Customer Experience: Where Does the Battle Occur?

Study the Battlefield of Customer Experience

The battle of competition between business has traditionally depended on several factors. Location, environment, experience, price and customer service have traditionally been the arenas where business has waged the war of competition. Successful businesses have never been strong across all of these factors, but they do excel in certain ones that do attract customer attention for their service or product. Then, along came the digital age and disrupted the rules of the competition battleground. In today’s environment, the one singular factor that leads to success is the customer experience.

The Battle of Exceptional Customer Experience

The fact is, in today’s business environment, if you aren’t winning the war of customer experience, you are losing. The digital environment has changed the dynamic of customer choices, and if you aren’t meeting the exceptions, the customers will quickly go elsewhere. This environment is causing many businesses to struggle with this monumental change. They no longer are able to depend on price as the deciding factor in the battle for customer loyalty. Everything now depends on the customer experience.

Winning the War of Customer Experience

With customers demanding an omni-channel experience, business silos must be broken down. Here are 3 facts to consider about current customer demands:

1. 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal. Silos just don’t work anymore.
2. 45% of in-store consumers turn to social platforms on their mobile device to influence buying decisions. The brick and mortar is no longer the platform of success.
3. 54% of marketers cite not having consolidated customer view across channels as the biggest roadblock to a successful cross-channel experience. Business are operating blind.

Businesses who succeed will stay ever mindful that the customer experience lives across multiple channels.

Customer Journey Map Leads to Success in Customer Experience

A customer journey map presents your customer’s point of view, to include the customer journey across all channels, the highs and lows people feel while interacting with your business, and identifies potential opportunities. Use customer focus groups to truly understand the exact factors of their customer behavior. Using both traditional and online focus groups will bring a more accurate representation of customer habits. With those insights accurately illuminated, it’s time to use stakeholder workshops to bring home the case for a better customer experience. Reviewing and analyzing customer feedback can be a very humbling process.

Understanding the ever changing environment of the customer experience is crucial to success in today’s business environment.