Customer Seeks Connection With Brand.

“Differentiate” is a huge word.

If you’re running a business, it’s an obvious concept. You must stand apart from your competition if you are to have any hope of surviving. Of course. So far, so good.

Once you know that you should stand apart, the next natural question is how to do so. You’re a unique person, and you have a grand idea for a business. You certainly have a passion for it, or you wouldn’t be dedicating your time and effort to it. But what is special about your (coffee shop, clothing store, pizza joint, etc.) compared to the one three blocks over? This may be a slightly trickier question, but you can handle it.

This is where is starts to get a little tougher. Deep breath… Now that you know what makes your brand special, how do you go about expressing your specialness to the world? Here’s where the real work begins, and I won’t lie to you… it’s real work. But if you stick to it, and do it well, research shows that you could see a significant boost in your profit. Seriously. On the other side of that coin is neglecting customer experience, which can result in decline. The point is differentiation isn’t a “nice to have,” if you want to succeed in business. It’s a “must have.”

The cool news is that differentiation is also a great equalizer. Let’s take coffee shops, for example. There exists, in the coffee shop industry, a big green 800-pound gorilla. In 2016 Starbucks held a 42.4% market share, with 22,557 worldwide chain locations and $21.1B of revenue. However, no matter what city you’re in right now, you can search for “independent coffee house” and find any number of thriving alternatives. How is this possible? How can plucky little one-off places survive in the presence of such domination? It’s because they’re NOT Starbucks. Maybe it’s their decor. Maybe they do small-batch roasting. Maybe they have open mic nights. Maybe they have local art displayed on the walls. The hope for any business is that it doesn’t have to cost a truckload of money in order to simply be different.

There’s some interesting research that’s been done on the topic of unique brand experiences and their effects on a business’ success. Group XP and Brand Z worked together to quantify brand experience into four measurable data points, which they called “Experience Capital:”

• Impression — “Stand for something unique”

• Interaction — “Deliver on your most important needs”

• Responsiveness — “Have better online services & engaging content”

• Resilience — “Strive to make people’s future lives better”

What they found was companies who were strong in all four of these aspects outperformed their markets by 166%, and companies who were weak fell behind by 0.4%. Without getting too far in the weeds, the takeaway here is “good customer experience grows your business, bad customer experience hurts it.”

Another of the great things about differentiation is that it’s subjective. Look at the Experience Capital aspects. All of them have to do with you, your values and your uniqueness. The only point that could require some extra financial investment is Responsiveness. You might need to find some flexible tools to help with that part, but the right partner will actually help you gain significant ground here.

Your Homework

Let’s take a practical turn here. Spend a few minutes and do a quick self-assessment on where your business stands with each of the Experience Capital facets above.

• Impression — What does your business stand for? What is the one core motivation for why it exists in the larger world?
• Interaction — How are you ensuring that what your business is doing points back to what it stands for?
• Responsiveness — Do you have the tools you need in place today? Do you know what you need? Do you need help realizing your vision?
• Resilience — How is someone’s life, or even just their day, better because they touched your business?

Are these things you’re currently tracking? Your customers (present and future) hope so. They want to connect with a business who matches them. They want to feel a part of something important, something bigger than just a product or service. They want to be known by the businesses they patron. They want to be a part of a larger vision, so make sure you have one; and make sure you’re sharing it in every way you can.

If you don’t do these things, your business could be in for a rough future. But, if you strengthen your Experience Capital, you can not only survive… you can thrive!