What is the magic answer to unlocking the Customer Experience? The answer is… there is no magic. The Customer Experience (CX) requires being open to change, fully understanding all facets of the experience, being where your customers want to be, and hearing their voices.
The core idea of this newsletter is about how to advance our strategies in order to provide exceptional customer experiences during this pivotal time. Our world is under extreme pressure to change. The immediate pressure is from COVID-19, which has shifted our daily lives to be much more dependent on online, curbside, and delivery channels, while also creating a stronger desire for community and connections. But, that’s just the last 10 months. Our lives were already shifting because of the merging and disruption of industries and new concepts like mobility, electrification, and digital connectivity. Customers’ expectations were evolving and changing too. COVID-19 only accelerated the pace change.
To respond effectively, you need to be the customer, not just the manager of programs at your company or the executive creating strategies for your brand. The bottom line is… we are all customers in our everyday lives. Now, be your own company’s customer and experience it for yourself. We know what a truly exceptional customer experience is when we have it personally. Why not make “exceptional” a standard in your company? Wouldn’t it be great if your company was heralded as the best customer experience of the year or the decade?
How to translate this into action:
- Evolve – Be ready to pivot quickly and easily to be at the forefront of the next evolution. Create and nurture an environment that welcomes and encourages change and disruption regularly.
- Be the customer of your own business – What was your experience like? What were your expectations? Where can you improve? Where can you make dramatic changes to be better?
- Do not make your customers work so hard – Help them to do business with you the way they want to. Be sure you are where the customers are all the time – online or offline.
- Hear your customers’ voices and do something about it – If you are listening to your customers… great. But that’s not enough. What actions are you taking that will result in making their experiences unique and exceptional going forward?
If you’re open to change, looking at everything your company does from the customers’ point of view, meeting the customers where they want to be, listening to them, and taking actions to make every experience exceptional, then you will have a winning strategy (and tactics) in this pivotal time.
Tiffany Stroupe is currently the Senior Group Manager, Customer Feedback at Hyundai Motor North America. Her career expertise has largely focused on the Customer Experience and ranges from strategy, planning, and operations, to marketing and market research. Find out more about her on LinkedIn.
