A happy customer is almost always a loyal customer. Experiences that make customers feel “wow” can drive incredible value: improving trust, increasing customer retention, generating more recommendations, and increasing sales.

All of these benefits help do one crucial thing: boost revenue.

According to a 2021 Forrester study heading of numbers box

PwC found that 73% of consumers rank CX as one of the essential factors in their purchasing decisions. Only “price” and “product quality” were ranked higher.

It’s simple math! Keeping customers happy keeps your business growing.

Customer experience management becomes a true superstar in an economic downturn. Studies even show that the best way to prepare for recession is to differentiate through CX.

It’s easy to see how:

When the economy is down, it’s time to focus on what makes your company resilient. Happy customers are resilience strategy No. 1.

As Walt Disney once said, “You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”

No matter what the economic outlook is, customers still want human connection. Companies that can make business human will win loyalty from their most valuable customers. We’re seeing a shift in prioritizing empathy, authenticity, and personalization.

And customers are willing to pay a premium for that human connection. According to PwC, 42% of customers would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience. Harvard Business Review found that companies that showed the most empathy saw twice as much financial return as the least empathetic companies.

Here are a few areas where customers consistently say they want human assistance:

• Getting a new mobile plan
• Scheduling a medical appointment
• Signing up for a new bank account
• Making large purchases (TV, car, etc.)
• Getting tech support
• Resolving billing issues
• Getting medical support

Prioritizing empathy stands out even more in a tough market. A McKinsey study found the following about the 2008 financial crisis:

Resilient companies focused on maintaining loyalty among high-value customers that were central to the company’s growth post-recession. Think of public examples like Hyundai’s Assurance program, which allowed customers to return cars if they lost their jobs. In some cases, the resilients in our database were forgoing revenues they could have earned through pricing changes. By contrast, industry peers (who were not as financially resilient) were more likely to try and maintain revenue at any cost, applying price reductions haphazardly to products and services and sending mixed marketing messages.

Empathy sounds great, but how is it built? By listening. A key strategy in the coming year will be finding more and better ways to get close to your customers and listen.

Whether through conversational analytics, automated surveys, outbound calls, or other strategies, businesses can’t improve unless they hear from their customers. A study by Qualtrics found that the strongest leaders through the Covid-19 pandemic were checking the pulse on customers the most frequently. These leaders noticed small changes and deviations in customer feedback and were more adaptive to those changes.

Feedback doesn’t always mean direct reviews, either. Companies must be sharply attuned to patterns and trends among their customer base. Only one in 26 unhappy customers actually complain.

In 2023, CX strategies should pay close attention to the following:

“Conscious consumerism” has risen in popularity in the past decade. Fragile global markets can further increase consumers’ desire to be responsible in their purchasing.

Companies should introduce ethical options as part of the buying experience to stand out. Some examples of this include:

• Allowing customers to round up purchases and make a charitable donation at checkout
• Including ethical sourcing information in your product details
• Informing customers of the CO2 emissions associated with each garment or purchase
• Offering customers the option to choose drop-off points for delivery to reduce the carbon footprint of “last mile” transportation.

Building these ethical opportunities within the customer journey can increase trust, loyalty, and a positive brand reputation.

Competition for talent in the workforce is fierce. Companies are giving higher raises to their current employees to stave off the continuing impact of the “Great Resignation.”

Engaging employees may not seem like a CX trend, but it is. After all, an investment in your employees is an investment in continued customer service. The most innovative CX companies are deploying Employee Engagement strategies and platforms. These tools may use gamification, performance reporting, dashboards, and more to keep employees connected and engaged.

According to CX Today:

Focusing more heavily on employee and agent experience in the new age of work will help companies to not only delight their customers, but also retain key talent in the age of the Great Resignation.

The tech industry may be hurting, but tech solutions to our work are still on the rise. Some leading forms of technical innovation in CX are around new forms of customer self-service and AI personalization.

In fact, according to Zendesk, 67% of customers say they prefer self-service in many areas of brand interaction. Harvard Business Review reports that 81% of customers attempt to address issues themselves before contacting the company.

Another trend in tech is the rise of “phygital” CX. Phygital experiences integrate the physical and digital – used most effectively for large purchases like homes or cars. While the metaverse isn’t panning out how Mark Zuckerberg thought, CX is taking the lead in immersive customer experiences.

These digitally integrated experiences can include store experiences meant to be shared on social media or virtual tours and reality.

McKinsey studied the 2008 financial crisis and analyzed which businesses managed not just to survive but to thrive. Their results, published in the Harvard Business Review, showed some critical insights.

But by the time the recession had reached its lowest point in 2009, the resilients had increased their EBITDA by 10%, on average, while industry peers had lost nearly 15%. The resilients seem to have accomplished this by reducing operating costs earlier in the recession cycle, and more deeply.

In August 2022, most CX leaders projected that their budgets would increase in 2023. The survey, published by Forrester, called these projections “overly optimistic.” Now, as some of the most successful companies lay off thousands of employees, we can see that tightening the operational belt will be a significant factor in 2023.

The key in 2023 will be to find ways to do more with less – cutting operational costs without sacrificing customer satisfaction.