The customer experience is now the battleground for competitive advantage. In a global and information-rich economy, many of the familiar avenues to gaining and keeping a competitive edge, such as product innovation or speed-to-market, are not as effective as they once were. Faced with a market rife with product commoditization and marketing blitz (where customers are in control) a company’s competitive advantage depends on delivering a consistent, satisfying customer experience.
Delivering poor customer experience puts customer relationships and revenue at risk. It also leads to the destruction of enterprise value. “Suppose a customer calls to complain to your firm, and his complaint doesn’t get resolved. He may not actually defect to a competitor for some time, but the likelihood of his defecting has suddenly increased, and the probability of his buying more things from you has just as suddenly declined,” state Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., in their book Return on Customer. “When this customer hangs up the phone… your company loses value at that very moment.”
Even companies with the best of intentions have struggled with transitioning from the strategy to execution stage of customer experience management. Below are three Customer Experience Management best practices designed to help a business bridge the gap between “planning” and “doing.”
- Walk a Mile in the Customer’s Shoes: How many companies can confidently answer the question: What’s it like to be one of our customers? Most business still view their clients through functional silos which creates disconnected processes and a fragmented customer experience. Instead, aim for a cross functional approach that gives personnel on the front line the knowledge they need, when they need it.
- Recognize Customer Differences: From a business’s perspective, individual customers differ in two important ways: their value to the enterprise and their needs. Value and needs insight should be matched up to deliver targeted treatment strategies for different customers. Customers will be satisfied because experiences are tailored to their needs. Companies are happy because they are focusing resources on those customers that provide maximum value.
- Remember that CEM (Customer Experience Management) is not a One Time Event: How can CEM be sustained? Consistently and regularly taking the customer’s point of view is a prerequisite for motivating customers to change their behavior. With that foundation in place, the organization can design interactions that are not only profitable to the company but also engender customer trust.
To truly deliver successful customer experiences across all touchpoints, from sales to marketing to customer service, a company must first understand who its customers are and how they differ based on their value to and their needs from the company. Most companies aim to retain customers for a lifetime, and it requires foresight to understand who your valuable customers are, what they need now, and what they will want in the future.
Do you have a current map of all customer interactions across touchpoints? Do your employees have access to the knowledge they need to deliver positive customer experiences?
About Wendi McGowan