WHAT IS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?

Customer experience (CX) is the summation of all the interactions between a customer and an organization. These interactions can take place in a single instance or over an extended period of time. In today’s marketplace, customers are gained or lost based on the total set of experiences they have with a business and what they think and feel about them.

Organizations that successfully deliver superb experiences reap great rewards. Exceptional CX can result in lifelong brand loyalty, higher customer satisfaction, lower churn, and increased revenue.

Great companies understand the importance of delivering a complete customer experience. They see the benefits in their business each day. But how exactly do you quantify the critical nature of improving the customer experience? 

Here are a few statistics to consider:

• 58% of people never use a company again after a negative experience
• 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated
• 55% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience

Core areas of customer experience:

Delivering outstanding experiences requires focus and continual improvement of all aspects of the customer relationship. The following are the major areas to rally the organization behind when it comes to designing and improving customer experiences:

1. Marketing is how potential customers learn about a product and determine if it might be a fit to help them solve a problem. It is the product promise. Marketing tactics are taking on new forms as people grow increasingly connected. These new forms include social platforms, online reviews, and company-published content.
2. Sales include the consideration and evaluation phases of the buying process. Prospects educate themselves about the product with the help of the company and determine if the solution is right for them. This is done through a combination of self-service channels and by interacting with company representatives.
3. Technology refers to the core set of features or services that customers pay for and use. For software companies, the technology is the actual software. For other types of companies, think of the technology as the physical good or service sold, like a phone, credit card, or insurance policy.
4. Supporting systems make it possible for the company to deliver the product or service. These are internal systems that the customer rarely sees but impact the CX such as billing, provisioning, analytics, and more.
5. Third-party integrations enable customers to seamlessly incorporate new products into their existing ecosystem of solutions.
6. Support describes all the help-related activity that guides the customer to achieve something meaningful with a product. This could be anything from answering customer questions, training, providing self-help resources, or assisting in integrating the product with existing systems.
7. Policies are the rules that companies set to govern how they do business and how people in the company act. For example, a company can have a flexible, no-questions-asked return policy or uphold greater restrictions with no exceptions. These types of procedures impact the CX.

Product managers work cross-functionally with sales, support, and other teams that have an impact on the value the customer receives. This cross-functional work is especially important in large organizations where the CX can become disjointed because the company provides multiple products across siloed teams.

Improving customer experience:

Improving CX — and delivering a complete experience — requires thinking more broadly about the products and services offered and how to optimize every aspect of the customer journey.

Consider the following:

• Understand the customer journey
• Prioritize everything
• Centralize feedback
• Increase accountability
• Report on progress