The week has passed, and with it comes another “best of the week” articles review. A lot has happened this week – many exciting news and fresh approaches. In order to save you precious time going through the trouble of looking for the right articles to read, I summarized the 5 most important articles of the week. Whether it is the ways to improve Air Travel CX, the important elements of retail shopping CX or the brilliant video the Temkin Group shared with us, I promise you will have some good reads this weekend.
1. Customer experience is the future of marketing
The marketing world is going through really great challenges these days. With the internet and the endless amount of information it brings, customer service techniques that are not “customer-centric” are considered outdated and old fashioned. As Daniel Newman from Forbes explains, “In this era where the customer is king, every aspect of business—from strategies and processes to organizational structure and culture—is currently being remodeled to fit a customer-centric frame”. In other words, the service is not enough for these day’s economics – there is a need for a much more complicated experience.
2. Ten Ways To Improve The Customer Experience Of Air Travel
Flights are not greatest experience. With the sitting, the waiting, the annoying sound of crying babies and the not-so-edible food – the frequent flyers have their fair share of troubles. Still, many companies seem to be adding to the big trouble dish, and add bad customer experience.
This is where Blake Morgan from Forbes Leadership enters. In her article, Blake offers great tips for airlines, in order to prevent cases of bad customer experience, like the one she’s been through: “I just got off a 16 hour flight from Mumbai, India to Newark, New Jersey I cannot get my head around the customer experience of the air traveler”. Her experience summarized in two words – not fun.
3. The elements that matter most in the retail customer shopping experience
Sue Yasav from Retail Customer Experience had a mission: she decided to search and note the most important tips for creating retail customers shopping experience. The idea is understanding the customer’s need: when a customer is looking for an experience, he or she needs that experience to make their life easier.
At this point, it doesn’t matter what in the customer’s life he needs to be simpler – what matters is that they need to feel the simplicity. When we create the experience, we need to think: what could help the customer? What he or she like? What can we do to make it simple? What would not matter for them?
When we know the answers to these questions, the next part is checking what factor of CX affects us most. Apparently, the elements change according to our category of retail: to make sure what element matters most for our customers, we need to specify it to our retail specialty.
4. Does Customer Experience Need a 911 Call?
CX is affecting the customer loyalty, as Ginger Conlon, editor-in-chief of Direct Marketing, explains. If the customers are not satisfied, your company might face bankruptcy – the customer who left you once, may never come back. In order to keep customers happy, you must constantly monitor your customer experience, and make sure you always evolve. Conlon brings that up following a recent Forrester research, showing the customer experience (CX) scores for the majority of brands have barely held steady or have declined. The research firm’s “2015 U.S. CX Index” study found that CX scores were virtually unchanged for 69% of the brands it tracks; only seven brands’ scores improved. Then, she lists great ways to stay on top of the CX pyramid.
5. Important video: The Six Laws Of Customer Experience
The Temkin Group created this amazing video I just had to put here – it is definitely worth to be put under the title “Best of the Week”. David is a senior executive that sadly does not understand what he does wrong: he puts a lot of effort into his CX, but the customers are still unhappy. Luckily, the Temkin Group is here to help, with the 6 laws of customer experience. I won’t tell the ending, but let’s just say you can’t fake it. The CX must be a real aid for the customer, and acting like you want to help is not enough these days.
6. Opinion: “The present and future of customer experience”
Leesa Wytock from Transformation Magazine, is no less than a prophet. In her article, she shows the importance of customer experience in our present and future, while comparing the importance of present CX to the current standards of CX. In Wytock’s view, our appreciation for CX has increased over the years. We now have more expectations from it.
She examines ways in whichexperience can be maximized, because the CX standards today are not good enough (especially because the expectations the customers have are much higher than the standards). Wytock’s biggest demand, in my opinion, is her offer for of creating a customer-centric CX, and investing in digital (and especially mobile) experience. Those very big steps can be crucial. Improving customer loyalty and positive interactions, are only a small part of the benefits she suggests.