Customer Experience & Authenticity

What does "customer experience" mean to you?

Or maybe better yet, the real question should be what is "customer experience" to your customers?

I often see two types of streams when this topic comes up, and you can usually see which a business adopts pretty quickly.

The first I would say is a functional one.

Under this model, a business prides itself on their processes and creates good workflows for the fact that they deal with a lot of different customers, and try to be something for everyone. This business pride themselves on their clean invoices, their simply payment options, their execution of basic services ... all in all, they are essentially easy to deal with but still relatively impersonal.

The second type is more personalized.

Here, you will find a business that leverages their people and their ability to create connections with their customers (on top of focusing on be great at what they do) in order to "wow" their customers.

Wowing your customer means empowering your employees and providing opportunities for them to significantly influence the interaction with a customer. The company here makes it a priority and invests in their business model in order to ensure that their team has the ability to leap into action when needed.

What I find interesting is that in a world that is beoming less and less "personal" everyday thanks to the rise of technology and mobile computing, there is a craving for unique customer experience.

When customers want transactional service that's what they want, but the moment they want to put the phone down, they want something more ... more personal, warmer and more authentic.

The business that are capable to meet these needs will be those that will continue to flourish in a rapdily evolving marketplace.

When was the last time you were "wowed"?

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