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Taking Real Customer Experience Marketing from Theory to Practice

by EMM Group

Customer Experience Design

Customer Experience (sometimes called CX) is all the rage in marketing circles, and for good reason. If you think about your own relationship with brands, you'll quickly recognize that it's really your experience as a customer (be it a consumer or a business) that defines that relationship. It's not the special offers, the content, or any other single piece of the puzzle that determines your reaction when that brand crosses your mind, it's the entire holistic package.

It's how they made you feel or added value to your business.

In a recent interview, marketing futurist, Brian Solis, had some interesting things to say about why CX is so important. But the resulting article didn't get into the real meat we're all hungry for: how to create and maintain a great customer experience.

First, let's review some of the great points Brian makes, then let's fill in the blanks a little bit.

The What and Why of CX

As Solis highlights nicely in this interview, customer experience is everything to the modern marketer. Consumers and businesses alike not only desire a great customer experience; they feel entitled to it. And, studies have proven they're willing to pay more when they're confident of getting one.

We can see this at work every day as millions of people stop to buy a $6 coffee at Starbuck's. They're willingly paying a premium price on a commodity product because Starbuck's knows how to deliver a fantastic experience.

As the article also brings out, getting CX right is not an easy proposition. It's hard work with justifiably valuable rewards. And key among them is differentiation revolving around providing a unique and/or more satisfying experience than your competition.

Finally, we truly appreciated this quote to help you do just that. Referring to experiential marketing, Solis noted, "It should not be left to chance. It should be intentional." This is so important to understand.

The All-important How

Although this article contains tons of great information, it stops short of digging into how marketers can actually apply the obvious recommendation to formulate and execute that CX strategy. Here are some solid tips to help you do just that:

First, you'll need to lay the groundwork by answering some questions:

  • What is your customer's current experience?
  • What could or should that experience be in light of your brand, your promise, and what you want to be in your market?
  • What are the gaps between what your customers are experiencing right now and what you want them to experience?
  • What is the value of improving and how will we measure?

It may seem simplistic to go through this exercise, but in our experience, far too many marketing strategy discussions start and end with shiny new tactics and buzzwords, but precious few actually bother to perform a gap analysis and get to the bottom of what is actually needed to move forward successfully. Plus CX is so broad by definition and can be so encompassing in action, one needs these definitions to reduce scope creep and define success.

Next, map the customer's general experience in your product or service category. Determine where customers tend to be dissatisfied and where they get delighted along the way. How do the results of your gap analysis compare to this wider industry view?

This should incorporate every aspect of the journey from awareness to the purchase and beyond.

This exercise allows you to benefit from the experiences of your competition's customers too, surfacing opportunities for differentiation and added value. It also allows you to better prioritize your “To Do” list when working to improve the customer experience because it gives you a more holistic view of what the customer actually wants and needs from you.

What Can You Expect?

As mentioned above, this isn't an easy task. It's going to take significant time and effort. But the rewards are well worth it. If you need direction in discovering and improving your optimal customer experience, contact us for a discussion.

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Keywords: Customer Experience Design