Customer Experience: A Key Brand Differentiator

TJ Claridge, Senior Manager for Analytics at Merkle, and Frank Lee, Senior Director Analytics at Merkle, discuss how customer trust is a competitive advantage, how to reveal a maturity map to see where your company fits in this process, and how a team should be structured for success so that the experience is a corporate adoption and not an afterthought.

Many brands aspire to deliver a great customer experienceOpens a new window because they recognize the importance loyalty has on their bottom line. Brands with a strong commitmentOpens a new window  to customer experience see higher brand awareness, higher-order values, retention, and customer satisfaction. 

Creating and managing superior customer experience is difficult with customer touchpoints that include direct reviews like those on Yelp, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and Twitter where a brand may not feel in control of its message. This has an impact on how brands do business. 

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Defining customer experience

Customer Experience (CX) is how the customer perceives all the interactions in their relationship with a business. This includes friends’ and family members’ experiences, and it continues well beyond a single transaction. 

The only way to tackle the customer experience across all touchpoints is through developing a strong customer experience strategyOpens a new window . Consumer’s expectations of brands are increasing significantly. It’s known that millennials are more likely than older generations to indicate they have had a recent bad experience. This is likely to increase the pressure on brands to position themselves around a seamless CX in order to meet these expectations.  

66% of consumersOpens a new window  care more about the experience than price, while 52% left an online shopping site due to a poor site experience. Despite the increase in the number of touchpoints where brands reach consumers, everyone has a preference and a channel that’s most convenient for them.

While technology remains a huge focus, the loss of the human element when considering customer experiences can also be costly to a brand. Automation and self-help tools may reduce short term costs but do not always deliver the results that were hoped for. There’s no replacement for the personal feeling of someone going above and beyond. This remains an important aspect in understanding when your customer needs more of a human touch.

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Marketers give themselves too much credit

A gap existsOpens a new window  between marketers’ perception and the reality of if they’re meeting customer expectations. Nearly half of US marketers believed their brand delivered an exceptional customer experience, while only 22% of consumers agreed. This may also suggest there are hurdles that are preventing customer feedback from getting to marketers, such as siloed data sources or lack of processing customer feedback.

Marketers may believe they are meeting these expectations simply because they only see a small part of the larger experience. The truth is, we still live in a business world that silos data and not often in a beneficial way. It’s important for a brand to identify avenues to get the right feedback by:

• Accelerating data-driven decision making in a space where rapid transformation is occurring
• Fostering collaboration across various teams to leverage the strengths within a company and improve responsiveness
• Prioritize opportunities to improve, with a focus on business costs and customer impact Garnering insights from an end-to-end journey of a customer which is crucial in succeeding in meeting or exceeding the expectations of the brand and leading to overconfident marketing teams.

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Trust is a competitive advantage

Trust is an advantage; plain and simple. For brands to compete today, they must build trust through a complex ecosystem of customer touchpoints. Consumers are becoming more aware of the information they provide to brands, and they have expectations on delivery, costs, and quality that continue to rise with each interaction. A breach of trust could cost a brand millions of dollars from the fall out. But trust is not just about protecting the information customers provide to you, but rather your ability to deliver on a promise of quality and service. All businesses are in the business of trust and those that earn the most trust will be the winners.

Apple and Amazon rank at the top for delivering a personalized experience. Everyone knows when they open their Apple product it’s going to be an experience. Each item dutifully wrapped and compartmentalized gives you the feeling each box is hand packed just for you. Amazon on the other hand focuses on providing shopping services that deliver right to your door in and curated recommendations for your next purchase. Some consumers are motivated solely based on a discount or next-day delivery options. . Brands that deliver an experience catered to their users in unique ways earn a high level of trust. 

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Building a CX Team

To a customer, your brand is just one big team. The fact that you have different departments for specific services is of no consideration. When there’s a problem, consumers just want to get their answer and problem resolved. Everyone in the business should be focused on delivering the best experience possible to the customer in any and all interactions.

Here are the key elements of building a CX team:

• Individual contributors are those that do not require a lot of oversight. They can process requirements, manage their time accordingly, and excel at being an all-around go getter.
• Numbers experts are those that not only understand how the brand uses metrics to measure performance, but they must understand how to create new metrics that make sense to the business. ROI is an important benchmark for success in a company, but it isn’t always easy to get around to it. These members will provide unique metrics the business will need to incorporate into their business decisions.
• Innovators are those who think big and don’t believe in the impossible. It’s not enough just to see the new concepts or approaches for delivering this. These players must also be capable of delivering the who, what, when, why, and how the brand can get from point A to Z.
• All business is the member that keeps the business in mind but is crucial that they know how to navigate the waters of the executive team. This individual identifies what areas of the business need to change and takes the responsibility to pushing those changes. Without this key player, the support of the executive team erodes over time.

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Where to start

As CX becomes a larger focus for brands, how do you define progress? Below is a basic maturity model for a brand looking to evaluate and improve their CX processes. 

Failing to meet or exceed a customer’s expectations will have significant costs. The demands of customers will continue to rise, improving the volume of end-to-end customer journey data. Use it to establish trust as a key differentiator and build the right team so you are equipped to compete.

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Co-author: Frank Lee, Sr. Director, Analytics, MerkleOpens a new window

As a leader on the Analytics team, Frank is a veteran at implementing and optimizing digital experiences for global clients.  His attention to detail, active listening, and emphasis on clearly defined objectives is a formula for delivering successful results. Frank’s passion for data stems from his background in building world-class web sites for the past two decades.