Over the last few years, “customer experience” has become a commonly
used phrase, but like “innovation” it is difficult to find a clear, common definition.
Of customer experience (CX). So, how we can really improve something if we
can’t even define it? What encompasses CX? How do we structure it? And, how do
we improve it?
People have been grappling with a definition of CX for
several years. Sometimes it’s defined as digital experiences and
interactions, such as on a website or a smartphone. In other cases, it is
focused on retail or customer service, or the speed at which problems are
solved in a call center.
According to the Harvard
Business Review, CX is the sum-totality of how customers engage with your
company and brand, not just in a snapshot in time, but throughout the entire
arc of being a customer.
Every company provides a CX. Your company provides a one too, even if you aren’t aware of it or
create it consciously. That experience may be good, bad or indifferent, but the
fact that you have customers, you interact with those customers in some way,
and provide them products, means that they have an experience with you and your
brand. Now it is up to you whether it’s fantastic, awful or average.
There is a strong case to be made that companies cannot
completely control experiences, because experiences inevitably involve
perception, emotion, and unexpected behaviors on the parts of customers. No
matter how well we craft an experience, people will not perceive exactly as we
anticipate. So, companies cannot afford to throw up their hands and give up in
the face of unpredictably. Instead, they need to plan for the worst and aim for
the ideal when considering the experiences they want to create.
CX may sometimes seem like something which appears as if by
magic, and only certain companies are able to create it regularly. The good
news is that creating a great CX does not require knowledge of magical
incantations, instead, it springs from controllable elements — the touchpoints.
These can be numerous and diverse, but they can be identified, crafted, and
integrated.
If this is the case, why are their only a few companies we
think of when it comes to great CX? Crafting a great CX requires enormous
amounts of collaboration across groups in a company that often work
independently and at different stages of product development. In many cases
marketing, product design, customer services, sales, advertising agency, retail
partners must all be working in concert to create even one single touchpoint.
About the Author: Amanda
Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist of the Marketing Division
at IIR USA, has a background in digital
and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy,
marketing, and technology. Amanda is a regular contributor to several of IIR’s
blogs including Front End of
Innovation, The Market
Research Event, Next Big Design,
Digital Impact, Customers 1st, and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business
Analysts. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a
Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the
technology industry. She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow
her at @AmandaCicc.
No comments:
Post a Comment