Just as a picture says a thousand words, a logo says volumes about your brand. Not only does it help set your business apart from the competition, but it also tells your customers what it has to offer.
But logos are more than just calling cards for your business and what it offers. Believe it or not, your logo also makes up a big part of the customer experience. The following explains how great logo design also has a sizable impact on the way customers engage with your business.
What is “Customer Experience” and Why Is It Important
Having a great product is only part of the recipe for success. The way people perceive your brand and, more importantly, the way your customers and company interact with one another also plays a driving role in your business’s success. The happier your customers are with your brand, the more loyal they’ll remain over time.
So, it’s no surprise that customer experience or “CX” plays a key role in a successful enterprise. In a nutshell, customer experience is all about how people see your brand and the interactions they have with your brand. Get it right and your customers will see your brand in a positive light with the sales figures to prove it. Get it wrong and your bottom line pays for it dearly.
You’re probably wondering if “customer experience” is any different from “customer service.” Think of it this way: an employee can provide great customer service through courteous and knowledgeable interactions with customers. A company, on the other hand, can provide a great customer experience through perks, upgrades and an overall great experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
The customer experience is more than just the interactions between your business and your customers during the sale. In fact, it starts the first moment your customers lay eyes on your logo. That’s why you’ll want your logo to convey precisely what your brand stands for and what it has to offer.
What Makes a Good Logo for CX
Your logo is the face of your business. It’s usually the first aspect of your business anyone sees, making it the most memorable aspect in most customers’ minds. Designing a great logo is one thing, but creating one that helps delivers a great customer experience
The best logos – and the best branding, for that matter – feature simple, straightforward designs. A well-designed logo can tell a brand’s story in a single glance without the need for unnecessary complexity. A simple logo design can also be timeless, able to last decades with little to no changes.
A good logo for CX is also one that’s memorable. One thing that a lot of the most iconic logos have in common is that they’re all easy to remember. Having memorable logos helps businesses stay in customers’ minds while also alleviating the need for continual marketing to an extent.
People also find and develop personal connections in brands and logos are no different. You’ll want a logo that’s able to capitalize on the customers’ desire for hyper-personalized CX. Great logo design for CX also appeals to customers’ emotions. After all, researchers found that over 50 percent of CX is based on emotions that ultimately drive purchasing decisions.
Finally, you’ll want your logo to work across all platorms – print, mobile, etc. Your logo should look just as good on paper as it does on the computer screen or on a smartphone.
How to Design a Logo
Designing a great logo for CX is no easy feat, even for seasoned graphic designers with decades of experience under their belts. Consider the design process for the average logo and what’s needed at each step:
- Discovery – Learning more about the client’s business, including its core values, history, audience and competitors
- Research – Learning more about the client’s industry at large and how to differentiate it from competitors
- Brainstorming – Developing ideas and exploring all possible design directions
- Sketches – Creating logo concepts based on clearly defined criteria
- Selection – Choosing the strongest and most promising designs
- Refinement – Making various tweaks and adjustments to create and refine the final product
- Presentation – Showcasing the strongest logo concepts for final selection by the client
You can leave the logo creation process up to a seasoned design agency or opt for a freelancer to handle the work. Freelancers often cost less to work with but the level of experience and talent may be drastically different from that offered by an agency.
Of course, you can also make your own logos using a broad range of automated design tools, including logo generators that feature template and font libraries. These tools can help make the process faster and easier, but allows for less customization.
Additional Branding Tips to Improve Your CX
Utilize Chatbots for Customer Support
What can a chatbot do for your CX? Consider that a recent survey found that 60 percent of customer support users hated waiting more than a minute for a response. Using live support software like Chatbots help customers stick around by offering friendly, prompt responses to their brand queries until an experienced customer support specialist can take over.
Like logos, a chatbot is only as good as the personality and values of the brand it’s used for. Customization features allow businesses to inject a bit of warmth and personality into a chatbox, thereby keeping its conversations from seeming too robotic to customers.
Collaborate with Social Media Influencers
Keep in mind your customers aren’t all in one place, especially in the realm of social media. You may have customers spread out across multiple channels, which makes any one-size-fits-all approach to CX a choice that may not give you the best results.
Influencers in social media can open doors and give your brand greater access to otherwise hard-to-reach social media channels. Social media influencers not only raise awareness across multiple channels, but also drive customer engagement along with purchases.
Here’s a couple of things to consider when looking for the ideal influencer:
- Relevancy – You’ll want an influencer whose content and message meshes with that of your brand and company values.
- Engagement – You’ll also want an influencer with a broad reach. Consider their follower and/or subscriber count, as well as how often they like, share and comment on content. Consider if their everyday interactions with their follower base is mostly positive or negative.
Generate Relevant Content for Your Audience
Content is still king and your customers are constantly craving content. Thing is, it has to be relevant to your audience’s interests before it takes off. Some brands achieve this by generating free educational content leveraging the knowledge and expertise of the brand’s various experts.
Use your social media analytics to find out what’s trending among your audience. These tools also give you insight into the top-performing posts and how to grab some of that success for your own business. You can also poll or survey your audience on the topics and content they want to see most.
Improve Your Website’s Usability
A poorly designed website can have as much of a negative impact on CX as a poorly designed logo. The last thing you’d want is customers perplexed by confusing navigation, frustrated over poor usability on mobile devices and turned off by unattractive color choices.
One way to improve your website’s usability is through responsive design. Designing your website to be functional and aesthetically pleasing whether it’s accessed through mobile or desktop can help improve CX.
Conclusion
You’d be amazed at what a great logo design can do for your business’s customer experience. Think of your logo as a lightning rod that attracts countless strikes that would otherwise land elsewhere. An attractive logo plays into CX by drawing would-be customers into the fold. The more customers get to know your brand, the more trusted it’ll become and the more repeat business you’ll gain from loyal customers.
