Crafting the Customer Experience For People Not Like You: How to Delight and Engage the Customers Your Competitors Don't Understand

NOT CUSTOMER SERVICE, BUT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Make no mistake; the customer experience doesn’t simply entail what customers go through when they buy something. It also encompasses what happens before, during, and after that purchase—every aspect of doing business with you, from your hours of operation to convenience features to whether your customers can reach you by e-mail, phone, text or in person. It’s the sense of hospitality that people feel when they are doing business with you. And it is a truly holistic experience. It’s a 360-degree proposition, including what happens after the people become your customers. Customers’ impressions of you and your product or service depends on the total experience. The experience is what they’ll remember, because it’s about how you made them feel. We have all heard stories about people who wanted to buy something so much that they were completely sold on the product before they went about acquiring it. But then they experienced something awful or maybe just something that let them down and disappointed them, and that’s what they remember. It’s what they talk about and share with others.

A 60-something friend of mine recently switched over from an Android phone to an iPhone. My friend couldn’t wait to get his new iPhone; he was completely and totally sold on the product before he bought it. But he had a terrible experience when he went to get it. No one in the store even acknowledged his presence for nearly half an hour. All of the associates ...