Customer Experience, what is it and why does it matter?

What is it?

Ultimately, when you break it right down, you do business with the people you like, if your client is head over heels for you then you're increasing your chances of doing more business with them. Premium experiences create premium customers.

Customer experience will ultimately have different meanings for different people and companies, shaped by their own experiences, personally and professionally.

For me, this is what true customer experience means:

Customer experience is each and every customer contact with your employees, your product, and its delivery method

It is important to align definitions of customer experience early when producing customer experience as part of a service, it should permeate every aspect of your company’s operations – from culture and mindset to the value proposition and offerings to the people and processes.

I'm going to solely talk about Business-To-Business Customer Experience (B2B CX) due to the nature of the company I work for, which focuses on helping global companies deliver a world-class B2B CX.

So, why does B2B CX matter?

B2B CX is often the overlooked child in the customer experience world. Worldwide, companies are unilaterally pretty good at delivering a B2C CX as it is far more transactional -they deal with a much higher volume of customers so, naturally, it's given more attention. But in the B2B world where there are is a lower volume of customers, it is often overlooked, it is archaic and in desperate need of modernising; especially when the value of these customers often reaches into the £millions.

With reports from the likes of Gartner, Forrester, and Walker all sighting that by the end of 2020 customer experience will overtake product and price as the main differentiator for customers choosing a brand, it seems short-sighted to ignore it, or worse, pay lip service to it and not act upon it.

We've transitioned from selling products to selling services, and now into selling experiences. Dubbed the Experience Economy.

But in the contemporary marketplace, the ability to provide an excellent customer experience is rare and, at the same time, increasingly valuable. The likes of Forester noting that only 1 in 5 companies delivered good or great customer experience to their customers.

So, when customer experience is delivered it is valued, yet companies aren't delivering - why?

Today, companies that are not focussed on the entire customer experience are unable to stand out against the competition and retain leadership. Every touchpoint and micro-moment with the customer counts. Every interaction matters. Brands are expected to live up to their promise at every moment. And to do so, everyone with a business must behave in ways that help make this promise ring true authentically. 

Brands that are focussed on customer experience benefit from a larger, more loyal, customer base. Loyal customers buy more, trust more, and, they forgive more. Importantly, they are also excellent brand advocates, referring your company's in good faith; this positive feedback cycle is so powerful for a company's financial future.

"Today, brands compete on customer experience. A brand translates to customers as a set of experiences - tangible and intangible, intended and serendipitous. Brands create Brand Equity by making these experiences memorable, personalized & repeatable- by creating Moments of Truth" 

Why isn't customer experience widely adopted in B2B?

There are a few factors that I think are hindering the customer experience wave to truly take off:

• Inertia of change

People are stuck in the status quo, routinely doing the same thing day in day out, expecting what worked on day 1 to work on day 4000. Historically that's not how industries have worked, why do we have new versions of software or products? Continuous improvement is a must - this is not new.

From my personal experience, B2B companies who aren't paralysed by change and are open-minded to adopting innovative ways of delivering customer experience have/are achieving monumental results, the early bird catches the worm.

• Cost

Of course, there are external factors that affect spending. But let's solely look at spending now vs spending in the future.

I like to relate this to monopoly, hear me out. Whenever I would get a set of properties in monopoly I would always spend all my money on buying as many hotels and houses as quickly as possible, properties with 3+ houses on would make me the money to buy more properties elsewhere. This maximised my returns in the long run but always left me cash short for a few turns until they were landed on. Anyways, if needs be, I could always sell them back to the bank (always Dad).

If you're still with me... spending money early (now) to maximise future revenue is never stupid, it just takes courage. My tactic never failed me, to the point my family doesn't play with monopoly with me anymore because 'it's no fun when you always win'... it is for me.

• Lack of Knowledge/Understanding

The B2B CX world definitely suffers from a lack of understanding of customer experience, which is so dangerous when customer voices are louder than ever. A poor experience in the past would reach a customer's family, friends, maybe the local shopkeeper. Now, it can reach globally in a matter of seconds - dangerous! The modern, empowered consumer is enabled by disruptive technologies to explore the market, as a result, expectations have sky-rocketed leaving inflexible firms behind.

Yet, with all the information now out there, there is still a reluctance in the marketplace that providing premium experiences is important for big corporations to continue growth in the 21st century. There's an air of arrogance about large corps that they are too big to fail, the same approach the banking industry took pre-2008.

My point here is that there is always more to learn and benefit from if you're open to learning, that is.

Why does being obsessed with your customers matter?

Jeff Bezos has hailed the success of his Amazon operation down to being customer obsessed from day one, his ability to be so far ahead of the curve so early has enabled Amazon to sit on top of the pile. He saw the value so early on. It's strange from my perspective that every other company out there didn't follow suit, only a handful did.

“You can be competitor focused, you can be product-focused, you can be technology-focused, you can be business-model-focused… But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality” - Jeff Bezos

The likes of Apple have also adopted this approach, not necessarily delivering the most high-spec product or service on the market, but, ultimately delivering the premium experience that has created fierce brand loyalty. Personally, I’m a sucker for Apple products, sporting their laptops phones and wearables; the experience I have with their products is what keeps me coming back time and time again - I know there are better products on the market.

From what I can make out, granted this is a relatively young and 'inexperienced' view but I am exposed to it daily with clients, there are 7 key habits of customer-obsessed companies in the marketplace, which are:

1. Hiring people who care. Then supplying them with technology to care for customers.

2. Analysing their customer experience and continually searching for ways to improve.

3. Creating a clear and authentic brand promise.

4. Consistant execution of company customer experience values.

5. Incentivse employees on the customer experience they deliver - this is a big one.

6. The customer is at the heart of every decision.

7. Their culture challenges the statue quo and seeks to improve on norms.

Not surprisingly, B2B companies who are making the above changes habitual, are retaining more customers, even if their price is higher, the product isn't as superior, the service isn't the best in the market - but their experience is premium. People value being valued, and companies are making serious money out of this.

Shocker, once their clients are happier, they're also spending more £££ with them. Who'd have guessed it?

Ultimately, when you break it right down, you do business with the people you like, if your client is head over heels for you then you're increasing your chances of doing more business with them. Premium experiences create premium customers.

So, if you're creating positive experiences for your clients, that should make them like you more. Once this happens, theoretically they will keep buying from you and may even take additional services from you. They will also tolerate and trust you more so if you do slip up it won't mean a termination, hopefully. Of course, this isn't always the case, you can provide a premium experience and lose clients, but I'd bet a lot of money to say that you increased your chances infinitely than if you weren't supplying experiences.

I hope this fills in some gaps, raises questions, or has triggered you to want to learn more about Customer Experience. I'm sure there are plenty of experts out there who could do a better job of writing about customer experience but hey, here's my take.

More than happy to talk to anyone who has any questions, joe.brownill@myclientshare.com