By Todd Unger, Chief Experience Officer and author of The 10-Second Customer Journey
If someone asked you, “what does customer experience mean?” you’re likely to think first about live, real-world experiences, say, at a coffee shop or restaurant, a hotel, a retail store, or an amusement park. Having “a good or bad experience” is an overall perception that combines human (and possibly technological) interactions, physical environment, product quality and customer service.
In fact, most definitions of customer experience you’ll find will say something to the effect of “customer experience is the sum total of any and all interactions that affect brand perception.” For a business leader, marketer, or operator, “anything and everything” is a pretty tall order! As a newly minted Chief Experience Officer, I struggled with this type of definition of customer experience. For one thing, while it’s reasonably straightforward to think about customer experience in the real-world paradigm, what does customer experience mean today, when so many of our interactions take place in the digital world, on a website, in an app, or on social media?
Second, as a business leader and operator, I was looking for a definition that went beyond feelings and perceptions and tied customer experience to business growth. Not finding what I was looking for, I eventually made up a working definition myself, one that captured both the operational and growth aspects I was seeking: Customer experience is the seamless integration of marketing, product, commerce, and service to acquire and retain customers.
There are three important points captured in this “CXO’s definition” of customer experience:
1. Customer experience is the result of the four corners of experience—marketing, product, commerce, and service—all working together to satisfy the customer.
2. While feelings and perceptions are important, they’re difficult to measure and are intermediary to the ultimate outcome: growth.
3. The outcome of great customer experience = more customers.
Having this working definition helped me think about my role as a CXO differently. To me, the “X” translates to the four corners of experience (marketing, product, commerce, and service) that connect the Customer (the “C”) and the Organization (the "O”). You can read more about “Putting the X in CXO” in this post.
Order The 10-Second Customer Journey: the CXO’s Playbook for Growing and Retaining Customers in the Digital Age HERE
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