I was recently reading an in depth post by Sky Word on the difference between “experience” and “the customer experience”. The author, Ted, did a great job presenting his key takeaways about how people perceive experiences vs. customer experiences. To uncover these perceptions, Ted surveyed a variety of individuals and reviewed the stories they shared as examples of experiences and customer experiences. Ted’s thoughts really launched my own wonderings about the current state of digital customer experiences.

Digital Customer Experience vs. Experience

The common theme and, really, realization from Ted’s post was that people view customer experiences as improvable (they can always be one-upped) and don’t tend to be memorable – whereas experiences involve emotion and storytelling, experiences leave a lasting impression.

What really jumped out to me, after reading his findings and thoughts, is that people view customer experiences as themselves against one – themselves against one company. Whereas people view their experiences as themselves with others – themselves interacting with other individuals or groups of people that color their memories (experiences). So how can a company shift from being a faceless, impersonal “one” to a relatable and, positively memorable, person? It can’t. Or, rather, the goal is to have an un-memorable digital customer experience.

When it comes to the digital customer experience, can you really make a memorable, delightful, loyalty-inducing online experience? All of these digital touch points that make up an organization’s online customer experience are, at the end of the day, part of a list that a customer might come up with if their experience was bad – i.e. troublesome, un-smooth, time consuming, etc. And if all of these digital touch points flow seamlessly? Well, that’s today’s digital customer ideal! But that also means your digital customer experience won’t be memorable. A smooth experience does not make for a memorable experience. Your goal is to make things so convenient, quick, and easy, that the customer appreciates the way you’ve optimized your service to respect their time.

A simple, seamless experience that doesn’t require much thought shouldn’t stick in one’s memory.

To create truly memorable digital customer experiences in this day and age, you have to really wow customers. You can wow them with innovation and convenience – by rolling out a new digital feature. You can wow them with inspiration and emotion – telling personal stories or stories of charity that elicit feelings of good will. But can you wow them with a seamless experience? Not really. It’s like appreciating good security. If security is good, you’ll never notice the ones keeping you safe – you won’t have that bumpy moment where there’s a security breach and you need to be saved, that moment where you’d take notice of those working to ensure your safety. It’s not easy to appreciate what you can’t see.

Where Digital Customer Experience and Customer Experience Meet

When customers notice that your digital customer experience isn’t seamless, then there are opportunities for the members of your organization to create a memorable customer experience. When we tell stories we describe the characters, the setting, the story and its beginning, middle, and end. Your customer support staff – and anyone customer facing – are those characters that can make or break your customer experience in crucial times. Perhaps that’s why there have been so many articles published recently on how to hire for and train your support reps to transform your customer experience!

Where Should Your Digital Customer Experience Focus Be?

As our digital world continues to change so quickly (hello IoT), we can’t all be the ones to wow customers with brand new features and conveniences. Many large companies are still bogged down by their legacy systems. These companies are currently wrapping their brains around the vaguely termed “digital transformation” to help them upgrade their legacy systems to a more agile point where back ends can swiftly transform to meet new front end (customer) expectations. So, for now, keep focusing on how to create a simple, seamless user experience when it comes to those digital customer touch points. And when it comes to places where those touch points may not flow together so smoothly, make sure your team is prepared to personally support your clients and customers. At the end of the day, we’re all human. It’s the shared human experiences that leave their marks in our memories.

Throughout the month of April, a major customer experience concern seemed to be with the more tangible aspects of the customer experience – data, analytics, loyalty programs, proactive tactics, and facets of the digital experience. Read on for our top 5 thought provoking articles found in April, we hope you find them useful too!

1. Great CX Starts With Analytics, MarTech #eMetrics

Antoinette Su covers her top takeaways from the April eMetrics Summit, a summit that helps marketers and IT professionals use data to make better customer and digital experiences. Su picked up on a theme of how analytics is crucial to the customer experience, drawing upon speaker stories and really highlighting their key experiences that reflect the value of big data and analytics in data-driven decision making, in sharing knowledge throughout organizations and encouraging integration, in driving valuable innovation through experimentation, and in achieving automation and scalability. A refreshing reflection on the real value behind analytics!

2. Baby, Come Back! One Quick Fix for Cable and Satellite Providers

Ken Wheaton speaks honestly about the way he, and all real customers, view their relationships with cable and satellite providers on AdAge. Really, he reflects on things we’re well aware of but his take and delivery somehow causes you to pause and go “wow, it really is that bad!”. Wheaton cuts to the chase by bluntly reviewing very common CSP messaging and interactions with customers and comparing them against how one would view a relationship. By doing so, he immediately makes it clear that cable and internet service providers could really easily revolutionize their CX by approaching their customers with a loyalty program. Rather than taking customer loyalty completely for granted, CSPs have an opportunity to improve their customer relationships.

3. How to improve your service by making it proactive

Adrian Swinscoe recently published a book covering 68 strategies for creating amazing customer experiences. In this post on MyCustomer, he explores proactive customer service. A full exploration, Swinscoe covers why companies need to seriously consider proactive customer service (especially considering the cost savings!), the stages of the customer journey where proactive service can be applied, and he even mentions how to begin applying proactive customer service strategies. We particularly enjoyed the mention of personalized, interactive video – a customer experience offering that can proactively serve existing customers very well according to Swinscoe!

4. Customer Experience is All About Speed

While such a simple concept, Gerry McGovern reflects on a number of big brand examples where site speed has a major impact on bottom lines, customer experience, and other valued business areas. Referencing results from Google, Amazon, and other digital experience leaders, McGovern makes it clear that speed matters to customers in the digital age.

5. Why Firms are Getting Serious About Customer Experience

Perhaps the most interesting point to be made about this article is not explicitly stated in the text – IKEA is recognizing a shift in buyer behavior and altering its customer experience to get a jump on where they anticipate customer expectations and desires are headed. Known as the affordable furniture retailer, IKEA recognizes that household consumption patterns are drastically changing, they’re anticipating customers who will recycle or repair their existing homewares, or be increasingly thoughtful about their home purchases. Rather than waiting to realize this from a drop in sales or from customer comments, IKEA’s doing their research (making use of the data and analytics!) and strategically making use of their findings.

Looking to make improvements to your customer experience offerings? Ask us about upcoming webinars to learn more about how we can help you (and have helped some of the world’s leading companies) ensure successful customer experience transformations!