The Essence of Customer Experience

In Dutch we have a saying that goes like this: “small children (and drunk people) always tell the truth” So why is that relevant when talking about Customer Experience would you say? Well let me explain…

Last week I was in the car with my eldest daughter, she is 6 years old. We got a call from my wife whether we could stop by the supermarket to get some late groceries. Now in the small place we live we actually have two stores from the same grocery chain, I’ll refrain from mentioning their name. My daughter said to me: “so daddy can we go to the one in the middle of the centre of our town and not to the other one?” I replied: “Sure, no problem, but why?” Well, she responded in explaining that the Supermarket manager that walks around in the store she didn’t want to go to, really doesn’t look like the manager she is used to in the TV comercials of the grocery chain. The commercials are all around the supermarket manager wo is a very cheerful guy, that is always doing nice things with and to his customers and very interactive. The manager in the store she didn’t wanted to go isn’t really like that. At all…

To my opinion this is the essence of consistent and relevant customer experience: you expect the same experience through every channel you interact with an organization as a customer. And I was amazed she came up with the topic in that way!

As the example shows, enabling a true multichannel customer experience is not achievable by applying technology only. It should start with what you would like to achieve from a customer experience perspective, how to be relevant to your customers and where to focus on. Be it on positioning and presentation of your products, or how they are priced. How your customers can access your stores or website and how you provide service to them around the goods or service you sell to them. Or probably most important the experience you would like to set for them.
And as the example of my daugthers experience shows, also how to make sure that all the people throughout your organisation are living the way you would like to build the experience. So the organisational transformation that needs to go along with it.

If you take care of the above AND implement a technology solution that really enables a true All-Channel Experience for your customers, based upon Oracle’s Customer Experience product suite, which is best-of-breed in that, for instance, you will enable yourselve a real All-Channel Customer Experience in your interactions with your customer. Either business or individual customers.

I hope the example shows that it is tremendously valuable from a business perspective to drive customer experiences and that you start thinking of what it could do for your company as well. And when you are in need of a business partner that is realyknowledgable on Customer Experience and is a thought leader in your industry on how to focus on specific areas of customer experience. That can help you build a vision, strategy and roadmap for transforming your business into a social and relevant interacting partner for your customers… Come to us, the pioneers on the field of Customer Experience. We will guide you all the way.

Originally posted on the Capgemini Technology Blog: Capping IT Off