Customer experience is a vital part or branding.
“We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand; we get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.” The Ad Contrarian
With consumers reluctant to spend, attracting then ones who want to shop is very important. Having them return is vital. A positive customer experience means your product, service or store, other factors being equal, will be their first choice. But this doesn’t happen just because.
Consider Hertz. They spent the time and money required to understand what their best customer, the frequent business traveler, wanted; get in and out as quickly and simply as possible. From this insight came Hertz Gold. A simple adjustment to their best customers’ experience, which, as an added benefit, reduced the cost to service these valuable customers, and helped them become and stay #1 for a long time.
Without experiencing your product all consumers know, at best, is what your product is called. This is hardly competitive. Once you get them to try, having a Customer Experience Strategy that reinforces your positioning, will help the transition from being a product with a name to being a brand. As an added bonus, using it to support your positioning is often overlooked by your competition. While they are just letting it happen your carefully managed customer experience is attracting and retaining the best customers, over and over again.
Hip Shots
- Analyze how your customers use your product or service. What is their experience like? What’s important to them? How can you improve the experience?
- Pay special attention to your Best Customers. They are likely heavy category users so their perspective and needs will be distinct. Craft your customer experience to appeal to them.
- Use Customer Experience Marketing as an opportunity to deliver on the Customer Relationship Marketing Principles.
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Hey James,
There’s a blog you should check out: Maximum Customer Experience that focuses exclusively on (you guessed it) maximizing the customer experience. Although the comment section consistently goes off topic, Kelly’s posts are always thought provoking and helpful!
BTW, I’m just re-reading Sergio Zyman’s “The End of Advertising as We Know It” — he touches on the difference between the “price of entry” (aka core competencies) and differentiation. In terms of customer experience, this is (in my mind) the difference between meeting customer expectations, and exceeding them. It’s the “exceeding” part that is the moment in which brands are formed.
N’est pas?
~Graham
Graham Strong´s last blog post..5 Steps To Better Brainstorming for the Intrepid Freelancer and Independent Business Owner