No company out there that wants to provide bad customer service. Everyone is focused on the customer experience or CX, and every company claims to be focused on creating a “good” experience for their customers. After all, that is what customers expect from businesses in our current marketplace.

What is a “good” customer experience?

Sometimes, good enough indicates that you’re trying not to create a bad experience. To bring in customers and keep them, you’re going to need to do more than that – you need strong customer experience management.

We live in a world where online reviews guide decision-making. Customers who have a great experience will leave positive feedback on review platforms and various forums, such as Quora, Reddit, or other social media platforms. By doing it, they help new customers discover what you have to offer, what potential issues may arise, and how responsive you are. Customers are just as likely to leave negative reviews and complaints if you fail to resolve their issues and they aren’t wowed by your services.

Here are three reasons why you should prioritize your customer experience and consumer issues resolution and what customer reviews have to do with it.

Customer Reviews Drive Business

As consumers, we put a great deal of faith in what other customers say. Review websites like  BBB, PissedConsumer, or Yelp allow consumers to share their experiences with others. Recent online review trends show that customers actively read and rely on other consumer opinions about local businesses, with 95% of would-be customers reading those online reviews before making a purchasing decision.

Online reviews can make or break a business, but customers also know that everyone makes mistakes. Unresolved consumer issues lead to negative reviews, which decrease customer loyalty and damage your business reputation.

Fortunately, your approach to the customer experience extends to reviewing websites and social networking, and this gives you a chance to publicly interact with frustrated customers. You can show how much you care about resolving consumer issues, fixing negative experiences,  and bringing them back into the fold by making things right.

Brand Loyalty Is Tethered to Customer Experience

Earlier on, many companies depended on brand loyalty as a major part of their business model. If a customer was satisfied with a purchase, they would likely come back and make a repeat purchase down the road without much work from the company itself. Those days are gone.

Now, almost a third of customers will walk away from a company they love after a single bad experience.  It doesn’t matter how much the customer loves your widget or clothing line. If you don’t address their issues and they have a bad customer experience, they won’t be back. And worse – they will tell their friends about it, too.

To build brand loyalty in the modern world of retail, you must build a relationship with customers. Customer experience is brand loyalty, and customers want human interactions. According to PwC, as many as 82% of customers want to interact with employees at your company to create what feels like a bespoke experience.

Culture Is Linked to Customer Experience Management

Your people matter. You make a point of hiring the right people, and you want to keep them. Finding and training new people is time-consuming and expensive, so every employee you have is an investment in the future of your business. The way you treat your customers is closely tied to how valued your employees feel as well. It’s a trickle-down effect.

The company culture you create will be evident to your customers. If your employees feel valued and enjoy their work, that pride in your company and what it stands for will be evident in employee-customer interactions. Angry and burned-out employees who are not interested in resolving consumer issues aren’t going to help your company shine.

Your customer experience management plan should really be a “how your company treats people” plan. Treat both employees and consumers with respect and kindness. Every customer matters just like every employee matters, and you want both to feel valued.

There are additional benefits to allowing employees to feel empowered and meaningful at their work. If your customer service team feels confident when engaging with customers, they can help find the right solution to their concerns. This creates happy customers and a channel for information and problem-solving that can improve your company over time.

With a strong customer service focus, you can go from simply pacifying customers with canned responses to using feedback regarding consumer issues as one of your most valuable tools in transforming your company and its products and services.