To wrap up the April blogging season, one of our long-time clients – Mat Wylie of Customer Radar – takes a look at why businesses need to be focused on the experience of every customer who interacts with their brand – and how you can make sure you’re providing the best experience possible.

 A new business revolution is underway. We’ve seen it coming for a while – businesses are no longer able to focus on just providing a great product, but instead need to shift their focus to the customer experience. Businesses are evolving, and the ones that are creating better experiences are fast becoming
the ones that are succeeding.  It comes down to providing an exceptional customer experience at all touchpoints – creating a consistent experience across everything from salespeople to stores to advertising to your website.

So why has customer experience become so important? This revolution is occurring alongside a number of factors and, in particular, the empowerment of the internet and the rise of social media and smartphone technology. Nowadays, we inhale trends and get ideas on what to purchase through the experiences of friends, online reviews, product pages, personalised deals, and the mass movement of key opinion leaders, a.k.a. bloggers. Word of mouth has become even more important than it used to be – a bad review or someone spreading negative stories about you can damage your reputation beyond repair.

These seemingly natural changes mean companies are now measured well beyond in-store interaction, a TVC, or price; there’s an entire criteria of touchpoints that together form the all-encompassing and highly demanding ‘customer experience’. The customer experience is measured on every interaction a person has with a company – its advertising, values and key messages; how they’ve discovered it; where its featured; how it’s presented online; how it interacts and responds, how up-to-date it is in social media; how its employees treat them; and, of course, the in-person experience.

While it may seem that there is too much for businesses to keep up with, there are some considerations at the very heart of it all that I don’t believe will change. For example, a great idea, product or service will always be sought after – but now more than ever it needs the backing of a strong customer experience to gain traction or interest.

On the flip side, no matter how well you dedicate time to the customer experience, if the product is awful, you’ll inevitably find yourself on the firing line. Take the recent Banana Boat sunscreen crisis for example – a brand with quirky attributes, great packaging, fresh new TVC and advertising campaigns was attacked by its customers online for not delivering on its simplest requirement: to protect people from the sun. At times like these, we see even enormous brands come under fire. With social media acting as a quick and easy tool, the opportunity for negative responses can easily skyrocket and a wave of supporters can jump on the bandwagon, if the situation is not handled correctly.

So how can you know whether your customer experience is great? Easy – go straight to the horse’s mouth. Find out from your customers what they like and don’t like about your business and how they interact with you – and then do something about it. Collecting live feedback allows you to find out any issues as they happen and take steps to improve the ways your staff interact with customers, the layout of your stores, the usability of your digital presence, and every other aspect of customer experience.

We’re in the midst of a revolution. While there are more methods and styles of engagement entering the pool, let us still not forget what is at the heart of it all – the customer experience. Every single interaction evokes a genuine feeling, either positive or negative, towards a brand or company – so it’s worthwhile making sure everything is in sync.