What's your customer experience strategy?

Market shifts—such as those discussed at right, and that show up in every Touchpoint Insights issue—have made customer experience a strategic imperative at the highest levels in most forward-thinking organizations.

But many don't approach it in a structured way. In short, they often try to improve experience the same way they deliver it: at the channel or silo level, rather than being guided by an enterprise-wide strategy.

It's past time for this to change. Your customer experience strategy should align with your plans to meet or exceed customer expectations. Including the touchpoints customers encounter and the processes and systems you use to interact with them, customer experience strategy has implications for virtually every aspect of your organization.

That's because it flows from the company's business and brand strategies, and it helps you to turn vision into reality.

Just as brand strategy supports your business strategy by creating (and managing) customer expectations, customer experience strategy helps your company meet or exceed those expectations.

Of course, you first need to understand what your customers' expectations are. Which brings us back to the core message in over half of this month's Tweets.

So if you don't already, it's time to listen to (and understand) your customers, and their wants and needs. And start thinking about the CEX strategy that will help you deliver on your brand.

Best,

Michael Hinshaw
Managing Director
MCorp Consulting

In brief, this is (and will
continue to be) an
evolutionary process.
For now, we're looking at
a combination of:

- Clicks
- Mentions
- RTs (retweets)
- Reach (of a tweet)

Our baseline (0) is a
Tweet that has reached
only my approximately
3,000 followers, and
opened (read) only an
average number of
times.

Insights and Influence in 140 Characters or Less…

Yes, customers are getting more impatient and more demanding as they push companies to better understand their goals. And to top it off, we want the companies with whom we do business to figure out ways to make our goals more easily, quickly and effectively achieved.

Nope, not a surprise. When we published our 2009 white paper on changing customer expectations, we weren't the first to predict the ways that customer's attitudes were changing in the face of the latest wave of disruptive technological innovation. But we were (and remain) at the front of the pack when it comes to helping companies understand what these shifts mean, and see where—and how—they can both serve customers better, and profit from it.

If you want to better understand, you can always email us for a chat. In the meantime, the top Tweets below boast lists, how to's and several compelling articles that will help round out your knowledge bank.

1.) Just released a new White Paper: “Proving ROI on Customer Experience” http://ow.ly/6q6LP
It's brilliant, insightful, timely, relevant...oh wait, we wrote it. But in all seriousness, this is a resource I'm pretty sure you'll want handy, as you strive to prove what you sense: That customer experience improvement can—and does—drive bottom-line results. As we ask in our subtitle: how can we prove that making customers happier can make you happier, too?  (Tweet Score: 91)

2.) There's efficiency and there's experience... http://ow.ly/6oT90
“Anticipating the end goal of customers.” I'm going to blow that up and post it on the wall in front of my desk. It's nothing new but it's been rearing its head a lot lately. This brief article shows a perfect example of how so-called “streamlining” can actually end up causing logjams and disgruntled customers. Think through the whole customer experience and interaction lifecycle before you start slashing or automating services.  (Tweet Score: 73)

3.) “Step into your customer's mind and deliver a brand experience tailored specifically to that customer...” http://ow.ly/6j0U2
Far from applauding marketers' constant efforts to mind-read and fortune-tell, even with the assistance of solid research, the author looks at things through a different lens: We have no idea what people want or think, so quit trying to determine the single best message / experience / offer. Instead, embrace a whole new paradigm with the help of customization systems, like Zappos and a (very few) other leaders do. There's no doubt that a level of customized messaging is where business is trending...it's just going to take a decade or so for most businesses to get there.  (Tweet Score: 66)

4.) Defining the right target consumer doesn't automatically mean they will engage with your brand. http://ow.ly/6uo0e
From the wave of the future to some good old-fashioned basics—we appreciate them both. Until we can all afford to integrate ChoiceStream and Tahzoo (read story #3) into our experience delivery process, we've got the tried, true and still valuable option to target customers by demographics, psychographics, habits, needs and behaviors. Maybe start your budget battle with an astronomical estimate for leading-edge technology, and your executive team will be happy to “settle” for funding the fundamentals.  (Tweet Score: 64)

5.) Reading: “Being Predictable: The First Essential of a Customer Centric Business” http://ow.ly/6mJbj
“Predictability is under-rated” may sound unimaginative at first blush, but do we truly want imagination in every interaction? Think about hunting for the toilet flusher when traveling overseas—or how hard it is to retrain your mouse hand to not zoom up to the same old corner when your bank changes its home page login location. (Is it me or do everyone's old habits die this hard?) This is just the first of seven articles on the Essentials of Customer Centric Business, and while the articles are loooooooong I guarantee this is a blog you'll be happy to have found.  (Tweet Score: 54)

6.) Not enough can be said about the value of understanding your customers... http://ow.ly/6s2Dg
This piece had me at “bad signage.” It should have had me at “customer experience knowledge” but since little gets me on a soapbox faster than bad signage... We've said it before and no doubt we'll say it again, but analytics alone don't tell the whole story. A tiger in the zoo isn't anything like a tiger in the wild, and neither are your customers. So to see what they're really up to, you'd better get all National Geographic on their a**. (Otherwise known as observational research and mapping customer interactions.)  (Tweet Score: 51)

7.) To engage customers, become part of their journey – don't try to change it. http://ow.ly/6s2tf
Here's another user experience article devoted to design—and also well worth a read. “A line is like a wall on the Web. The thicker the line the higher the wall. People can't or don't want to see over these walls. A box is like a closed, windowless room. People need to make a big effort to look inside.” Admit it, you've hunted for a contact link / login (oh the bank login rears its ugly head again), only to finally see it staring you in the face, huge and boxed. Now take a fresh look at your organization's site and see if you're imposing unintentional roadblocks on your customers.  (Tweet Score: 49)

8.) You're great – really. But let's face it, the intimacy is gone... http://ow.ly/6teqz
A good debate on customer intimacy (with a detour to that great Morton's Steak story and the author's tweet heard cross country). Today's organizations strive for it with customers never seen, half the time never spoken to. No matter how conscientious we are about making our business interactions appropriate and even personalized, can they truly be classified as intimate?  (Tweet Score: 48)

9.) Reading: “CX Mistake #7: Obsessing About Detractors” http://ow.ly/6wxnc
Unless you're Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, it's easier to fire up your ire than deploy your joy, right? We have a right to expect things to work as advertised. As Temkin puts it, “If the brakes in my car don't work, then I'm very unhappy with the car. If my brakes work, then I don't think about it.” So focusing an undue amount of energy on detractions not only detracts from determining what creates advocates, but when faced with a complaint or process breakdown, it's executive nature to throw time, people and money at the problem, often leaving more dire initiatives in neglect.  (Tweet Score: 48)

10.) Nothing makes you appear stupid quicker than the assumption that your customers aren't smart... http://ow.ly/6yHEK
You knew we wouldn't get through the month without a nod to the Netflix debacle, right? This tweet — and post — are a drop in the bucket. Some marketers have even come out in support of Netflix / Qwikster* / co-founder Reed Hastings. I find myself annoyed by the inconvenience but strangely delighted with the meltdown and subsequent fury. Can't wait to see how this plays out long-term.  (Tweet Score: 47)

* Qwikster? Really? Did they hire Xfinity's naming company for their rebrand?