This week, my friend Stephanie Weaver, an experience expert in her own right, has been uncovering the true meaning of customer experience from experience bloggers around the web. She asked me earlier in the week to participate, so here you go Stephanie!
From where I sit working with independent retailers, service professionals and downtown communities, I believe that customer experience has to do with every contact, touch point, referral, etc. that a customer or prospect has with a business. In other words, customers may begin to experience your business long before they actually interact directly with it. For instance, when a loyal customer of Betty’s Bridal Shop tells a prospect (friend) about Betty’s, the friend has just experienced Betty’s. Albeit, the experience was framed by loyal customer, but it was an experience nonetheless. You never know when customers will first come to experience your business, so its best to seek to control as many avenues as possible – and to think beyond your store.
With proper strategic planning and a solid understanding of experience marketing, a business can successfully control the majority of customer experiences with that business. It is imperative that the business owner define what experience they are selling. It’s not enough to just provide an experience, you must actually define what experience that is – are you selling confidence, success, rejuvenation, excitement, peace of mind, etc.? From there, seek to market, educate, advertise, live and breathe that defined experience. That includes all outside sources of experience such as customer referrals, alliance partnerships, image in the community, interior experience, consistency in branding, and all the other usual suspects.
As Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, said, "In the factory Revlon manufactures cosmetics. In the store, Revlon sells hope." To be a true experience business, one must know what business they are in – what experience they are selling.
Read what others are saying about customer experience:
Stephanie’s Experience-ology blog post – Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
Orange Slices – It’s the Insperience
Customers Rock! blog – great blog with customer experience advice
Marketing Experiences, not Products – post on Customers Rock!
Thank you for your kind words, Marianna! You raise an interesting point about the experience starting just from word of mouth. I definitely think that setting customer expectations has a lot to do with the outcome of an experience. When you hear something positive via a friend, your expectations are now set.
Great blog – keep it up!