Marketers are struggling with a fundamental question right now “What is great customer experience?” Is it a marketing strategy? Is it just a fancy word for Customer Service? Does it really matter?
What Is Great Customer Experience? The Customer View
For customers a great Customer Experience is having positive interactions with your company at every single touch point.
Some steps during the customer journey are in your control, some are not. For example we recently featured the Lego Customer Experience map in our round-up of Customer Journey Maps. You can clearly see here there are some steps in the journey, like boarding the plane and take off, that were out of the control of Lego’s control to manage.
Source: http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/legos-building-block-for-good-experiences/
What is most important to know is that research shows that just one bad experience with your brand will send your customers to a competitor. This isn’t just a few pro-active people, check out our Customer Experience white paper which puts this figure at 89% of all US customers.
So you have to be aware of all stages that could affect the customer’s experience. Unfortunately you may have managed their experience from acquisition, to conversion, but select the wrong fulfillment provider (like an unreliable courier service) and it will reflect on your brand.
What Is Great Customer Experience? The Company View
Forrester always maps Customer Experience on one side of a line of visibility. On the one side are all the things the customer can see making their Customer Experience a great one.
Behind that line is a lot of back-end activity and stakeholders all contributing to the successful outcome of the customer’s experience.
It’s hard for organizations to think about Customer Experience much beyond the direct interactions the customer has with the brand. But you must because every person’s role in the business has the ability to make an impact on the Customer Experience.
The Six Disciplines Of Great Customer Experience
Forrester has identified six disciplines to master and mature into a Customer Experience Leader.
- Strategy
- Customer Understanding
- Design
- Measurement
- Governance
- Culture
By systematically working through each of these the brand can align Customer Experience across the organization and provide guidance that works irrespective of the department or individuals’ role.