Customer Experience - The Differentiation Factor

Let’s say you are thinking of buying a new TV, what do you do? 

Call your “electronics expert” friend and ask for recommendations, ask Google for website pages where you can compare the features of different brands, or you go to your favorite brand website and browse their new releases. 

You might do all of this and more in order to take your decision. Why? Because the market nowadays is over commoditized with products competing for the same customer. 

The competition now is like a battlefield, and it is not at all easy to win. 

Another factor that makes winning so difficult is the revolution of the customer over the years, where the customer is highly educated about the services/products, and the expectation of the customer are rising to the point that organizations are no longer able to keep up with meeting these expectations. 

In the time of extremely competitive markets, organization will fail to compete merely on product/service features, price and/or promotions.

Then how can organization win the customer? How can organization increase their market share – or even maintain their current market share? 

The answer is customer experience!!

Customer experience (CX) can differentiate you as a brand from your competitors. According to various studies: by 2020 CX will over take price and product as the key brand differentiator. 

But how can you create great CX to win the competition? 

During my Customer Experience training I always ask this question to my learners, and they always reply with almost the same answer: Discounts or Free X, Y and Z. 

The customer is not always requiring free stuff. In many occasions the customer is willing to pay extra for outstanding customer experience they would like to have. 

The Voice of Customer (VOC) is the loudest voice now, and organizations needs to realize that any changes or any improvements to be done in the system needs to be in compliance with what the customer needs. 

As organizations you need to listen to your customers, you need to do whatever necessary to understand their wants and needs, to realize their expectations. You shouldn’t assume or predict that they would like this or appreciate that. You should collect the required data, study their trends and their likes and dislikes, then analyse these information to realistic conclusions.  Once that is done, you need to put on your creative hats and start thinking out of the box. It is not always about giving the customers what they want. It may be more important to decide on how you would do that?

Trust me, it is not always expensive. Many of the ideas that creates loyal customers through outstanding and memorable customer experience did not cost the brands a dime. 

You need to focus on CX, you need to make sure that your customers’ interaction with your company is smooth, pleasant and continuously improving, you will drive brand loyalty. 

 If you are not doing this now, then start doing it before it is too late. Otherwise you will be giving your competitors’ the best gift ever: your customers.