Are you loyal to a brand or the product?

Are you satisfied with your latest phone or are you indeed excited about it? Take a minute before answering.

Is it enough that it has a decent screen size, touch functionality, customizable UI, a shiny solid material that is water resistant? What if your phone could unfold to triple its size when you need to use it and fold back to a tiny little flat device back in your pocket? What if it can project any display onto a glass screen or simply into thin air, no matter what the size is? What if it never needs to be charged with electricity? And what if someone offers you such a phone for only a few extra bucks? Would you stick to your old phone because you were “satisfied” with it anyway and you have patronized that brand since forever? Or does the usage experience, innovative technology matter to you more?

As a customer, the definition of experience is dramatically changing. Good enough doesn’t cut it and just getting the job done is not as attractive as it once was.

I recently took part in a survey from a famous airline, where I’m a gold member. The questionnaire was rated on a scale of 0-10. Now, my flight experience was very satisfactory, no complaints, no problems. All fine. So I awarded them a score of 9 or 10 on almost all questions. Should this airline take this as my loyalty and feel relaxed and confident about my continued patronage with such feedback? Maybe not. If I get a chance to use another airline that “wows” me, that gives me an amazing experience on top of standard “non-problematic” features, a better membership model at similar pricing, I would most probably switch. Many would.

The same holds true for software and digital technology whether your business is B2B or B2C. The legendary software that the giant enterprises built back in the day, were a hit with customers. That isn’t good enough today. New kids on the block are coming up with software that is not only advanced in its features, but is technically deploy-able over mobile apps in a fraction of the time it takes established vendors to do so.

It’s a complete game-changer in the way today’s enterprise software is sold.

Demos and free trials of functional applications, instead of heavy PowerPoint based sales pitches by an army of salesmen in the room. Deployed and enjoyed quickly, instead of enduring long implementation cycles. Consumed through advanced, simple to use, intuitive user interfaces, as opposed to archaic ported data entry screens designed for scientists.

Since there are innumerable choices for every category of software, whether it’s on your desktop or mobile device, it’s very easy to switch digital products. Sometimes you may stop using one application in favor of the other, simply because you cannot choose your favorite color theme for various elements, no matter how smoothly it works.

In today’s era, with many software and mobile application vendors up-and-coming, whose software and mobile applications provide almost the same functions and features, it begs the question: What makes users stick to one application and ditch the other? What makes them loyal to your product?

User experience.

It’s imperative to aim for increasing customer loyalty. Your loyal customers spend 3 times more on your business than your non-loyal customers.

And here is the big question then: How should the legendary software giants listen to the true feedback of their customers, measure and then ensure the loyalty of their customers?

Is running a customer satisfaction survey, based on product features, its ease of use, number of users, price and availability the right measure? Or is it a combination of all these, plus user experience or lets call it emotional satisfaction? Asking your customers the right questions about their emotional experience with the product and the outcomes that it brings, is more solid feedback to check the loyalty meter.

Historically, it has been challenging to gather feedback on emotional grounds but with availability of big data and advanced tools, this has become far more easier to capture this abstract information. Vendors can then take an informed decision based on tangible data points, to enrich their products and innovate on the desired technology.

Different users may have different expectations of user experience. For some, it’s already incredible to experience the way different components and design elements of your application integrate and respond to various stimuli. For others, it’s the intuitiveness or predictive nature of the application, that brings forward just the data the user needs exactly when they need it. It may be the degrees of customization users enjoy when interacting with an application. The crux is, that it’s the WOW factor for the consumers. The “aha!” feeling that an application delivers, because it delivers more. This “aha!” feeling earns vendors loyal customers, repeat customers who statistically will also spend more each time they return.

The gist is that vendors need to ask the right questions. They need to focus more on experience than satisfaction, to deliver the right technology to their “loyal” customers and grow that loyal group.

How many vendors are doing this today?