customer experience journey - phronesis

Customer Experience

Journey

www.phronesisstrategies.com

2 Copyright © 2017 PHRONESIS STRATEGIES. All Rights Reserved

June 2017

PHRONESIS STRATEGIES

103, Ghatate ChambersPanchsheel Square,Nagpur – 440012INDIA

T: +91 712 2454809E: [email protected]

DISCLAIMER

This publication is derived from more than 50 reports, articles, presentations, blog posts and others from sources including McKinsey & Company, PwC’s Strategy &, HBR, EY, Forbes, Avaya, CMO Council, Mark Bonchek, Brian Sollen, Stacee Becker & others. We fully acknowledge the valuable insights on the topic provided and give due credit to McKinsey & Company, PwC’s Strategy &, Mark Bonchek and others mentioned above and don’t intend to pass off their research and publications as our own.

This publication contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of PHRONESIS STRATEGIES consultants. PHRONESIS STRATEGIES is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, financial, investment or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute of such professional advice and services and the user of this publication should consult a PHRONESIS STRATEGIES consultant before making any decision. The user of this publication is solely responsible for outcome of any decisions based on information contained herein. PHRONESIS STRATEGIES, its owners, consultants or its associates make no representations or warranties regarding accuracy and completeness of such information and expressly disclaims any liabilities based on such information or on omissions therefrom.

The user of this publication specifically agrees and acknowledges that all proprietary rights in the information available on this publication for all times shall remain the property of PHRONESIS STRATEGIES. Reproduction, redistribution and transmission of any information obtained from this publication, in any form, is strictly prohibited.

What is CX?

Customer Delight ¹ Superior Customer ExperienceSuperior customer experience is much more than just delighting customers. There is nothing wrong in sending birthday cards and gifts on special occasions to customers, but it is wrong if it is done in silos, instead of an end-to-end integrated customer view.

Experience, at its essence, is an emotional reaction to an event or a moment –something one feels, senses and interprets and measured by how one reacts.Customer experience is a perception.

CX = OP - E(Customer Experience)

(Observed Performance)

(Expectations)

In an equation format, customer experience is equal to observed performance that a customer has with a company minus expectations. Customer Experience is made up of various touchpoints – interactions that a customer has, directly or indirectly, with a company. Customer service and customer satisfaction are just two small aspects of the bigger picture. Customer Experience Journey is all about putting customers’ needs and wants at the center of business strategy.

70 % of buying experiences are based on how customers feel they are being treated - McKinsey

Customer Experience is a behavioral science.

3Copyright © 2017 PHRONESIS STRATEGIES. All Rights Reserved


Mental Models

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

In 1840s, a physician from Vienna - Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, observed that the mortality rate for puerperal fever fell 10 times when doctors washed their hands before treating patients. He shared his findings with his colleagues to introduce handwashing as a standard practice. Despite the data, his fellow colleagues dismissed his findings. In fact, his colleagues and his own wife thought that he was losing his mind and had him committed to a mental institution, where he died shortly thereafter.

Why Dr. Semmelweis could not persuade people, of his findings? Mental Model. In 1840s the mental model of a disease was an imbalance of 4, what they describe in the medical parlance, "humours", like Phlegm, Bile, Blood etc. With this mental model, other doctors could not see how washing hands could affect a person's health. It didn't matter what the data said.

Louis Pasteur

After a few decades came another person - Louis Pasteur, who proved that germs and not "humours" were the primary cause of a disease. Now with this new mental model, doctors could understand how handwashing can affect health. Personal hygiene became a new standard of health. Unfortunately, it was too late for Dr. Semmelweis as he had failed to shift his colleagues thinking and behavior. Companies like Dettol should thank Louis Pasteur for connecting the dots.

At its heart, it was a matter of perception, and so are customer experiences. Data, information and value proposition are not enough to sell. To do effective sales one needs to change not only what customers think, but how they think, wherein comes mental models. Mental Models are the lens through which we see the world, a filter that separates signals from noise, a 'sorting hat' to decide what makes it to our conscious awareness.

Don’t sell a product, sell a whole new way of thinking

- Mark Bonchek

Why CX matters?

7 mins

Tech companies have altered customer experiences and behavior and also raised expectations about how interactions with all businesses should work. Customers are becoming more demanding and are going through full breadth of experiences.


that's how long it takes financial technology start-up Kabbageto approve a small-business loan - nearly 5,000 times faster than the 20 days it takes a typical bank.

Superior Customer Experience Journey helps to:

§ Make customers become loyal and repeat customers,

§ Motivate them to refer other customers,

§ Reduce Cost to Serve (by simplifying processes) and

§ also act as a competitive advantage


Why CX matters?

86 % buyers will pay more for better CX, acc. to a CEI survey - Forbes

81 % of businesses witnessing significant profit growth have implemented CX programs - Avaya

5 % of customers prevented from leaving, can increase bottom line by 25 – 95 % - HBR

68 % of customers who switch, do so due to poor or indifferent service

The classic CX case - Starbucks

In US, decades ago, there was no place in between office and home where people could sit, chat, relax and have coffee, apart from some single-small-stores.

McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and some other restaurant & coffee chains were focusing on fast customer turnaround time and takeaways. People were also missing a proper café culture. Starbucks was able to identify these needs.



Starbucks CX journey

Identify customer needs

Create Awareness & Familiarity

Initial consideration

Enter Starbucks

Order

Evaluate

SitDeliveryComplaints & Requests

Feedbacks & Loyalty

& more

1 2 3 4

5

6

789

10

11

1 Identify customer needs

Starbucks introduced the Italian bistro café culture, while providing a ‘third’ place between office and home, to work and relax, enabling customers to ‘sit, sip and stay.’ Rightly identifying customers’ needs helped them to become the largest coffee chain.

Starbucks still continues to identify customer needs. They have introduced ‘mystarbucksideas.com’, a sort of crowd-sourcing, where customers can share, vote and discuss ideas about what they want from Starbucks. Selectively, the company then implements them.

Starbucks CX Journey


Starbucks does lot of marketing and branding activities on various platforms to ensure that people are aware and familiar with the brand and its offerings. Besides, positive word of mouth also helps.

2 Create awareness & familiarity

When people need a different place to work or relax before heading home, they want to go someplace nearby. Stores’ proximity to offices ensures that Starbucks comes first in people’s minds.

3 Initial Consideration

There are lot of varieties of coffee like cappuccino, mochachino, latte - plus one can add cream, chocolates, various syrups etc. With all these permutations, Starbucks provides 87,000 combinations of coffee. Starbucks introduced coffees like Brazilian dark roast, double cappuccino, latte galore and others to the world.

One can even order the famous drink mentioned in the Harry Potter franchisee -Butter Beer, in Starbucks. Additionally, there are lots of food & snack items like sandwiches, salads, muffins etc.

Variety is fine but what if a customer dreads waiting in long queues to get his caffeine fix. On the Starbucks mobile app, one can pre-order even before entering a store, just go there and pick up your coffee, thus avoiding queues and saving time.Factors like these ensure that people positively evaluate Starbucks.

4 Evaluate

On entering Starbucks, one feels good because there is an attractive ambience, soft music playing in the background, aroma of freshly brewed coffee, nice displays and if any staff is nearby they will greet you. In some stores, there are even live coffee bars and open terraces.

5 Enter


Starbucks CX journey

On reaching the counter, one is greeted by baristas who smile, ask customer’s name and engage in a conversation. They also recommend coffees if one is confused. Starbucks staff are trained in handling customers’ comments. Baristas are given examples of comments and are asked to refer ‘Green Apron Book’ to identify behaviors.

After finalizing order, they write customer’s name and order on the coffee cups itself, making them personalized. There are also various payment options available – apart from cash and cards - Starbucks card, online payment, Apple Pay, Pay Pal etc.

6 Order

After ordering, there are comfortable seating arrangements, while one waits for her order to arrive. If one want to work, there are even charging plugs and free WiFi.

7 Sit

Once the order is ready, customer will be called by her name and not some ‘token no.’. At that moment, customers feel more connected to the brand as it signifies that Starbucks is paying attention to them.

Starbucks also ensures that they deliver on the orders fast, letting customers not to wait much. Average time for preparing and delivering a coffee at Starbucks is around 3 minutes only.

8 Delivery

Starbucks staff are well trained to handle complaints and requests. Besides, they have a ‘Just say YES’ policy. For example, if you say “My coffee got cold. Can you please microwave it?”. Even though Starbucks don’t keep microwaves, because of the ‘Just say YES’ policy, the Barista will probably reply “I don’t have a microwave but I can add some freshly steamed milk to warm up your coffee.”

If something goes wrong in the order, the baristas will apologize, rectify the mistakeand give a ‘Customer Service Recovery Certificate’ – basically, an apology card that mentions that customers’ next coffee is on the house.

9 Complaints & Requests

Starbucks CX Journey


While leaving, the staff will greet the customer again. They’ll also ask for feedbacks, through Feedback Forms. Not only that, to ensure that one remains connected, they have a Loyalty Program. It allows customers to earn ‘stars’ or points every time she purchase not just in Starbucks but at other partners too. She can redeem the stars against orders, apart from free coffee during her birthday month, free size upgrades etc. Customer can also manage her loyalty account on a mobile app.

10 Feedbacks & Loyalty

If a customer doesn’t feel like going out and still wants to have good coffee, she can also order for Home Delivery. Besides, Starbucks also sells Coffee beans, Tea, KCupsand ready-to-enjoy drinks outside of their outlets, in supermarkets.

Sometimes they also give unique experiences – like a Coffee tasting session, where the Barista will introduce customer to different types of coffee and educate her about the history and geography, the coffee beans, how they are roasted, how coffee is brewed and let her taste various samples.

11 & more

By providing superior customer experiences, Starbucks has catapulted to earn the title of world’s largest coffee house company. It sells a million drinks every week across its 16,000 outlets worldwide. Its annual turnover crosses 21 billion dollars and its market-cap is around 92 billion dollars.

Its customer retention and loyalty rates are among the highest in the industry. Starbucks has 13 million active members of its Loyalty Program, ensuring high repeat sales.


Traditional Customer Journey model

- McKinsey

In the traditional customer journey model, customers start with number of potential brands in mind, marketing is then directed at them as they methodically reduce those numbers and move through the funnel, and at the end they emerge with the one brand they chose to purchase. However, this is an old and redundant model.

The new CX Journey model


The new Customer Experience Journey model begins with ‘Understanding customer needs’. This is one of the most critical parts of the journey. Understanding what customers really want requires ability to understand what motivates them, how they shop and how they make decisions.

Understanding customer needs

Organizations that leverage customer behavioral insight outperform peers by 85% in sales growth and 25% in gross margins. One should identify critical patterns - what customers purchase, how many times they contact customer service, how long they linger on a given website - insights about buying habits and preferences.

Anything based on observation of what people really do is massively more accurate than what people say they do –or the reasons they give for saying it - BrainJuicer

Observe customers ’in the field’

To observe customers in the field, there are several methods one can deploy like Ethnographic research or ‘Shop-along’. Ethnographic research is a scientific narration of people’s beliefs, habits and customs – what time people wake up or go to bed, what do they eat, how they commute. It is generally done by trained anthropologists.

‘Shop-along’ is a method where you go with an actual customer to shop. The process begins not from a shop, but from customers’ homes while they are still thinking of buying something – why that need of buying something arises, how do they find out which store to go and what to buy, how do they travel to that store, what happens if they don’t get parking space near the shop, and such smaller numerous actions and decisions. Doing this can reveal the otherwise obscure behavior and insights that general methods like surveys and interviews don’t provide.

Create a ‘listening center’

With the advent of technology and social media, customers are not just well-informed, but are also more active and engaged or disengaged, with brands, than ever. Fortunately, one can use this to her advantage. Monitor what is being said about the organization, products & services on social media, blogs and other online forums. Get consumer feedbacks and track brand performance.



While applying deodorants on white clothes, sometimes they leave yellow stains. Customers were complaining about this on social media. But Nivea carefully listened to these customers and came up with what they call their biggest product innovation in 10 years - ‘Nivea Invisible for black & white’. This new deodorant does not leave any stains not just on white clothes but also on black clothes.

Daily ‘customer diary’

One can also maintain a daily ‘customer diary’, probably in a digitized format, where employees from all functions in the company – whether sales, service, finance etc. can record their observations about customers’ needs & wants, tastes & preferences.

Advanced Analytics

One should also use Advanced Analytics to gain much more granular insights, tap customer voices and analyze them.

Co-create with customers

Conducting quantitative research on customers to understand their behavior is not enough. One should develop deep empathy, in particular when customers experience difficulties and obstacles. And by being empathetic with customers one can also co-create.

Women don’t like to shampoo and wash their hair every day, but at the same time if they don’t shampoo, they don’t like it. Unilever, being empathetic, stepped itself in the shoes of customers and tried to understand their problem and what it came up with was a Dry Shampoo that allows to have a feel of shampooed hair without actually washing hair. And this, they co-created with customers, through online community, in every step - from ideation, concept refinement, product testing, packaging and even advertising.



In essence, find out what really matters to customers - and use it to decide where to focus.

Compass Model

N: Needs | W: Wants | S: Stereotypes | E: Emotions

To understand customers holistically, Disney used a Compass Model. The North –denotes Needs or what the customers desire from the experiences. West is for Wants - underlying objective or purpose of customers. South is Stereotypes, or preconceived notions - positive or negative, that customers have and East signifies Emotions, that customers have or are likely to experience.

When Procter & Gamble launched its ‘Connect+Develop’ program, for external idea generation, one innovation that came out from the program was Swiffer range of

cleaning products – that contributes about a billion dollar in sales to P&G.

While Disney’s motto was to “create happiness”, using the Compass model, they found out that customers were not necessarily happy. Problem started even before customers entered the theme parks – a long queue and waiting time,

which robbed customers of their initial enthusiasm.

In 2013, Disney came up with 'MagicBands' -brightly colored wristbands that allow visitors to

board rides, pay for meals and gifts and even unlock doors of their hotel rooms. These bands are

integrated across the park allowing visitors to select exactly what they want to see and do in

advance, without waiting in queues.




AwarenessMarketing and Branding plays a key role here. How one positions her brandand what brand promises she convey.

Right marketing enables customers be aware about a brand. However, customer expectations are increasing and companies need to be careful. Overtly marketing sometimes raises customer expectations further. Managing customers’ expectations is also a way of delivering higher satisfaction and better customer experience.


Awareness Familiarity

Consumer-driven Marketing

One should invest in Consumer-driven Marketing, like Google Adwords. After searching for flights online, think of the cheapest fare ads & mails from travel aggregators that starts appearing.

Chief Content Officer

One should appoint a Chief Content Officer, even internally, who can shape emerging sentiments of customers by delivering compelling content that forges a stronger emotional bond with customers.




Awareness Familiarity Initial Consideration

Brand impressions are formed from various touch points - Ads, newspaper reports, conversations with family & friends, product experience etc. However, if customers are not actively shopping, all this exposure becomes wasted. But, what if something triggers the impulse to buy? These accumulated impressions shape the initial consideration set - small number of brands as purchase options.

General Electric has sustained 2 centuries of existence because their mantra is ‘mindshare before marketshare’

Mindshare before Marketshare

Powerful brand positioning coupled with tailor messaging ensures initial consideration. To enter the US markets, Hyundai adopted a marketing message of protecting customers financially, by allowing them to return vehicles if they lose their jobs. This helped the company to break into initial consideration set of many new customers.





Active Evaluation

In this step of the journey, customers are actively evaluating their options. It is a process of researching potential purchases, where customers seek information, reviews & recommendations.

There has been an explosion of choices and digital channels, coupled with increasingly well-informed consumers.

Don’t push, let customers reach decisions themselves

At this stage, instead of pushing products on customers, companies should provide them with information, support and experience to enable customers reach decisions themselves.

Win the in-store battle

Visual dimensions highly influence customers’ mind, when they see, learn or do. How one packages, displays and presents her products and services is important for customers to evaluate.





Active Evaluation

Closure/ Purchase

Brands today cannot only react to customers as they make their purchasing decisions but they also need to actively shape those decision journeys.

Give customers choice

Give customers choice, give them right to make the ultimate decision, although the outcome may be limited or strongly suggested.

Compress the previous steps

Companies can also radically compress the consideration and evaluation process, and in some cases, even eliminate them and catapult a customer right to the loyalty phase of relationship. It’s about how quickly you can close the sale and go to the next stage.

- McKinsey




Active Evaluation

Closure/ Purchase

Post-Purchase

Post-purchase phase is the 2nd most important phase in journey as it becomes the trial period that determines customer loyalty.

Auto companies like GM & Chrysler have historically focused on incentives to sales team and dealers during active evaluation & moment-of-purchase phases, unlike Honda or Toyota who focus on post-purchase experiences so that customers remain loyal and lead to positive word-of-mouth & repeat sales.

Actions speak louder than words.Inactions too, speak just as loudly.

In today’s world, a customer complaint not handled effectively and quickly can have severe repercussions – sort of ‘Butterfly Effect’. With all the social media, it does not take a customer more than a minute to bad-mouth a brand to the world, with the possibility of it even becoming viral. However, by acting on a negative customer feedback quickly, one can turn it into a promotion.




Get bad experiences over quickly

Get bad experiences over quickly so that customers can focus on the more positive subsequent elements of the interaction.

66 %of marketers believe that Quick Response Time to customer requests or complaints is the most important attribute demonstrating customer centricity – The CMO Council

Ensure your ‘listening center’ is working here

Feedbacks and suggestions is another area that most companies neglect. Many B2B companies gather customer feedback only through sales channels at the time of sales, missing out on important insights from users and influencers. Feedback gives right customer insights, which should be accessible to all functions including sales, marketing and service.

Customer Service has now become the New Marketing

Brands are now formed by the experiences customers have and share.


There are 2 kinds of Customer Loyalty:




Active Evaluation

Closure/ Purchase

Post-Purchase

Loyalty

Loyalty depends on what one has done in the earlier stages of Customer Experience Journey.

1) Active Loyalists

who not only stick but also recommend your company or products.

2) Passive Loyalistswho because of laziness and confusion stay but are not committed and are open to messages from competitors that give them a reason to switch.

Start a Loyalty program

Consider having some sort of Loyalty program for customers that motivates and incentivizes them.




Active Evaluation

Closure/ Purchase

Post-PurchaseLoyalty

Up-sales, Cross-sales,

Repeat sales,

Referrals

This phase is nothing but a result of the aggregated activities that one has done during the journey. If delivered a superior customer experience, one may witness growth in her top-line through up-sales, cross-sales, repeat sales or referrals. This helps in building up the ‘Lifetime Value of Customer’.

There are also various metrics that one can use to monitor Customer Experience Journey:

§ Net Promoter Score (NPS)§ Customer Satisfaction Score§ Customer-effort Score etc.



Redefining CX Journey

Cumulative experiences matter more than individual touch points. It's not enough to make customers happy with each individual interaction. Customer journey can span all elements of a company - everything from buying a product, actually using it, having issues with a product that require resolution, or simply making the decision to use a service or product for the first time. It’s important to rethink, re-imagine and recreate the Customer Experience Journey in its entirety.

‘Sit back, relax & enjoy the flight'

A common announcement made while travelling by air, while everyone would have had their fair share of bad on-board experiences. However, this can be the least piece of awful experiences while travelling. People face bad experiences when air fares keep changing from minute to minute that bear no perceivable relationship to cost or value, there are fees for emergency window or special seats, frequent delays caused by weather or "the late arrival of incoming aircraft", and also the airport annoyances – Insufficient check-in counters, long queues, indignities of security, inadequate staff, and random gate-change announcements and so on and so forth.

A US based airline Surf Air completely redesigned how passengers flew.

Journeys, not transactions

Surf Air operates on Travel for Subscription model. It charges a monthly fee of around ~ USD 2,000 and in return allows its members to take unlimited flights anywhere in the 12 cities where it operates. On a full-service carrier, one single round-trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles can cost up to USD 450. However, real value is not the price but the experience of airline's service design. (continued…)

Redefining CX Journey

(… continued) Surf Air case study

§ Since its customers are members, there are no payments to process, so booking a flight just takes few seconds

§ Surf Air flies only a nine- seater plane giving the feel of a private jet

§ Moreover, choice of this small plane eliminates security screening at the airports, since US rules exempt aircraft carrying less than 10 passengers

§ It works out of underutilized regional airports, avoiding crowds and chaos of big airports

§ Though it operates up to 90 scheduled flights a day but passengers need to show up only 15 minutes before flight time

§ There are free snacks and beverages

§ There are no boarding passes, because passengers’ names are on a list

§ Luggage is picked up by plane side and delivered as passengers walk off, so no need to wait for luggage collection at belts

§ This model also enables Surf Air to have minimal ground staff

§ Its IT system is simple as there are no algorithm to set fares, no tickets to process and no connections to travel agents

§ Company makes profit on flights that is just 60 % full compared to 75 % for big carriers

But it is not the luxury, convenience or even money that customers value most in Surf Air. Surf Air provides the No. 1 thing that people value most –

‘Time’. Time is the most valuable commodity in the world. Though Los Angeles to San Francisco is only a 90-minute flight, it actually takes 3-4

hours. Surf Air is able to save at least couple of hours.


What a CX Journey should be


3 Cs of a great customer experience journey

Consistency is an important predictor of overall customer experience and loyalty.There are 3 types of consistencies:

Clear & Efficient

Cutting down the time of transactions is important, which can be done by automating processes.

Simple & Easy

But, low cycle times are not alone important. Customers respond more positively to the ease of a transaction or process.

Personalized & Interactive

More customers are now looking for customized experiences and interactions along the journey. One should set a high bar for personalization and interactivity.

1) Customer Journey consistency

2) Emotional consistency

where a feeling of trust is developed.

3) Communication consistency

This is about promises made and promises kept. But once promises are kept, it is also critical that customers recognize the delivery of those promises.

One should proactively shape communications and key message around the consistent delivery of promises theme, since customer perceptions are important.

What drives Customer Satisfaction

Allow customers some control over service interactions

like allowing customers to schedule time and place of visits/ meets etc. can make them more satisfied.

End Positively

Customers prefer service encounters that end positively, like restaurants giving complementary desserts along with bill. Finish strong, as the final elements of the interaction will stick in the customers' memory.

Avoid Frequent Changes

Disturbing customer experiences by changing processes and interactions frequently can have negative impact on customers, when they face unexpected changes. Think, banks altering ATM menus or IVRS systems in call centers changing frequently.



Service Design for a great CX

The customer is always right, provided the customer is right for you

Engage with the right customer

Customers who demand a level of service, a type of product or a price that a company isn’t willing to deliver are wrong customers for them. Deciding which customers one is willing to engage with and what one is willing to do for them is a powerful exercise.

Don’t surprise & delight, just delight

Customers should be delighted by meeting their needs within the expectations they have. They should know what to expect from a brand.

No heroic efforts

Great services should not require heroic efforts by either the company or the customer. Service design and delivery should be efficient, effective and scalable.

Coherent across platforms

Service design & delivery should also be coherent across all platforms. Multiple channels mean more touch points, increased interaction with customers, making it more complex, less controlled, more ways to make errors and increased competition. But it also means, more opportunities to woo, wow and win customers.

You’re never done

Customer experience journey is an ongoing cycle. One needs to continually innovate, iterate and repeat.

EX - an important driver to CX

The vital part that decides whether one can effectively implement a customer experience program are the Employees. They are an important factor for a superior customer experience. Ensure that the Employee Experience (EX) is also good. Inculcate a Continuous Improvement mindset among employees.

Improve quality of internal services

Quality of internal services has a direct impact on experience of external customers. Support functions have to support frontline employees. No organization can thrive in isolation. All business functions have to work together in tandem. Sales, marketing, branding, finance, IT, operations etc. should support service department.

Transform EX

Transforming employee experience not only increases satisfaction but also helps cut costs by increasing productivity and eliminating inefficiencies.

Encourage customer-first culture

Offering employees seamless experience can help attract & retain talent, encourage customer-first culture in back office with increased sense of ownership and boost retention rates.


Take feedback from employees

Take feedback from the employees, asking them what they think about customer experiences and problem areas.

Customers only report on symptoms, while employees can uncover root causes


What You Should Be Doing?

It’s easy to get bogged down while trying to completely transform anything. However, one can focus on the few factors that move the needle for customers. Research shows that around 3 factors out of 15 account for 40 % of customer satisfaction. One should list down all touchpoints and identify from customers’ perspective which of them have a material impact on their experience, and then focus on them.

Automate

CX journey should be streamlined through automation and digitization and focus should be on enabling simple, useful and increasingly engaging experiences. Let’s say, if banks allows to take picture of cheques and upload them on their mobile app instead of depositing in person.

Contextual Interaction

Use knowledge about where the customer is in the journey, to deliver them next set of interactions. This also helps customers to understand what the process is and what to expect in the next steps. For example, while ordering a pizza through Dominos’ mobile app, it’ll show whether the order is placed, is the pizza ready, is it on its way and also gives the expected time for those individual steps, alleviating worries of customers about when the pizza will be delivered.

- McKinsey

Create a CX team

Create a cross-functional Customer Experience Team that involves employees across the organization.

What You Should Be Doing?


SPOC

Why as a customer one should deal with multiple people? To really go in depth and give a personalized, simple and easy experience to customers, one should deploy a Single Point of Contact – SPOC.

Brands & Perceptions matter

Even right advertising, brand appeal and word-of-mouth can deliver 30-40 % more satisfaction than their peers. Take the example of 2 US banks which performed near identical customer journeys, but one bank's advertising promoted user-friendliness, resulting in customers viewing that bank as delivering much better overall experience.

Amazon found out that customers do not realize that daily use items like coffee, detergents etc. are running low until the time they need to replenish them. But then it’s too late to order on Amazon and wait for the items to arrive, and instead most people would run to the mom-and-pop stores. Amazon was thus losing opportunities to do repeat sales.

To tackle this, it came up with Amazon Dash - a small USB sized Wi-Fi connected device having order button that customers can place on daily shopping items and simply press the button when they realize they are running low on those items. After the initial setup, customer needs to press just one button and she’ll never run out of toilet paper or soft drinks.

Rethink CX in totality

From addressing issues in customer journey one should completely rethink the customer experience journey in totality. Focus should be on improving customer needs and not improving a process.

Incrementalism

Breakthrough innovations may be rare by definition itself, but most companies benefit from incremental innovation efforts that add new form of customer value to their present products and services. The trick is - to determine what elements to add, in order to boost the perceived value of one’s offering.


Difference between CS, CD & CX Journey

Customer Satisfactionis meeting customers’ expectations.

Customer Delightis surpassing customers’ expectations that take them to an emotional plane. Giving customers more than they expect definitely helps, but problem with delight is, it is an emotion that one would want to experience more than once. If one starts to delight customers often, their expectations accordingly increase and they consider additional offerings as part of standard package and start taking them for granted.

Superior Customer Experience Journeyis understanding what the customers need and want, creating solutions that solve a customer problem and delivering value to customers throughout the journey.

VYOM SHAHM: +91-9158852515E: [email protected]

/PhronesisStrategies

/company/phronesis-strategies

www.phronesisstrategies.com

customer experience journey - phronesis

Leadership & Management