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Consistency – The Key to a Great Customer Experience…Every Time.

Michael Fleming, Director of Client Services
March 31, 2008

Why consistency is key

Companies who understand what it takes to deliver an exceptional customer experience know the important role consistency plays and just how hard it is to achieve.

Many companies fail to provide a consistent experience because they focus on one customer touchpoint while completely overlooking others. How often have we heard about an otherwise four star hotel stay ruined by the one star service? The truth is nothing hurts your brand more than failing to provide a consistent experience across all customer touchpoints.

So, how can companies start offering more consistent customer experiences?

First of all, it’s not about us…

Now, the experts typically don’t agree on much, but one thing they do seem to agree on is a high-level definition of what makes up the customer experience. So for the sake of argument, let’s agree that “it is the series of interactions and exposures a customer has with your company that cumulatively creates the customer perception. The customer perception is how an individual customer feels about associating with your company.” (see The 5 Keys to Customer Experience) We know customers make decisions based on emotions and feelings which are very sensitive and volatile, especially in a casual relationship such as transacting business. Therefore, it stands to reason that designing and creating processes, experiences and communications without taking the emotional connection into consideration will undoubtedly lead to major problems and high customer turnover.

It’s about them…

So, what can a company do to get inside customers’ collective heads? Well, we know it’s not as easy as simply asking them, but you can check out more on that debate over at IrrationalCustomers.com. The only way to really know what your customers are thinking and feeling is to observe their behavior. If you design a new service meant to generate more revenue per customer but your customers keep filing out the back door, it’s not hard to figure out what they think of your new service. It is important to measure real numbers and understand what they mean and to identify and understand the behaviors that drive real business results for your company.

Understanding the role human emotion plays and its impact on your bottom-line helps guide business decisions that will influence how customers truly connect with your company. Consistency becomes an integral part of connecting all the dots, because a company’s true brand is only as strong as its lowest common experience.

Action items:

Identify desired customer behaviors that produce real business results
Design a comprehensive experience starting with the customer
Reinforce the experience by carefully crafting communications that influence emotions and feelings
Drive behavior using experiences to support a desired outcome
Monitor business results to measure your understanding of customer behavior

For companies with multiple customer channels, consistency is achieved one experience at a time. To be successful, companies must commit to a strategy for connecting with customers that will evoke positive emotions. One good thing about the roller coaster of emotion and its volatile effect on business is that it also becomes the rising tide that raises all ships. If you design an experience that starts with customer behavior and infuse it with emotion and feeling, your overall effectiveness will improve across all channels.

Michael Fleming is a Director of Client Services at Vox, Inc., a customer experience research and consulting firm. Contact him through the feedback form on our Contact Us page. Copyright 2008 Vox, Inc. All rights reserved.

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