Thanks to a steady stream of advances in technology, businesses are forced to stray from the traditional methods of differentiation. Instead, the customer experience has become the primary differentiator. If a business doesn’t devote its time and resources to coming up with the right customer experience, it might never succeed.

Adding to the challenge, though, is the fact that engaging your customers is much more complex these days. Internet has made the world smaller. Now, your competitors can come from all over the world. There is no such thing as a geographic barrier anymore. Second, the number of mobile devices has skyrocketed. As a result, the way people get information – and the way they use that information – is totally different. People expect to have information available at their fingertips anytime, on any device, in an easily-transmissible digital format. And, they want that information to be tailored to their individual needs, whether they’re reading an article, shopping online or calling a customer service department.

Instead of being able to lead potential customers through the sale cycle and into the buying cycle, the customers are the ones with all of the power. They can make buying decisions without ever talking directly to you – which means that the customer experience matters more now than ever.

Customer Experience Definition

In order to provide the very best customer experience, though, we need to define customer experience in the first place. Customer Experience is the sum of all interactions that a customer has with a supplier of goods or services, over the duration of the relationship with that supplier. It is not solely transactional, though transactions may be part of the experience. It is not limited to customer service department, instead is spans all of the channels in which your customers interact with your brand.

Customer Experience Challenges

Technology adoption is exploding. The speed and breadth of adoption has accelerated due to mobile devices, universal access, social media, data growth, and cloud technologies. That is one of the reasons why the customers now call the shots. We have to accept that the balance of power between buyer and seller has changed forever. Customers will call more shots and set more agendas than ever before.
We are challenged by customers that want personal and engaging experiences that develop into relationships. Much like the trials and rewards of personal relationships, when done right, brand relationships can grow into lifetime commitments. When done wrong, they can lead to painful breakups.

Because it’s often difficult to see mistakes until it’s too late, we’ve listed a variety of common mistakes that businesses are making with their customer experience:

• Disconnect from social dialogues which can results in lost customers
• Disconnecting different units from each other, resulting in inconsistent answers from the same company
• Lacking centric content that allows customers to find all of the necessary information on the company website
• Having channel experiences that vary from one to the next and frustrate customers
• Making irrelevant offers that only wind up distracting customers
• Having untimely problem resolutions that increase costs and reduce loyalty
If you compromise on your customer experience in any way, you’re going to wind up with frustrated customers. The more frustrated they are, the more likely they are to abandon you altogether. The best way to find out if your customers are upset with experience you’re providing is to listen to them carefully. Here are some common questions that people ask when a business’ customer experience is lacking:
• “Wouldn’t it be nice if they rewarded me for all of the business I did with them?”
• “Why can’t I find the answers I need on their website?”
• “Why is there only one delivery option?”
• “Why doesn’t the customer service agent know what’s in my cart when I click on ‘Chat Now’?”
• “Why can’t the company see my order history?”
• “Why didn’t I get the promotion coupon?”
• “Why didn’t they tell me about that special offer when I was shopping on their website?”

As you can see, these aren’t questions that they’ll necessarily ask you. So, you’ll have to put yourself in a customer’s shoes if you want to see where your customer experience may be lacking. And remember, customers don’t realise that there are so many different interaction channels. Instead, they think that any time they’re interacting with your brand they’re dealing with one unified entity. That’s why all of your interactions need to work with each other, instead of trying to fly solo. The key to winning customer loyalty is to adapt to all of the new ways that customers want to interact with you – not the other way around. If you can engage your customers across any channel, at any time, and on any device, you’ll see a lot more success.

In tomorrow's article, I'll be talking about how to deliver a great customer experience. 

 

By Cezary Repecki, Managing Director at Ronwe Ltd.

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