Marketing 6.0

CHAPTER 4The Future of Customer Experience: Fusing Physical and Digital for Complete Immersion

There is a growing trend among marketers to redirect their focus from creating and selling products to delivering exceptional customer experience. This shift has broadened the marketing scope from a single function to a cross‐functional approach, as the customer experience encompasses all interactions and points of contact a customer has with a company.

It may include various touchpoints such as exposure to advertising, searching on Google, browsing the aisle, using the product, making warranty claims, and discussing the product on social media. The impact of each touchpoint is influenced by the context of other touchpoints, making the customer experience holistic and integrated. Therefore, customer experience is a multifaceted concept greater than the sum of its parts.

The movement toward competing in the realm of customer experience can be attributed to several factors. First, transparency on the Internet can lead to the faster commoditization of products, as customers and competitors can easily compare product specifications. It enables customers to make well‐informed choices and competitors to emulate the top products in the market quickly.

Companies must now rely more on intangible factors to differentiate their products as the gap between tangible features diminishes. Creating and launching a new product alone is not enough. The customer experience with a product, from discovery ...