Tag Archives: market research

Great Customer Experience Work Begins Here

Great Customer Experience Work Begins Here

by Braden Kelley

What Customer Experience Really Is

Customer experience (CX) is an essential part of any organization’s success. CX is much more than the level of customer service a company provides. CX is the totality of a customer’s interactions with an organization over the course of their shared relationship. Customers develop a perception of an organization across all their interactions. This perception is an accumulation of the physical, emotional, social, and psychological experiences they have when interacting with the product or service itself, to the way they’re greeted on the phone, to the quality of the interfaces to the organization, its employees, and its information.

Successful organizations consciously create a positive and memorable experience for the customer, from the moment they first engage with the organization. Organizations must design their overall experience with the customer in mind, and tailor it as much as possible to the individual customer’s needs and preferences. Creating meaningful interactions with customers and delivering a great customer experience drives loyalty, trust, and word-of-mouth not just now, but for years to come.

Only the Customer Can Improve the Customer Experience – Usually

This may almost sound like I’m blaming the customer for their bad experience, but the customer does play a central role in making their own experience better. But sometimes they are actively prevented from doing so.

When it comes to customer experience improvement initiatives, many organizations behave in a quite parental way. They think they know best, and instead of investing the time, energy and money to gather the voice of the customer, they use of the voice of the business instead.

The voice of the business is what I call it when an organization speaks on behalf of the customer, assuming and asserting that they know what the customer is thinking and knows what they want (or need). This can be a shortcut used to produce a customer journey map on a deadline, but can quickly turn into a detour if you don’t then validate it with real life customers to make sure that your visualization of the customer journey is accurate and representative.

Only the customers know what their experience is. So go talk to them!

Continue reading the rest of this article on HCLTech’s blog

Image credits: Pexels

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Top 20 Customer Experience All-Stars of 2022

Top 20 Customer Experience All-Stars

by Braden Kelley

Recently Forbes and HundredX partnered together to produce a list for three hundred (300) customer experience all-stars utilizing an extensive online survey over the course of 2022, gathering 3.7+ million ratings of more than 2,220 unique brands.

121,000 respondents chose and rated the brands and products they view most positively across more than a dozen categories scoring the company’s products, services and treatment of customers.

The list at the link above can be searched for a specific company or sorted by brand category. If you want to see all 300, go there, but if you just want to see the Top 20 Customer Experience All-Stars, here they are:

  1. Buc-ee’s
  2. Chick-fil-A
  3. Toyota
  4. Costco
  5. In-N-Out Burger
  6. See’s Candies
  7. Trader Joe’s
  8. Chewy
  9. Lexus
  10. Publix Super Markets
  11. Honda
  12. Wawa
  13. Mario
  14. Dutch Bros. Coffee
  15. Zelda
  16. QuikTrip
  17. Marriott
  18. Apple iPad
  19. Wegmans Food Markets
  20. Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants

Here is an example of the first page of a brand survey from their methodology:

CX All Stars Survey Page 1

From here it goes into what’s good and not so good about the product, what’s good and not so good about the platform & company, and then digs into why the survey participant said certain items were good or not so good, before finishing with an open comments box and a rating of future usage and 10-point scale on likelihood of recommendation. People can rate up to seventy-five brands.

Takeaways

Customer Experience is incredibly important, and recently in my article Brewing a Better Customer Experience I laid out both the Seven Characteristics of a Great Customer Experience and also the Seven Steps to a Better Customer Experience. Both lists are available there as downloadable PDF flip books.

And while I disagree on certain elements of the methodology used to craft this list, particularly the comingling of brands and products together in the same list, it nonetheless helps to shine a light on the importance of focusing on delivering a great customer experience – and that’s a good thing.

People often underestimate the importance of customer experience in the success of any business. Luckily research has been done on the impact of customer experience on sales, and here are three of my favorites:

  • “86% of users are inclined to pay more for a great customer experience.” (source: Super Office)
  • “32% of customers “break up” with a favorite brand after one poor customer experience.” (source: Iperceptions)
  • “64% of buyers consider customer experience more important than price.” (source: Iperceptions)

Finally, very soon I will be publishing a series of new Customer Experience articles on the HCLTech Blog that will go into some of the next practices for customer experience research, personas, journey mapping, and experience improvement. I will introduce and link to them here, so stay tuned!

Image credit: Unsplash, HundredX

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How to Use Futurology to Make Better Business Decisions

How to Use Futurology to Make Better Business Decisions

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

Futurology is the science of predicting future trends and events, and it is becoming increasingly more important in the business world. By understanding the various factors that will shape the future of business, businesses can make better decisions and plan for the future. Here are some tips on how to use futurology to make better business decisions.

1. Research the Market: Researching the current market and trends can provide valuable insight into where the industry is headed and what opportunities may arise. By studying current and past trends, you can gain insight into what the future may bring.

2. Understand Your Customers: Understanding your customers and their needs is essential in making informed decisions. Knowing what they want and how they’re likely to respond to different changes in the market can help you plan for the future.

3. Monitor Emerging Technologies: Emerging technologies can have a major impact on the business world. Keeping track of the latest advances in technology and how they may affect your business can help you stay ahead of the competition and plan for the future.

4. Develop Scenarios: Developing scenarios of different possible futures can help you plan for the different possibilities and prepare for changes in the market. By understanding how different changes in the market may affect your business, you can make better decisions and plan accordingly.

5. Analyze Data: Analyzing data from past and current trends can help you better understand the future of your business. By looking at data on customer behavior, market trends, and other factors, you can gain insight into where the market is headed and how your business should prepare for it.

By understanding these tips on how to use futurology to make better business decisions, you can better prepare for the future and make more informed decisions. With the right knowledge, you can anticipate changes and make decisions that will benefit your business in the long run.

Bottom line: Futurology and future studies are not fortune telling. Skilled futurologists and futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Unsplash

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