Have you noticed how customer experience design has grown in importance of brand marketing and client satisfaction? More and more trying to astonish the customer. Certainly, a real discriminator, isn’t it? Today we will examine 10 different ways brands have chosen to use their customer experience to stand out above the noise and become a significant contributor to brand marketing.
The end state quality of the product or service the customer receives is what counts. However, this Includes the experience the customer remembered while he purchased the item. Often that is what is remembered the most.
Before we continue, let me ask you a question.
What works best for customer experience design in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
The quality of your company’s customer experience is ultimately determined by the way customers feel after their last interaction. If the customer is unhappy, your company’s customer experience is bad. If the customer doesn’t have a feeling one way or the other, your company’s customer experience is mediocre.
If the customer feels good, your company’s customer experience is satisfactory. But if the customer feels delighted, your company’s customer experience is a substantial competitive advantage. That is the only one that really matters to success. And the one everyone is attempting to find the magic for.
Related: 10 Laws of Customer Experience Design
Let’s examine 10 smashing examples to discuss:
Client satisfaction.
Client satisfaction … deliver happiness
Feelings and emotions certainly have a significant role in the way customers influenced in the marketing process. Zappos and its business culture of ‘delivering happiness’ certainly has established this as one of its distinct customer experience designs.
Have you ever been in a Whole Foods grocery store? If you have you will remember the emphasis on the visual presentation of their products. Draws your eyes to many, even if you are not looking for them. Helping customers visualize and sometimes taste the products.
Get the customer involved in trying their skill with your different products. More and more businesses are building product trial engagements into their customer experience designs as discriminators. Two of the best at this design approach are Bass Pro Shops and Legos, which often have become major attractions.
(See The 5 Must-Have Qualities of Legos’ Customer Engagement and Design)
Engage all the senses
Starbucks is the master of the customer experience design of engaging all the senses. From the luring visual appeal of their stores to the coffee aroma to the new sound headset stages, and the unique tastes of their products, they engage all of your senses. You may not be Starbucks, but you should consider how you can better engage customers’ senses in their experience.
Here what the brand represents surrounds the customer and positively influences everywhere they turn. The two best examples of brand immersion? You’ll surely recognize the Disney World and Legos brands in this regard.
When a business does something good for someone, that somebody feels good about them. Are you familiar with the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream brand? They are leaders in this type of discrimination.
How do consumers influence producers … differentiated value
This example, while being traditional, will surprise you in the best brand in this discrimination category. Ever flown Jet Blue? Our favorite airline because of its great, unique discriminators. Consider its high-touch service, its Direct TV and XM radio, and quality snacks. They are number 1 in our minds.
Fostering ideas, intentions, and interests is the key to this experience. Dell and Starbucks are the standouts in this category with their long-standing use of customer crowdsourcing. Legos is also growing its crowdsourcing usage.
Giving customers the ability to create uniqueness in the product they want to purchase is a great way to discriminate between the product and the brand. This technique is probably the most difficult for most businesses to employ. The standout here is Nike and its NikeID product line.
Solving customer problems
Being very good at solving customer problems is a great way to create a good experience. Very needed in the technical product lines of computers and electronics, for example. The standout in this category is Best Buy with its Twelp Force and Geek Squad home services.
The bottom line
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Many businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to rapidly grow their business.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of customer experience as a key way to discriminate. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative, social marketing, and customer experience efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your customer experience?
Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
10 Laws of Customer Experience Design
Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success
Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
