The 5 Pillars of Customer Experience Strategy

The 5 Pillars of Customer Experience Strategy

Take care of your customers and they will remain loyal. Abandon them and they won’t ever forgive you.

Today, maintaining customer loyalty is tougher than ever because customer experience has been fully integrated into every marketing and communications message. From the positioning of a product, to the development of digital strategy, advertising, public relations, and branding, the new concept of customer experience includes being part of their online and social life. Functional and emotional connections must be a priority to every strategy.

The customer BuyWay is designed to map the interactions that customers have with brands today, then identify and address any areas of weakness. At every level, brands should adapt and meet customers across channels. At TopRight, we employ the BuyWay methodology to close gaps in messaging and create brand awareness in key markets.

In doing this work, we consistently find that there are five basic areas of customer experience that must be addressed as a baseline for success.

Is your customer experience strategy internally aligned within your organization? Have you identified how your customers will think, feel and act? Does your brand answer the “so what” question? Most importantly, why does your brand matter to customers? You must do the positioning research to find the answers. If not, true customer satisfaction will always remain beyond your reach.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Communicate with integrity and purpose. If you promote that you believe in a cause, then make a visible difference to your audience and the ecosystem that surrounds it. In the end, this is about brand purpose.

It’s not a “maybe” question anymore. A recent survey by McKinsey points out that “the future will belong to companies that put technology at the center of their outlook.” Having the proper customer resources, tools and technology to meet expectations are critical to success, and having the analytics to back this up is a necessity.

Create a compelling story and share your brand voice in a manner that connects with your customers. If there is an opportunity to further segment and personalize the experience, take full advantage of it. The growing necessity of personalization has been known for a long time—don’t dismiss it just because it requires work!

Perception is important, but actual value is the number one driver of loyalty. Showcase your benefits and value proposition with simplicity, clarity and alignment.

Communicating brand differentiation is a challenge, but also an imperative for success. Using the right mix of channels and platforms, as well as measuring and optimizing each one, can be overwhelming. Start by focusing on the basics for delivering your message and keeping customers engaged. By supporting experimentation and understanding areas to improve, you will be far ahead of competitors in delivering a memorable customer experience.

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