Companies that compete solely on price or product are facing a losing battle. It’s simply not enough to differentiate a company in today’s market. On the other hand, companies that make it their mission to provide a stellar customer experience stand out from competitors and win loyal customers.
Jake Sorofman, research director at Gartner, recently stated, “Hypercompetition has eroded traditional product and service advantages, making customer experience the new competitive battlefield.” The analyst firm found that 89 percent of companies surveyed believe that customer experience will be their primary competitive differentiator by 2016.
In short: customers will remain loyal if your brand provides a positive experience.
Marketers today are focusing more on how to harness their customer data and use it to provide a better customer experience. With all the data available, marketers can create more relevant experiences for their customers. Brand communications have evolved from one-to-many messages to personalized one-to-one messages, and customers have come to expect a personalized experience where they are treated like individuals.
One great personalized interaction won’t propel your brand to the top, though. The customer experience needs to be consistent across every touch point and every channel. McKinsey looked at the onboarding process of a pay TV provider and saw that customers were typically satisfied following each interaction during the onboarding period – a service phone call, technician home visit, online communication, etc. However, when looking across the entire onboarding journey, customer satisfaction fell by almost 40 percent.
Imagine the impact on satisfaction if you looked beyond the onboarding period to the entire customer lifecycle.
This goes to show that if a brand doesn’t take a holistic approach to a customer’s journey, the experience suffers. It’s essential for internal functions, including sales, marketing and support, to align in order to consistently provide customers with a personalized, engaging experience throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Just ask some of the brands we partner with, who are creating and nurturing long-term relationships by using personalized video to support interactions at every customer touch point. The personalized video creates a unique experience for the viewer and helps brands acquire new customers, retain existing customers and ultimately, increase brand advocacy.
