Any company’s relationship with its clients goes beyond just raising the product rating or increasing the number of positive reviews. Customer experience is for many companies a competitive advantage, an engine of growth and profitability. Its importance shifted to become a key focus for researchers and practitioners.
Each of us remembers his great customer experiences but much more the poorest one. When was your last disastrous customer experience? was it the last month or some minutes ago?
What I am sure of is that most of us reading this article today has got experience a bad time with a brand, a shop or a customer service these last days.
Since the offer exceeded by far the demand, similar services and products become available almost everywhere. People got access to multiple choices and having to change the usual provider become much easier for the customer but cost enormously for the provider. The customer experience becomes highly important.
Although this matter has been highly studied and discussed by the marketing professionals over years now, customers are still experiencing a bad time. Understanding human reactions in order to get the best out of the employees and the brand ambassadors have been discussed very well in theory but nothing ensures that it is or has been well applied. Customers still complain!
Customer experience can be explained as the emotions that result following the customer’s interaction with a given company during the period of the first contact, a perception. Mckinsey described it as an equation in which the expectations are deducted from the observed performance the customer get following his interaction with the supplier. The key element in here is the expectations, the result of, one or the ensemble of, word of mouth, previous experiences, and communication tools and strategies. In addition, online and offline experiences are very interrelated and one can impact the other highly.
What I am sure of is that most of us reading this article today has got experience a bad time with a brand, a shop or a customer service these last days.
Since the offer exceeded by far the demand, similar services and products become available almost everywhere. People got access to multiple choices and having to change the usual provider become much easier for the customer but cost enormously for the provider. The customer experience becomes highly important.
Although this matter has been highly studied and discussed by the marketing professionals over years now, customers are still experiencing a bad time. Understanding human reactions in order to get the best out of the employees and the brand ambassadors have been discussed very well in theory but nothing ensures that it is or has been well applied. Customers still complain!
Customer experience can be explained as the emotions that result following the customer’s interaction with a given company during the period of the first contact, a perception. Mckinsey described it as an equation in which the expectations are deducted from the observed performance the customer get following his interaction with the supplier. The key element in here is the expectations, the result of, one or the ensemble of, word of mouth, previous experiences, and communication tools and strategies. In addition, online and offline experiences are very interrelated and one can impact the other highly.
To provide an outstanding customer experience, the professional has to understand the customer journey, where it begins, starting from the moment in which the customer position the product or service in his mind and consider it till the realization of the action successfully. This is the only way to guarantee a satisfying customer journey and more important an action which guarantee a profit to the company and that might lead to a repetitive purchasing behavior as well. In return, this will ensure the company higher brand equity, which is generally speaking the company market valuation when added to the net asset value.
Five steps might be defined as a result: "The awareness, consideration, buying, service and finally support and maintenance". In overall, Customer experience is focusing on the customer's needs and wants and ensuring that the customer is the core, the center of the company’s attention. The company's purpose is to deliver a perfect experience at each stage of the consumption journey. On the other end of the tunnel, the consumer's purchasing behavior start with information start with information processing, exploration, justification to oneself that the action won't be followed by guilt and finally looking for affirmation. A purchase original is not always rational, it involves most of the time emotions, excitement and feeling good.
Five steps might be defined as a result: "The awareness, consideration, buying, service and finally support and maintenance". In overall, Customer experience is focusing on the customer's needs and wants and ensuring that the customer is the core, the center of the company’s attention. The company's purpose is to deliver a perfect experience at each stage of the consumption journey. On the other end of the tunnel, the consumer's purchasing behavior start with information start with information processing, exploration, justification to oneself that the action won't be followed by guilt and finally looking for affirmation. A purchase original is not always rational, it involves most of the time emotions, excitement and feeling good.
Source: Marketing Week 14.07.2016, by Tom Fishburne
https://marketoonist.com/
Different studies agreed on the fact that an existing customer cost six times less to serve than acquiring a new one. Also, the chances to keep a customer a lifetime are higher when he or she is satisfied. Moreover, a satisfied client is more likely to spread positive word of mouth among his or her circle of friends, family, and colleagues.
In addition, the digitalization changed the world in a way that everything became interconnected. The customer cannot be considered anymore as a passive recipient of the company's offerings. Consumers are looking nowadays for sophisticated ways of communication especially that the new technologies allow that and provide them with the possibility to shop in their own ways.
The digital stimuli affect the customer experience at almost all the degrees and suppliers who fail to deliver a perfect digital customer experience might start losing his market share to the competition, those who perform a great digital communication and information.
The digital stimuli affect the customer experience at almost all the degrees and suppliers who fail to deliver a perfect digital customer experience might start losing his market share to the competition, those who perform a great digital communication and information.
- First: the personalization. Consumers are increasingly using their own ways to fulfill their needs and acquire what they want. for instance, Google said that users are more and more using their mobile phone over their desktops and is highly recommending adapting the smart-phones to the users. Delivering an individual positive consumer experience rely often on a profound customer analysis. maybe even the analysis of the competition since the users are able to check more than one online shop and can compare the offers and identify the best or the most profitable. Personalization is working jointly with all the company’s members to provide the customer with the necessary information and solutions based on their behavior, browsing, and time spent checking the items, the items compared in the products list… and so forth.
Care and feeling valuable are important for the development of a positive attitude toward the company and its offerings. Also, the feedback system should be well developed as it is a source of a great amount of additional information that the consumer is willing to provide deliberately, a powerful insight into the whole journey. Measuring customer satisfaction help to reduce the gap between the observable performance and perception.
Care and feeling valuable are important for the development of a positive attitude toward the company and its offerings. Also, the feedback system should be well developed as it is a source of a great amount of additional information that the consumer is willing to provide deliberately, a powerful insight into the whole journey. Measuring customer satisfaction help to reduce the gap between the observable performance and perception.
- Second: the interactivity. Social media, mobile apps, augmented reality, information sharing and live video communications, on one hand, decreased the distance between the customer and the company's employees. In fact, the boundaries between them disappeared since the digital world was born. It is possible to say that the customer experience/reputation is the middle way between the customer and employee.
On the other hand, the interactivity gave to the client a position of control. The company's employee nowadays needs to be armed with great knowledge and capability to provide the consumer with the appropriate service, answer or solution to his or her inquiry at any stage of the customer journey (touchpoint). One way to think about it is that the immersion which is the degree to which the client has a feeling of being valued influence highly the customer experience.
On the other hand, the interactivity gave to the client a position of control. The company's employee nowadays needs to be armed with great knowledge and capability to provide the consumer with the appropriate service, answer or solution to his or her inquiry at any stage of the customer journey (touchpoint). One way to think about it is that the immersion which is the degree to which the client has a feeling of being valued influence highly the customer experience.
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