I’ve found the secret to success in customer experience.
Here it is: It depends.
That’s right, the secret is completely ambiguous. Let’s clear that up.
It depends… on the customer’s expectations.
Which is why customer experience is such a difficult thing to define. I ran across this definition recently on GetFeeback.com, part of a firm that specializes in applying artificial intelligence to customer data.
“Great customer experience means meeting or exceeding the expectations of your customer during all interactions with your company.”
That states the idea of CX pretty well. Of course, it’s much more complicated to actually do it.
In my work, I find that getting our brains around what customer experience means is huge. It’s more than just consistently good service. That’s just the baseline, the table stakes if you will.
Our friend Shep Hyken describes it as “customer amazement.” Shep says that means “being consistently and predictably better than average.”
Which doesn’t sound like a high bar until you break it down and apply it across your business. Every interaction with every customer every time. That’s when you realize that it’s impossible without a culture focused on experience, without the systems and hiring and development and rewards and recognition all based on what you do for that customer.
So, back to the basics. What is customer experience?
It’s what YOUR customer expects and how you can exceed those expectations every time.
Easy, right?
I’d love to talk about what that means for your company. Send me a note or book a call and we’ll chat.
Talk soon.