Customer Experience: It’s All a Question of Timing
The terms customer experience, customer management and customer centricity are often used as if they were interchangeable. But they are not.
The confusion is perfect. When it comes to dealing with customers, discussions bring to mind the “Milan or Madrid” quote too readily attributed to former national soccer player Andreas Möller. Transferred to the digital industry, this means that customer experience then stands in a row with customer management and customer centricity.
It is important to understand the main differences between these terms and where they should ultimately be placed within the supply chain on the path to greater customer satisfaction.
Let’s start with a brief clarification of the terms.
- What is customer management? It is part of a company’s business model and ultimately manages its interaction with the customer.
- Customer Centricity, on the other hand, makes up the core of the ecosystem in which the company itself operates. It is the operating model.
- This brings us to the Customer Experience. It is the result, the added value that must be achieved.
So Customer Management asks how, Customer Centricity asks why, and Customer Experience asks what for?
A huge offer does not make a successful customer experience
In this article, I would like to take a closer look at the customer experience. It describes the experience a customer has when interacting with a company, its products and services — and across all touchpoints. Analogue or digital. Wherever a company and a customer come into contact with each other, this can pay off in terms of the customer experience — provided that the company succeeds in creating personal added value.
Many companies are still wondering how their customers can configure their products most easily. The ability to individualize the product represents added value for certain target groups.
At the same time, however, it requires competence and the right decisions from the customer. What customers expect today are personalized offers that take some of these decisions away from them.
The best offer is therefore the one that satisfies the customer’s needs across all channels and suits the situation at hand. In other words: offering the best solution at the right moment — that’s a good customer experience. So it’s all a matter of timing.
Data-driven understanding
The topic of Customer Experience has gained momentum, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. So what does it take to make it happen? In short, the right timing and a good relationship. An understanding of each other. The exchange of information is essential. That’s why we at diconium combine smart systems, innovative technologies and data to enhance the customer experience. We develop and design technology and interfaces that adapt to people’s lives and living situations.
With digitalization and the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, we see more and more customers becoming digital service providers themselves — even though their traditional business may be analogue.
Two points are essential here: the design of a product and its use. How can a product be adapted so that it is highly accepted on digital channels? How can I enrich the experience of users of certain products through digital services? One result of this is on-demand models, leasing, the most diverse variants of pay-per-use. They all break with the classic view of one’s own product and instead reduce it to the essentials: the benefits from the customer’s point of view.
Tracking the process (digitally)
The exciting thing about customer experience is that it encompasses the entire process surrounding a particular product. To illustrate this with an example: in the automotive sector, the customer may not be driven by the idea of owning a car, but by the desire for mobility. So the customer experience doesn’t just begin when they smell the leather of the cockpit seats and can start the ignition of the vehicle — but as soon as they start looking for solutions to their need for mobility and find them on the move.
The concrete technology and the product take a back seat — in favour of concepts that are as flexible as they are diverse and that fit the precise needs of each individual.
Sharing offers, leasing models and digitized car dealerships go hand-in-hand and demonstrate the transformation of the automotive industry from a “technology-driven” to a “customer experience-driven” industry.
Let’s talk about opportunities in the future
The customer experience offers a tremendous opportunity for companies. It enables them to learn to understand their customers and their needs — and ultimately drive innovation ever further within their own company. Customer experience therefore acts like a flywheel: the data and experiences that companies gather are the impulses that stimulate and accelerate strategic corporate changes in customer management toward customer centricity. Let’s tackle it together.
