Memorable Experiences for the Customer
There are many interactions that a person or company as a customer has with its suppliers. These interactions are of different nature. For example, I as a customer of a cell phone company I can have a first interaction with it through advertising does. My first experience can be positive, if the message I try to send me captive, if your offer appeals to me, whether the way in which I do get the message seems interesting and I generate interest. I can then make the decision to contact this company for more information and even to evaluate a possible purchase. But that interaction is through the telephone line is not a positive experience, because the care is poor, do not have complete information, there is a personalized, but it shows an interest in selling, etc.. How many times have you as a customer experienced this kind of experience?.
The problem is that the companies have designed their business processes in isolation and without a primary focus on how the client interacts with the company. In most cases, there has been an approach to design and define each of the points of customer interaction in a structured way. For example, marketing is what you define your message and how it makes them leave the market, but certainly does not have any interest in defined as the client is served by the contact center, or an interaction is handled when a client presents a complaint or claim. Normally there is no function within the company that is responsible for the design of customer interactions.
These are embedded in business processes defined by functional areas as marketing, sales, production, services, support, etc… This generates heterogeneity in the way the customer interacts with the company and the risk of generating inconsistent and unsatisfactory experiences is high. Therefore, the challenge is to identify which means a memorable experience for the customer and to establish mechanisms to implement and measure the delivery of these experiences.
Let’s start by defining what the customer experience is. Based on an article in Harvard Business Review in 2007, the authors, Meyer and Schwager define customer experience as follows: “The customer experience is internal and subjective response customers to any direct or indirect contact with a company. Direct contact usually occurs in the process of purchase, use and service and is usually initiated by the client. Indirect contact involves, most often unplanned encounters with representations of the products, services or brands of a company and is expressed in verbal or critical recommendations from other clients, advertising, news reports, reviews, etc.. “