Stop Making These Mistakes with Your Customer Experience

There is a hidden experience every Customer has with you. If you haven’t uncovered what it is, then you are probably making a huge mistake with your Customer Experience. Chances are, you are making more than one.

Don’t feel bad. When it comes to having a great Customer Experience, all organizations have made mistakes. It’s normal for this to happen. After all, everyone makes mistakes. Even great inventors make mistakes. Thomas Edison is quoted as saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I don’t have the time (and you don’t have the attention span) for 10,000 mistakes, so, let’s take a look at the following four mistakes that organizations make with Customer Experience.

Mistake #1:

Believing that Customer Experience improvements are an expense, not an investment.

Why? Customer Experience drives value ($$$) for your bottom line.

Keeping the Customers you have is less expensive than getting those new ones. When you invest in the Customer Experience, you do a better job with Customers, creating a better memory of their interaction with you. This better memory is what Customers think of the next time they need something you offer, and it is what brings them back. Not only does an investment in the experience improve the Customer Loyalty, but it also reduces the costs associated with your Customer Service channels. We know this because we put it into practice for many organizations all over the world—and have the results to prove it.

Mistake #2:

Ignoring how your present experience makes Customers feel.

Why? Emotions account for over half of the outcome of a Customer Experience.

Too many organizations don’t realize how important the emotions evoked during the experience are, choosing instead to concentrate on the process or mechanics and processes of an experience. However, when you leave the emotional parts untouched, you also leave them unpredictable. Leaving the emotions of an experience up to chance is a risky way to gamble with the loyalty of your Customers—particularly when competition is fiercer than ever. You must look at the emotional cues you send Customers in every moment of your experience, both consciously and subconsciously.

Mistake #3:

Focusing on the What and not addressing the How.

Why? Experiences encompass the 'what' AND the 'how'.

In this case, 'how' refers to how they feel at every moment of your experience. On the other hand, 'what' is the process and the part of an experience one judges rationally. So the What could be hours of operation and the How is whether the Customer feels like you have reasonable consideration for their ability to operate in those hours. Or the What could be having the call center available but the How is how quickly the phone is answered and their problem resolved. We often say an experience is a blend of an organization’s rational performance, the senses stimulated, and the emotions evoked that are intuitively measured against Customer expectations across all moments of contact.

Mistake #4:

Not getting the employees on board with your Customer Experience improvement program.

Why? You only design the Customer Experience; your team delivers it.

Let’s face it: Getting employees to buy-in is vital to your success. It is essential to convert employees to invest personally in your brand promise and give them proper training on how to live up to it. If you can achieve both of these, you have the foundation for success to present a Customer Experience that surprises and delights people. My eBook examines these concepts and shares real-world examples of these principles in action.  And it shows what happens when these principles are ignored, too.

We all make mistakes. I do. You do. Even our pets do (or should I say do-do). It’s a natural part of our human condition. However, we also must learn from them. Too many organizations today continue to make mistakes with their Customer Experience.

Are you one of them?

To help improve your Customer Experience sign up for our Certified Foundation CEM Training starting on April 8th.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

 Are You Making Excuses for a Bad Experience

Are You Being Disruptive?

When it comes to Customer Experience, You Have to Keep Rolling the DICE

 Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world's leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX