is Part Of The Solution

Advances in sales and customer service technology can help businesses establish more emotionally satisfying customer experiences by: