How Should We Define Customer Experience?

From mind-numbing hold times and dropped calls to ineffective or downright rude salespeople, everyone can quickly recall their customer service horror stories. But trying to think of – and describe – a stellar customer experience isn’t as easy. “Customer experience,” or Cx, is a slippery devil if for no other reason than, as complex creatures, Cx means something different to all of us. Someone’s warm and fuzzy can easily be another’s invasion of personal space.

Global research and advisory firm Forrester defines customer experience as “how customers perceive their interactions with your company.” Forrester’s Customer Experience Index benchmarks how effectively more than 900 brands across 18 industries in eight countries deliver experiences that strengthen loyalty. When determining these rankings, the company examines “how effectively respondents felt their needs were met and how they assessed the ease and enjoyability of their experiences.”

In some cases, it may be easier to define Cx by what it isn’t. “It’s not an initiative or one-time program,” says CH Consulting senior partner Allen Kruse. “Customer experience is a cultural shift.” Which means, in order to be successful, your Cx strategy has to permeate every department, initiative, and aspect of your business. In a short YouTube video, Apple founder Steve Jobs explains why customer experience should be the starting point for any idea, not vice versa. “As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with, ‘What incredible benefits can we give to the customer?’ ‘Where can we take the customer?’ Not…staring with the engineers. You start with the customer experience and work backwards toward the technology.”

According to a study by New Voice Media, an estimated $62 billion is lost by U.S. businesses each year following bad customer experiences, which is part of the reason why more companies today are putting more focus on Cx. In fact, the 2017 Global Customer Experience Benchmarking Report by Dimension Data shows 81 percent of organizations consider customer experience a key competitive differentiator and see clear benefits from improving their customer experience in terms of increased customer loyalty, increases in revenue and cost savings.

What’s less clear is how to implement Cx strategy. In the same Dimension Data report, while 71 percent of organizations cite customer experience as their top strategic performance measure, only 13 percent of them rate themselves a 9 or a 10 (out of 10) when it comes to delivery. CH Consulting can help contact centers cut through the Cx noise by aligning your business goals with concise strategies. For more information as well as a free quote, contact CHCG today.