Speak to an Advisor
AU
EU
IE
UAE
UK
USA
SA
SG
Customer's changing expectations, preferences, and patterns of how and why they buy should be at the heart of any digital transformation. In this article, you'll learn what Customer Experience (CX) is and what makes it an experience your customer will remember.
Every product, every service, every interaction with a company is associated with experiences for the customer.
Digital transformation is the fundamental rethinking of a company's management to prepare products, services, and business models for the conditions of an increasingly digitised world. Operational customer relationships, business strategies, and processes are subject to a profound change process.
The changing expectations, preferences, and buying habits of customers are at the heart of Digital Transformation. By building on this, Digital Transformation initiatives can only thrive and come to life.
Digital transformation has brought this topic to the forefront, which is at least as important as the quality of products and services.
Customer experience is a topic that is not new in the world of marketing and sales but one that companies must clearly keep in mind in their operations to gain a place in the minds and preferences of their customers. Customer Experience is of great importance as the most important change feature and as a growth driver for every company.
When was the last time you were treated so pleasantly that you felt at home? Surely you can remember it easily. Our mind stores the moments where we feel happy and satisfied.
Or maybe you remember a time when you were treated so badly that you said something like: "I will never go back to this store or buy this brand again".
This is Customer Experience, which is CX.
CS is the total of how your customers perceive your company. It is how your customers perceive your brand based on their interactions and touch points with it. The better the interactions, the better the experience is rated.
CX encompasses the entirety of being a customer of your company, the entire customer journey, and every interaction, from the first impressions of their marketing to how the customer feels after the purchase when talking to your customer service. Everything a company does to put the customer first, manage their journey, and address their needs is found in CX.
Initiatives that do not sufficiently incorporate the Customer Experience and focus only on internal numbers are too narrowly focused and can only be short-lived.
Self-evident and basic features of a product or service must be right. And the better these are fulfilled, the more satisfied the customer is. The real enthusiasm comes when a product has positive features that the customer did not expect. These features only need to increase the performance a little, and the enthusiasm creates a disproportionate benefit for the customer. This means that the technical prerequisites for a strong foundation must be built, and high-quality and strategic communication measures must be developed because CS also means communication.
In a digital world where customers comment and share their experiences with a company in public forums, it has become essential for companies to connect with their customers on an emotional level.
The customer's overall perception of your company based on their interactions with the company forms the CX. Customer service and customer support are only part of it.
Customer service refers to specific touchpoints within the customer experience where a customer requests and receives support or assistance.
Example: If a customer cannot find the size of a particular model in a clothing store and an employee helps them find it, that's customer service.
Customer care often takes place in conjunction with a call centre. Its employees support customers throughout their experience with your products or services, regardless of where they need help (in-store, online, via mobile apps, etc.).
Employee Experience is the sum of all experiences an employee has with their employer. It also includes how an employee feels about their interactions with their employer throughout their professional relationship with them.
A positive employee experience leads to greater engagement, retention, performance, and long-term profitability. Employees who feel empowered, valued, and motivated at work are more likely to create an excellent customer experience.
UX refers to the specific end user, i.e., the person who uses the product or service, which is not always the customer. For example, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a large company may be the person who approves a new application that will be used by employees throughout the company. She/he is the customer; the employees are the users. A positive CX is a prerequisite for purchasing the product; a good UX is a positive user experience for the employee.
Customer Experience is not completely in the hands of a company. There are a few reasons for this:
Against this backdrop, what does positive customer experience look like, and how can the company achieve its CX goals?
There is no universal checklist to ensure a good customer experience. Your business is unique, and so are your customers. Nevertheless, in surveys that companies conducted with their customers, we found a number of common principles.
According to this, a good customer experience can be achieved if your company:
On the other hand, bad customer experiences also come in many shapes and sizes. One set of problems is commonly found in experience. Bad customer experience is caused by:
Think about the last time you were frustrated as a customer. There is a good chance that one (or more) of the above was the cause.
At the end of the day, however, the customer experience at your company is unique. You only learn about them if you open the door to customer feedback and then work on it. This applies to positive customer experiences as well as negative ones.
Competing brands offer equivalent products and services in terms of quality and price. The most important differentiator for customers is the customer experience they have with a brand.
It has become very easy for customers to switch brands if they are not satisfied. A poor customer experience can cost a brand dearly and will ultimately impact their bottom line.
Companies can invest in creating an excellent CX to retrain customers and improve business results. The measures are aimed at:
CXM is the process a company uses to manage and organise every customer interaction with a brand throughout the entire customer journey.
Customer experience management is defined as "the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations and thereby increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy."1
The goal of customer experience management is to optimise the customer's perception of the brand and, in the best-case scenario, to exceed their expectations. In this way, long-term customer relationships can be promoted and strengthened. Customer Experience Management is, therefore, a key practice for gaining a competitive advantage in today's hyper-competitive market.
For this reason, more than half of companies are expected to focus their future investments on customer experience innovation. The probability that the competition will focus on CX in the future is more than 50%, so an excellent customer experience management framework is a must for you. This is based on three pillars:
Customer experience management places the customer at the centre of the strategy and daily decisions. This benefits both your customers and your company because greater customer satisfaction through better experiences leads to greater brand loyalty and lower costs.
Customer experience is the perception that customers have of your company. CXM is, therefore, the practice used to optimise these perceptions.
Most companies say they want to differentiate themselves from the competition through excellent customer experience management, but few succeed in delivering an experience that truly sets a brand apart from its competitors.
So, how can companies excel in CX and reach a higher level of maturity? And how can they maintain this progress once it has been achieved?
The foundation of organisational maturity fundamentally lies in the systematic adoption and application of a set of sound, repeatable practices that lead to excellence. In the world of customer experience, maturity refers to the practices required to design, implement, and manage the customer experience in a disciplined manner.
We particularly recommend the approaches of Forrester Inc2, which has identified several key practices for achieving CX maturity.
Customers not only have an emotional relationship with a product or service but also with a brand. To create and foster this emotional connection with customers, you need the right community of people, systems, and infrastructure.
At a strategic level, many companies have now begun to align their goals and put the customer experience at the centre of their brand strategy.
Reference Literature:
Explore our Courses
Upcoming Course Dates
Corporate Training
Partnership
Certification Overview
IPM Certification
IPMA Certification
PMI Certification
PRINCE2® Certification
IPM Membership
Events
Mentorship
Articles
Expert Insights
Ebooks & Toolkits
Publish Your Writing
The Institute
Faculty
Global Advisory Board
Apply to Lecture or Volunteer
Apply to Intern or Campus Ambassador
