Customer Experience, an obvious post

I’ll share few ideas about Customer Experience and I hope to sound obvious. I do hope that my words will not bring anything new, but I hope that, by point obvious ideas, we will be able to reflect on what we ‘know’ and on what we do.

What is Customer Experience?

Forget the definitions, don’t google it or open any book. What is Customer Experience? Let’s take it in simple terms.

Customer is anyone who gets benefits when interacting with your organization. Sometimes they are the ones who pay [like when you give yourself a new smartphone], sometimes they don’t pay but use it [like kids in schools], sometimes they collaborate [like when you upload and also watch videos on YouTube].

Experience is pretty much everything you live — situations and events that you were/are directly involved in any way.

So, Customer Experience is essentially everything that your customer experiences when interacting with your organization. Obvious right?!

What should we include then?!

. Digital channels [web, mobile, social networks, etc.]? Yes.

. Customer Service [during- and post- purchase assistance, open channels for communication, etc]? Yes.

. The products and services themselves? Yes.

. The people who interact with your customers? Yes.

. Retail stores? Yes.

… and more.

However, it is quite common to find organizations in which there is a group/department apparently responsible for the Customer Experience, which is actually limited to one aspect of the experience, like the Digital Strategy, or Marketing, or Product/Service Development.

Integrating all these aspects and developing a consistent Customer Experience in your organization is surely not a simple task, but its complexity does not make it unapproachable. It is possible, extremely valuable and likely a continuous effort.

This pursuit will sparkle further questions, like:

. how the ‘below the line of customers’ visibility’ operations [e.g. Finance, HR] can enhance our Customers’ Experience?

. how leaders and non-leaders can contribute to it?

. how to merge Customer and Social [CSR] Experience?

The journey may seem long, unclear and scary. Useless worries and fears about uncertainties might not help.

Focus on the task at hand and find something you can do today. If possible, get more people involved.