As is the case with a whole lot of business fields, there exists a strong customer experience consulting industry in this new, technologically-centered world of commerce in which we live.
Before the digital age of shopping, subscribing and transacting, there was a lot less need for that much customer experience handling, as the path was pretty linear for everyone. The information age changes that so much, given the research channels available now, and the new nature of shopping in a non brick and mortar form.
The problem is, a lot of businesses are too small to actually justify customer experience people on staff to the scale that is intermittently needed. So, it would either be losing a ton of money to it, or failing in all things.
What they Do:
They work with UX consultants most of the time, as a team helping a company establish the proper control of their media presence, establish solid BI to track and react to the social network environment to work it in their favor, and of course, they help a company plan out from beginning to end, the optimal experience for whatever the situation is.
From here, they can help them strategize to make them work, and funnel in more customers and strengthen customer loyalty as well.
What it Entails:
Well, all the customer experience sciences, from need creation (ergo marketing concepts) to research (ergo media control and web presence, as well as content marketing and information provision), training and support, and finally, customer service where any thereafter issues come up.
They also deal with CRM and the way data from one of these flows to the next through it, and how automata and strategies can be implemented through it to maintain marketing presence, as well as a view of loyalty and customer value or frequency.
What Else Can I Say:
There’s really not much else interesting to say about this. It’s consultancy for customer experience, when on staff CX people aren’t in place to take the role. Really, there’s nothing special about consultancy with this field as opposed to any other, so there are no special ways to find nor choose them.
All I can say is this: It’s easy to think you can just save money by skimping on something like this, and just assuming your own common sense can get this done properly.
If you screw this up, you’ll never hook customers or maintain a presence in the public, where you need to be to maintain customer acquisition and the like.
So, don’t skimp on this. Either hire CX people, or be sure you have consultants whenever planning part of your customer experience, be it marketing, presence or handling the customer post purchase transfer.
There are a number of places you can find someone like this, such as marketing and CX blog communities, conferences and the like, so there’s really no excuse not to make avail of these professionals.
The only small warning is make sure you get someone reputable and who knows their stuff within the specific conditions that apply to your situation. Beyond that, I’m entirely out of things to say about customer experience consulting.
