Building Customer Experience Together
Customer experience - it is high on the trengenda for 2015! Various experts are saying that it requires dedicated professionals, that it needs effective leadership, and that there is huge upside to being loyal to your customers and making their experiences effortless with a bit of "wow!" If my assertion about competitive advantage is correct - namely, there are but two sources, innovation and relationships - then getting the relationships right is important. This article shares a bit of data to corroborate that many businesses recognize the relationships thrust. It issues a wonderful, if grammatically uncertain, call: "This means taking a cross-functional view of experience design, flipping the orientation from a portfolio view—what do we have on the truck to sell?; to a persona view—how do we best serve these audiences at the moments that count? And working to align cross-functional stakeholders to this same view." Guiding Star can help you dash across the challenges of customer experience engineering!
Effortless Experiences Drive Loyalty
In this article, data is presented that, while not surprising, warrants sincere attention. The article points out three significant factors that are associated with customer loyalty - keeping your promises, responding quickly, and being "easy to do business with". For each factor, there are examples.
Surprise and Delight Tactics Key to Customer Loyalty Programming
This article interestingly draws out a growing problem with "customer loyalty" programs and activities - namely, that companies think it is about the customer being loyal to them. In fact, it may be that our loose language has positioned things backwards - what is really called for is loyalty to the customer. As the article points out, in 2015, surprise and delight tactics should become an increasing part of the marketing mix.
