Written by Is Customer Experience New?
No, not at all. Businesses, governments, associations, not-for-profits have been focused on the “customer experience” for years. From the beginning customer service was paramount to ensuring repeat sales and increased revenues. When customers visited stores and businesses, they appreciated the friendly greeting, expertise and personalized service. If there was ever an issue, businesses which were quick to resolve, retained hard-earned loyalty. When a business decided to get into a new line, offer new products or services or go into new markets, customers followed, sharing their confidence with friends, neighbors and family. Trust was king!
Customer Experience (CX) Today
As technology evolved, and the internet became “oxygen” for all of us, a paradigm revealed itself; the customer was now in charge. Over the past 10 years, companies and organizations struggled to keep up with the demands of the new empowered consumer. Shoppers, new more about a retailer’s products than sales associates, they also new more about the competition’s products. Policy holders were now one-click away to breaking with hundred year old family traditions, governments found themselves with thousands of websites that were not “mobile friendly”, social media was expected to be more than, well…social! Buzz words made speakers, sales teams and marketing leaders sound smarter. “Multi-channel”, “Omni-channel” were terms used loosely and companies claimed to be able to deliver on the omnichannel promise (I’m still not even sure if you spell it with a hyphen or without!?!
Bottomline is that people, prospects, customers, citizens want to interact with your brand the way THEY want to! And, they want to traverse multiple channels or touch-points (think desktop, mobile, phone, in person), whichever, whenever and however it’s convenient for them. They EXPECT this! If they can’t, they become unhappy, disgruntled or just pissed-off.
There’s the challenge! We have all heard about “the customer journey” and it’s all about the journey. What that means is, screw up in just one of these channels or touch-points and you risk losing your customer(s)…possibly forever! If you’re in government and don’t deliver a great experience online (especially mobile), then people will be In Line at service centers across the country or on hold creating cost and downtime for ALL of us.
Getting CX Right
OK, so Customer Experience or CX can be defined as all interactions, expectations and emotions a customer has during their entire journey with an organization.
A good friend I worked with for nearly 10 years used to say, “Understanding the customer is not rocket science…it’s harder!”
There is some truth to that statement. Think of the customers you have. They’re not all the same right? Different demographics, needs, wants, and with the right now world we live in today, customers’ expectations truly are higher than ever.
But, if you do it right, you will reap the rewards. Great CX is NOT about survey length, NPS or SAT score. It’s more about a mindset, a framework of strategy, technologies, methodologies, empathetic humans with skin in the game, true understanding of behaviors and attitudes and a 1000% focus on OUTCOMES…RESULTS. For your business and your customers. It truly is not easy to get right, but there are steps you can take to get closer.
CX Disciplines to Get CX Right
Below are 6 key disciplines your organization should be working on today. Putting the customer in the middle of every decision doesn’t happen overnight. Just like other key areas of business it takes time create the vision, plan, design, execute, measure and repeat. Delivering great customer experiences, doesn’t come from one champion, department or team. It takes the entire village!
- CX Strategy
- CX Intelligence
- CX Design
- CX Measure
- CX Connect
- CX Live!
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Dave Lewan 