Customer Experience EX/CX – the most important information

1. What is Customer Experience?

Customer Experience / CX is the sum of all interactions between customers and an organization, often referred to as a modern battlefield in today's business world.

Understanding, embodying and deepening customer interactions with our brand will strengthen our position ensuring competitiveness and uniqueness. Every company adopting a customer-centric strategy should take steps to consider the customer experience it offers.

In the current competitive landscape, it is not only the price and quality that influence our consumer choices, but above all, the experience offered to us. For a customer, their own context, preferences and needs are crucial. Whether these will be taken into account by the service provider becomes essential in their decision-making process.

When a company understands the need for individual customer value, trust and loyalty towards the company increase. This leads to an elevation in the level of positive customer experience, consequently boosting consumer satisfaction as well.

If you are interested in learning how to cultivate positive customer experiences, which are the source of contentment, satisfaction and loyalty, and how to encourage your colleagues to practice solutions focused on the modern customer, we warmly welcome you to join us.

2. Why is Customer Experience important?

As a company, we often focus solely on profits and our organization. However, it is the customers who drive our business, and it is because of them that we can achieve financial benefits. They are both the source and the purpose of our business.

By optimizing our CX approach and enhancing positive customer experiences, we aim to:

– understand the needs of modern customers,

– co-create trends together with our clients,

– win customer satisfaction,

– demonstrate to the customer that we care about them and value their voice,

– ensure competitiveness in a market where not only price and quality matter, but above all, customer choice and satisfaction.

3. What are the benefits of implementing, deepening and optimising CX?

The Customer Experience approach in business leads to:

– deepening our team's knowledge about our customers,

– increasing our customers’ sense of self-worth,

– enhancing the customers’ trust in our brand,

– deepening the emotional connection between the customer and our brand,

– amplifying the pleasure our customer derives from engaging with our brand,

– differentiation in the current market saturated with similar services and products,

– gaining a competitive edge in today's business world.

4. Why is CX a competitive advantage and the so-called battlefield of the 21st century?

The current era of globalization presents both opportunities and challenges. A wide array of products and services is readily available and a modern customer has an immense array of choices in the market.

Furthermore, customers are no longer sentimentally attached to brands and readily switch if they are not satisfied with their experiences with a particular organization.

Price and quality are no longer the sole factors determining the choice of a product or service, as a modern customer seeks to be understood and valued. Therefore, the experiences we offer to our customers hold significant importance.

Moreover, price and quality often tend to be similar across different organizations, making the experiences we provide a key differentiating factor for our company. In this landscape, the experiences our customers go through with us play a pivotal role.

5. Who is responsible for CX in an organization?

Customer Experience involves the entire company, as CX deals with points of contact with our brand across a wide spectrum. Therefore, having a strategy documented in official materials alone is insufficient.

The CX approach should be embraced by every employee in the company, as every moment when a customer interacts with our brand can be significant. This applies to service design, product development, marketing plans and IT systems among others. Thus, customer orientation should be visible at all levels, from executives and managers to leaders and every staff member within the organization.

Moreover, a shift from traditional command and control to trust, inspiration and engagement is needed. Adhering to outdated frameworks will slow down our responsiveness to customer needs and the ongoing changes.

The change in perceiving the business world and customers as well as the shifts in business strategy must begin with elevating team skills and investing in employees.

6. Why is EX as important as CX?

Employee Experience (EX) has a significant impact on Customer Experience (CX), as employees in organizations have the most direct interaction with customers and shape processes, services and products that our clients use.

By involving our own employees in creating processes, supporting their creativity and granting autonomy in decision-making process, we demonstrate that they can engage with customers in the same way. Values such as trust, support, team-building and deepening relationships need to be nurtured at this stage.

7. How to implement, deepen, improve and optimize CX?

To optimize and implement the Customer Experience approach in business, consistent collaboration among employees who share the same goal is crucial. Therefore, continuous education on customer orientation is essential.

Key steps include:

– shifting business strategy towards customer orientation,

– tailoring our services and products to specific customer requirements,

– understanding the archetype of our customer and creating personas,

– grasping the concept of the Voice of the Customer (VOC),

– engaging and inviting customers to a co-creation process,

– experimentation,

– creating an adventure for both employees and consumers,

– valuing diversity among managers, employees and customers,

– responding to emerging opportunities and issues,

– gamification,

– feedback,

– analyzing the Customer Journey,

– team collaboration, customer-centricity and shared pursuit of the same goal.

8. What matters in CX approach?

Within the CX mindset, many aspects should be developed within the organization:

– communication,

– empathy,

– active dialogue allowing both sides: the business and customer to exchange thoughts and opinions,

– gathering and analyzing relevant data,

– personalization,

– focus on emotions,

– openness,

– understanding what drives today's customers,

– creativity,

– access to information,

– respect for customers,

– empowerment, enabling both employees and customers to make decisions and take independent actions,

– keeping promises and conscientiousness,

– co-creation, as customers today are often prosumers, wanting to be both producers/creators and consumers,

– emphasizing aspects for e-customers,

– customer activation,

– value, which is currently not solely created by organizations but also by customers, their demands, desires and choices,

– transparency and consumer education.

9. How does CX relate to price and quality?

In today's world, product and process quality within a company no longer suffice to ensure complete customer satisfaction. Customers expect more – they want to participate and co-create their experiences with a brand or product. Modern businesses must, therefore, shift their focus not only towards product and service quality, but above all, the quality of co-creation experiences to meet such customer expectations.

10. Who is a modern customer?

We have witnessed numerous technological and societal changes over the past decades. The most fundamental change in the relationship between society and business is the role of the consumer.

Modern customers are not passive. They want to be active, engaged and heard. They are well-informed and wish to share their opinions, knowledge and expertise. Hence, they will be loyal to brands that allow them to do so.

Moreover, experimenting with customers and involving them in the creative process can be a significant step forward in business strategy. Customers increasingly expect the unexpected, desiring to experiment, discover and explore new possibilities.

Today's customers are also innovators. By providing customers access to knowledge, information and certain options, we can witness the development of our service or product. Customers can take part in transformations enhancing our original product with new features and capabilities.

By facilitating access and enabling communication between consumers and employees, we can participate in a beautiful story of co-creating a product, where curiosity, innovation and engagement play the leading roles, creating unique value and consequently leading to a positive customer experience.

11. A Customer-Driven Contemporary World

The modern world is rapidly changing with customers setting higher standards and numerous companies on the market providing similar services and products. Customers are becoming more aware and their requirements are evolving. Hence, nurturing customer experience skills within teams becomes essential for achieving competitiveness.

12. Value in the spirit of CX

In the past, value was created solely by companies for their consumers. It used to be that companies dictated terms in the business world and a customer was simply the recipient of value. However, things have changed significantly, and now value is co-created by customers and businesses. The contemporary market demands innovative and diversified products that will meet the expectations and needs of customers.

13. Case Studies: examples of focusing on Customer Experience

Beauty store: allowing customers to create their own cosmetics based on their choice of ingredients, bottles and names. By describing their needs and desires, a unique product is created.

Decathlon: meeting customers' needs by allowing them to rent equipment, such as kayaks, before making a purchase.

Online shopping: allowing customers to change their delivery address on the portal during shipping.

The making of The Lord of the Rings film: engaging Tolkien fans by providing them with information about the film and projects, allowing people from all around the world to share opinions, offer suggestions and co-create the world that fascinated them. By offering such a rich customer experience, the film creators expressed their respect for Tolkien fans, showcased how important customers and their opinions are to them, and gained their trust.

Theatre: during the pandemic, making plays available for free on an online platform, with payment being voluntary. This demonstrated respect and understanding towards society globally.

14. Statistics

– 88% of global organizations consider Customer Experience a priority.

– 61% of consumers are willing to pay up to 5% more if their customer experience is positive (Emplifi).

– 86% of consumers will abandon a brand after just two negative customer experience interactions (Emplifi).

– 65% of consumers declare they will remain long-term customers of a brand if their customer experience is positive and satisfying (PwC).

– 95% of global organizations claim that the Customer Experience model is important in business development (Econsultancy).

15. What are the challenges in implementing and deepening CX approach?

When transitioning our thinking about value and introducing or reinforcing the Customer Experience approach and co-creation process in our company, we may encounter several challenges and questions that need to be explored:

– How can we qualitatively and individually deepen the dialogue with the customer?

– To what extent can we enable our customers' independence?

– How can we reconcile diversity and individualism with our services?

– How can we focus on the customer without significantly depleting resources and operational efficiency?

– How can we stand out?

– How can we blur the lines between teams in our organization and spread the culture of customer-centricity?

– How can we ensure that the entire organization, rather than just an individual, is responsible for the CX approach?

– How can we encourage and engage customers in co-creation?

– How can we collaborate to strengthen customer-centricity?