Engagement

Who is your customer? How do you define it?

Does include just those who buy something? What about employees? What about external partners? What about shareholders?

What about …

Do your customers include all stakeholders? What is the experience like for them? Is the digital customer business reflective of great end to end and seamless experiences? Should it reflect that kind of focused work?

A superior customer experience is the essence of a digital business. We all now know it or at least we should. It can’t be ignored, particularly for the growing connected stakeholder (all customers). This premise is built into almost everything I write about. Whether I did or not, it is reality. Ignoring it will kill your business.

In that famous connected – and increasingly digital – age we live in, the determining factors shaping the experiences we have with businesses are multiplying. We used to only look at:

• Face-to-face contacts
• Interactions across several channels
• Customer service
• Products and solutions
• The brand as such and other attributes

All of those are important to the business. They should be seen as being crucial elements of the customer experience – as the sum of all experiences.

In reality, the end-to-end customer experience is defined by much more than that. In fact, the customer experience is shaped by numerous factors that escape the “control” of a business.

Think about word-of-mouth, to name just one. At the same time customers don’t always want an experience in the ‘wow’ sense we often give it. Many times they just want to come to your website, get their product, pay and get off asap. They want ease over delight.

The key reason why the customer experience is and will never be ‘in control’ is because customers are individuals and the core element in the customer experience equation is highly emotional, personal, contextual and diverse.

While it can’t be “in control” it can be shaped, as much as possible, to be simple, easy to use and meet the goals of the customer.