Novel approaches in place of old paradigms about Customer Experience

by Csaba Szabó, CEO, CX expert Develor

We often meet sales people who complain about the price level and pricing policy of their company, and claim they would be much more successful if they sold their products at a more competitive (meaning lower) price. It is worth confronting such colleagues with the findings of this research. The primary defining factor is not the price, but the service quality that colleagues provide. Loyal customer will pay the price. Researches proved that returning customers spend on average 33% more. 

It should be no surprise that 75% of companies place CX amongst the No 3 highest ranked strategic topics, and the same percentage aims to be the CX leader of their business segment.

It is hard to find a single focus for the definition of Customer Experience; there is no accounting for taste. But if you wish to manage CX properly, it is useful to have a good starting point. DEVELOR has therefore created the following definition: “Customer Experience is an IMPRESSION that emerges in all Touchpoints – on the basis of previous experiences and expectations – which is effected by rational and emotional, conscious and subconscious impulses.”

According to our definition, we can distinguish between negative, neutral, and positive customer experiences. We must consider the customers’ previous experiences in the given business segment. Moreover, the positive or negative impressions that our clients have gained in other sectors affect their opinion about us so that, in effect, we compete with everyone in generating a positive picture.

When driving loyalty and commitment, emotional effects are more important than rational ones, and most impressions are not realised consciously, but are recorded and stored in our subconscious mind.

In spite of the fact that the role of human interactions has a crucial importance in generating emotional bonding, customer experience is also influenced by online, mobile and call centre transactions. Thus there can be no excellent customer experience without successfully synchronizing all channels; this is un-doubtedly one of the biggest challenges companies are still faced with.

Development of customer-centric capability cannot happen in isolation to the rest of the business. Transformation needs to be based on building strong foundations which are shaped by strategy and leadership, people and culture, data management and technology. Customer-centric focus is then operationalized through daily customer experience management, measurement and agile processes.

The alignment is required through the whole transformational process. It requires that each action in the organization has customer focus. It can be achieved through a specific leadership model (aka Governance Model that defines set of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly routines and drivers that have direct impact on excellent customer experience.

DEVELOR as CX expert supports its clients on this journey by providing expertise and capacity. We co-create solutions with our customers and get them implemented at all touchpoints with human interactions. We help implement customer experience management through people with the right mindset and the proper behavior, improved and unified leadership at all levels, and more efficient people related processes.

Though your customers expect your company to be as centered on them as they are centered on themselves, customer centricity is a two-way ticket. It is a strategy to fundamentally align what you offer with what your most valuable customers want. That strategy has a specific aim: more profits for the long term.

The big hit of March will be the 2nd International Customer Experience Conference, the largest business event about the topic in Central-Europe, held in Hotel Hilton Budapest on the 9th of March with 15 speakers represent 9 countries from Spain to Slovakia and from United Kingdom to the Middle East.