In a study conducted by Bain Consulting on customer experience, 8% of the customers of 362 companies described their experiences with those companies as “Superior.” Yet, 80% of those companies believed the experiences they provided to their customers were “Superior.”
Why the reality gap when it comes customer experiences?
A Harvard Business Review study concludes that it is the quality of the brand’s personal touch that is causing the gap :
So, what can a brand put into action to improve the quality of personal touches?
In the June 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. report entitled “What Drives A Profitable Customer Experience,” “Feeling Valued” proved critical to CX across all surveyed industries (thought it was “Delight” ay?). And “Emotion” had a bigger impact on customer loyalty than the study’s other two variables of “Effectiveness” and “Ease.”
Read the Forrester Report here (note that access requires subscription)
So, try this:
1. Regarding “Feeling Valued” — ask your team, “Is our personal touch of a quality that makes the customer feel just delighted? How can we go further to make the customer feel Valued for their time. Valued for their specific interest, questions, concerns? Valued as a human being?”
2. Regarding “Emotion” — ask, “Is our personal touch of a quality that raises interest and response from a ‘Like it’ to a ‘Love it’”?
This is the hard part, because you’re now into the art of creating superior CX. But, you do want to close that reality gap, right? So,
- Be brutally honest about your team’s ability to recognize the difference between a good and superior CX.
- Be courageous. Venture out of your comfort zone. Look at new creative talent, new designers, new art direction, new storytellers. It doesn’t matter if it’s an event or a video or a sales sheet or a blog or the design of your office space. Up the experience by upping your team’s game.
As Maya Angelou said, “People will never forget how you made them feel.”
So, beyond all the data and neuroscience and ethnography and social listening and content, it comes down to having a superior feel for creating consistent, artful personal touches for all your content, across every touchpoint experience.
Source: Bain Consulting, Forrester, HBR
