When it comes to success in 2019 for your business, there is no more important area to focus on than customer experience. Customers are no longer willing to accept a bad experience simply because they are satisfied, the goal posts have changed. The new benchmark of today is to know who your customers are, what experience they expect, and then design an experience to meet or exceed those expectations. Buying decisions are no longer about price alone, as customers will value experience over a cheap deal. Making sure your experience design is up to scale is critical in 2019 and here is why.
Know me
One of the fundamental changes in experience over the past few years is that you understand what your customers expect. The best way to gain this new level of understanding is to execute user experience research. Research can come in many different shapes and sizes, one of the most effective however is to journey or process map the customer experience. Journey mapping research seeks to understand your customer’s actions at a deeper level. Learning behaviours, motivations and attitudes will help your business learn why customers do what they do, what they expect and how they feel when they interact with your business. From there, you can completely reshape the experience to improve overall loyalty.
Customers want help
Experience expectations are rapidly changing in 2019. Previously it was enough to plan activity or have sales staff reach the customer at the buying point in their decision making process. In 2019, customers want help, not just a sales pitch. Customers are looking for guidance about products or services, helping them to understand the additional benefits or their choice is more important than ever. And they want this help long before they are ready to buy. Designing the right experience is the key to unlocking those areas where you can help your customers. By understanding their experience and motivations you can offer content which is useful at earlier stages in the decision making process. This type of experiential customer interaction can unlock a new level of customer acquisition and retention for your business.
Customer want winning moments
One of the keys to success in 2019 is the concept of creating winning moments in your customer experience. Customer personalisation is playing a big role in customer expectations, but catering to every individual customer is almost impossible. Instead of trying to create thousands of individual moments that last, focus on a few key moments that will resonate with larger customer groups. Understanding your experience offering allows you to narrow those moments down to the two or three that really matter. In every experience there will be those few interactions which mean a lot more than others. Getting those interactions wrong can mean losing a customer. Getting them right can result in higher retention and greater loyalty. If you know what your experience is, then you know what aspects of their journey are more important or carry more weight.
Having a superior product or service may have been enough to compete in the past, but in 2019 customers expect more. They expect you to know who they are, what they expect and then to craft an experience that complements. Making sure you have designed your experience with the customer at the forefront is arguably one of the most important tasks of 2019. Do your research, understand their journey and look for those moments where you can offer a real winning moment in your customer experience. Achieving this kind of experience design is sure to lift your business to the next level.
