Marketers want to ensure that their customers have a consistently good experience. They understand that it will go a long way to solve a key problem such as, “How can we sell more of product Y?”
We like to look at things from a slightly different perspective: “What’s stopping the customer from buying more of product Y?” By looking at the issue from the customers’ point of view, we bring a key insight to the table. And understanding this insight helps us to design a stronger customer-centric experience.
Our focus is in the digital space, but we understand that the digital experience is one facet of the overall experience. Devising a successful digital experience requires us to consider several factors such as demographics, psychographics, and competitive factors to name a few. And we need to consider these factors and their impact within both the digital and non-digital spaces.
The digital customer experience should not be designed in isolation. To achieve the optimal digital experience requires us to understand how that digital experience will work within the overall experience. On the flip side, designing the non-digital experience without understanding the role that digital may play could be detrimental to the end result.
These days, it is quite possible that your customer is in your physical retail location, talking with your sales/service representative on the floor, and checking out your website/app on their smartphone at the same time. Each of these touchpoints represents a unique customer experience. And if one of them is lousy, it can be potentially disastrous. It is essential that customer experiences be excellent across the board.
As a result of our customer-centric approach, our clients are bringing us in to participate in customer experience discussions regardless of whether the touchpoint is in the digital space or not. They want to ensure that the entire customer experience is holistic and that all the pieces are working in harmony with one another.
Recently we participated in an all-day session where we facilitated a discussion about the customer journey for a client in the healthcare industry. Some departments in the organization tended to look at the customer journey from their own lens. Others, because they didn’t have a direct connection with the customer, didn’t think they had an impact on the customer experience.
We helped all of them to understand the need to look at the journey from the customer’s point of view. We also began to help them understand the impact a decision might have on other parts of the customer experience – including those made by departments that don’t connect with the customer directly. Moving forward, the organization will be able to apply that perspective as they evolve their customer journey.