The definition of success was never easy to explain or more so in today’s rapidly progressing business universe. With changing times and dynamics, business growth has different synonyms for different organisations.
No matter what the value proposition of a business may be, the end goals are eventually focused on making more sales and profits. The traditional methods of business growth have started extending nodes into various areas like data, technology, innovation and customer experience(CX). The idea is to provide excellent customer satisfaction to get more sales.
Until a decade ago, advertising had been the most effective medium of promoting a brand and reaching out to the masses. Despite the fact that it has always been a one-way communication where the audience was a mere receiver of the message and consumers having no room to share their critique.
With the growing presence of individuals and companies on social media, marketing and brand communication have built a two-way relationship with the customers. Consequently, targeted promotion through social media has created huge opportunities to market a brand.
Consumers have started interacting about their experiences with different products and services. Consumers’ concerns and expectations have got an open forum for discussions. Businesses have started aligning their growth strategies with a consumer-oriented approach. As a result, innovation with the purpose to fulfil consumer needs is not just gaining more traction but has also started showing results.
Traditional methods of business growth
Earlier, innovation and customer satisfaction were lesser practiced strategies when it came to making a brand grow. Most businesses depended upon market expansion, market penetration or brand extension as growth tactics.
Accordingly, the formula of business growth was majorly derived out of the two main intentions listed below.
Increase reach and acceptance of existing product or service
Market Penetration, Market Expansion, Product Adaptation
Increase the market share
Brand and line extension, Upselling and Cross-selling.
The modern business growth model with customer satisfaction as the backbone
1. Customer satisfaction through CX led innovation
The idea of business growth has grown out of the basic idea of creating more products and reaching out to more people. Modifying and improvising products and services to effectively serve specific market segments has a lot more value as it results in establishing trust and forming a better brand perception which ultimately leads to sales.
Brands like Paytm, the popular Indian digital payment portal are now aiming at good customer experience through innovation. Paytm has established multiple ways of making digital payments easy and accessible to the masses. As a result, it is proving to be a front runner in the QR code revolution .
Paytm was quick to observe an opportunity in the market where it could bring in a lot of convenience to the users by increasing the QR code capabilities.
Modern day business growth is aimed at delivering an ultimate customer experience through product innovation which further leads to customer satisfaction. Data and technology are the two enablers for innovation and a great customer experience.
Data
Gathering market data is extremely essential to understand the consumer needs, pain points and competition. Without having clear picture of all this, innovation would just be a broken boat at the harbour.
It also is the most important asset that a business possesses when it comes to providing personalised experience, independency and accurate information to a customer. As a result, using data to analyse the taste, preferences and habits of individual customers stimulates the organisation’s thinking. This eventually brings in innovation to design a better customer experience.
Technology
Since most of the businesses are adopting digital transformation to stay in pace with the tech savvy consumer world, there has been a rapid acceleration in the number of digital products in the market in the last few years.
Technology has evolved with a new form through the utilisation of data in back end innovation. Collecting and utilising offline data isn’t easy and time efficient. Digital technology not just makes data gathering easy but also helps in its accurate analysis.
Technological advancements have facilitated every aspect of product innovation in order to resolve the minutest customer problems.
2. Customer satisfaction through personalised and targeted communication
Social media has brought in a paradigm shift in the world of marketing. Leading to a two-way communication, collecting immediate feedback and understanding the customer needs has become very easy.
The amount and depth of robust data collected by social media platforms, has enabled businesses to maintain accuracy in targeting the audience. This has also helped in narrowing down the core message to appeal specific segments.
Consumers can share instant feedback and reviews regarding a product or service on a platform that has a global reach. If taken positively, this is the biggest advantage that businesses can avail to understand the pain points of their customers and their diverse needs.
How attaining customer satisfaction can help businesses?
To grow the market share
People are more keen on solving their regular hassle through a product or service that serves them the best. Hence, for businesses that look forward to achieve customer satisfaction, growing market share is easier by focusing on customer experience and innovation.
To get recommendations and referrals
If a customer is happy with a product or service, he or she would probably recommend it to others. Word-of-mouth is the fastest means of promotion and holds great value. Consequently, serving a small group effectively by solving their problems makes them satisfied and pleased to recommend your product.
Saving cost on advertising
Innovation and customer experience are both interdependent and are the only paths that lead to customer satisfaction. Achieving customer satisfaction is the most dominating criteria that builds leadership and credibility. Therefore, focusing on satisfying consumers puts business growth on auto-pilot without worrying much about investing into advertising.
Making more profit
Profitability is essential for every business to grow. The more the number of sales, the more is the profit. Increase in number of sales again comes through customer satisfaction which directly relies upon innovation and the quality of customer experience.
Takeaway – Customer satisfaction is the only way to sustained growth
Leveraging data and technology will eventually lead to customer satisfaction as they are the building blocks for innovation and customer experience. The everyday growing number of products and services in the market have doubled the urgency of making your way ahead through the competition. This can be only achieved by making your product or service better from the point of view of resolving the customers’ pain points.
Customer satisfaction is not only the key for business growth but it also creates brand differentiation. The success of a business lies in the success of its customers. Thus, CX led innovation is vital for the growth of a business. It’s not a fad that would soon die. It’s the only path to growth.
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