Defining The Customer Experience

Customer experience is defined as the interaction between a business and their customer over the course of their partnership.

How many times have you held off calling a service provider because your first experience with them was your worst nightmare. Not only did you have to press numerous prompts when you called, half the time the person on the other end couldn’t even help you and had to transfer your call to someone else. This leaves you very frustrated and even worse, you have to repeat yourself all over again to the next customer service representative. This kind of service is one that any business owner wants to avoid.

Finding the right customer to promote your service can take weeks, even months. Losing a customer can take less than a minute if the customer experience is less than what they expected. Anyone can provide a service however, it’s how you choose to interact with your customer that can either set you apart from your competition or put you side by side. This is why it is extremely important to make sure that the first interaction is positive, informative and effective. Building on that business relationship right from the start will earn their trust and provide the experience needed to earn their respect.

Some of you may recognize this as the Results Pyramid from the “Journey to the Emerald City”- the book which followed “The Oz Principle” written by Roger Conners and Tom Smith.

The Pyramid has 4 sections: Experiences, Beliefs, Actions and Results

• Experiences foster organizational beliefs
• Beliefs drive actions
• Actions produce results
• Results become new experiences

The Process is continual…

So keeping the Customer Experience in mind, this Pyramid could go either way. If your customers first meeting is a good experience, their beliefs and actions will produce the desired results and the overall experience is what was expected. If the first meeting doesn’t go well, their beliefs will not lead to the actions that produce the results they were expecting. The behaviors that were demonstrated do not reflect well on the company and you need to ask yourself if this is the belief you want the customer to have? If not, what belief do you want your customer to have and what customer experience do you need to provide to change their beliefs?  What do you need to change or do to get to the results your customer is looking for?

From lead generation, to the first interaction, proposal and contract, a positive Customer Experience will be the key to your most loyal partnerships.