Customer Experience Moves Your Business
I know moving is very scary to most of us but I can say there is one positive ray of sunshine that comes through in every aspect of your business. When you move… you can start over. All of the bad things, sideways relationships, and experiences you have created or taken part in can be erased for the most part. You can literally flush them down the drain and move forward with a better customer experience. You can build brand new relationships and meet new people that you want to work with. Another advantage to starting over is rebuilding your customer experience.
What is Customer Experience
In order to work on customer experience we must first define it. I will be honest, when I was researching this article, I came across 10 different definitions for customer experience that vary greatly. I will use the definition that best reflects how we represent our customer experience. According to Forrester Research, customer experience is: “How customers perceive their interactions with your company.” Just think about this for a second. All interactions are perceived customer experiences. This encompasses your entire business when stop and take a look at it.
Although customer experience encompasses your whole business, it mainly focuses on three aspects. As we look at each of these, we will see how we can use them in the context of moving your business. According to the Harvard Business Review, customer experience encompasses:
- Customer Journey– This is the journey customers take from point A to point Z. Understanding this journey is vital to understanding what your customers go through when they interact with your company. This highly involves processes and workflow. Are your processes streamlined and easy to understand or are they complicated? Looking over your process and workflow is vital when you move so you start your journey off right. For an in depth guide, download our series on workflow to really improve your clients journey.
- Touchpoints: Next we’ll look at how you provide touchpoints —products, web sites, advertising, call center, etc. — that support the customer through their journey. Think of a touchpoint as the physical or digital medium your client physically interacts with. This includes your emails, webpages, products, anything they touch. When you move, ensure all of your touchpoints actually match your brand and communicate in your voice. A disconnect in brand or messaging can really fracture your client experience.
- Ecosystems: This concept is a little harder to understand but this should make sense. Think of an ecosystem as the business environment you create and the entities it impacts. Every business creates a working environment people interact with but your business also influences other entities around you as well. Your business impacts other vendors, competitors, and even suppliers. Who do you impact? Understanding your ecosystem as a whole in your new area will allow you to adjust your client experience so that you maximize your impact on others and serve your clients.
Conclusion
Customer experience is a broad word that everyone uses for for different meanings. The important thing to understand is that improving your customer experience should be one of the first things you look at when you relocate your business. Having a great customer experience is a great way to gain competitive advantage in a new market.
