Six Essentials for a Stronger Customer Experience

Customer experience has been a key focus for businesses in all industries for several years now—long enough to learn what works well and what does not.

We asked experts and practitioners to share their essential ideas on developing and sustaining a strong customer experience, both for companies just beginning their customer experience journey and for those that need to rejuvenate an existing initiative.

Think “omnichannel.” People used to accept that different channels (Web, mobile, social media, instore, phone) abided by different policies and contained differing information. (Witness the all-too-familiar, “Items purchased online may not be returned to the store.”)

Today, however, customers do not necessarily engage with businesses one channel at a time, and it is common to begin a transaction on one channel (i.e., online) and complete it on another channel (i.e., in-store).

In a recent Accenture study, 49 percent of consumers said the best thing retailers could do to improve the shopping experience is to better integrate in-store, online and mobile shopping channels.

Meanwhile, a study by Vantiv showed a seemingly infinite variety of omnichannel shopping behavior, all of which requires consistent data and experiences across channels.

No matter how customers choose to transact or engage with a business, they now expect and deserve to get the same answers, information and treatment wherever they go.

Further, if they begin an interaction or dialogue on one channel, customers expect that dialogue to pick up where it left off when they move to the next channel. And that holds true for B2B customers, too.