3 Essential Ingredients for a Great Customer Experience
Your market is no doubt crowded with competitors and competitive forces that inherently mean your business needs to differentiate itself from “the crowd”. Customer “service” has long been considered table stakes in modern business. I.E. If your customer service is poor, your business will go backwards, with a clear and defined customer experience you business is a long way toward differentiating itself from the pack.
Firstly, what is customer experience? Forrester Research defines it in really clear terms – “How customers perceive their interactions with your company”. This encompasses a large array of initiatives, one of the most essential components of these initiatives is how you talk to your customers.
Continuum Innovation has conducted a significant number of interviews each year with the aim of understanding how to communicate with customers such that it enhances the customer experience.
Clarity – People appreciate being communicated with in a fashion that is free of the technical mumbo jumbo from your industry. If you are in the air conditioning business for example, talking to a customer about Kilowatts or BTUs is high risk at not necessarily aligned with the customers technical knowledge. Instead, communicating with a client in their terms (wants, needs and requirements) provides certainty. Talk to the customer like a human in other words.
Certainty – Making an assumption about who a person is or what their requirements, potentially creates a “one size fits all”, this is a thing of the past. People have different needs at the start of a relationship with a company than they do as established “users” of your product or service.
Honesty – “level with me”, the internet has given customers and clients an amazing array of information. Customers will expect you to be honest with you on every level, from product / services features as well as shortcomings, benefits and challenges with using the product and finally how you make money from the product or service.
A really well executed customer experience is multi faceted, it requires development and planning and is an important part of your business. When designing and planning the personal interaction component – consider these three essential ingredients.
