What Is Customer Experience? (It’s Not What You Think)
This voltage white African Daisy is one of those flowers sure to bring a smile.
Those who are in floral work know firsthand floristry jobs are about creating beautiful, meaningful experiences for flower recipients.
But what does that mean exactly? You might be a veteran at creating memorable flower moments, but how does customer experience come into play in the everyday ways you serve your clients?
What Is Customer Experience?
There are a couple of points we must consider when defining what customer experience is.
Whether you’re flying solo, have a team of 20 or more, or are somewhere in between, your customer must always be the center of your universe.
Great customer service (CS) is not the same thing as a great customer experience (CX).
Read on to learn how to boost your customer experience game and grow your business like a CX pro!
In this article, you'll find the following:
What is customer experience?
The CX mantra (thinking from the "outside, in")
How to create your CX vision statement
How to listen to the voice of the customer
Does CX really apply to my business? What if I already know my team and I create great customer experiences?
If you're like most small businesses, you probably pride yourself on providing a very good—if not exceptional—customer experience.
“Great customer service (CS) is not the same thing as a great customer experience (CX).”
You're probably warm and friendly, know the names of your customer's children, remember their birthdays, and have provided the personalized service and extras that the big box stores or chains simply can't.
Going "above and beyond" to exceed expectations is probably all in a day's work for you and your team—think after-hours deliveries and making last-minute changes and requests happen with ease.
The daily "going above and beyond" tasks you do for your customers certainly all contribute to your customer's experience, but they're just one piece in your customer's journey.
In fact, some of these things are technically customer service.
Fragrant Herbs growing in take-away pots
Is Customer Experience the Same Thing as Customer Service?
Quite simply, no. While we sometimes see the terms used interchangeably, they are two distinctly different things.
To add to the confusion, some companies refer to their call center agents or other customer-facing roles as their "Customer Experience Team."
When you think of a company that has good customer service, what does that look like for you?
Usually, when we say a company has good customer service, we mean that if we have an issue, the company resolves it quickly and does what we want them to do. Or that the person who helped us was pleasant and friendly and we didn't have to wait too long to talk to them.
Customer service typically consists of giving advice or assistance during single events or transactions that happen over the course of the customer journey. Some CX pros consider customer service to be what kicks in when the customer experience breaks down.
“Some CX pros consider customer service to be what kicks in when the customer experience breaks down.”
If customer service isn't customer experience, then what is IT?
Customer experience (CX) is how your customers perceive their interactions with your company across their whole journey with you.
It's every interaction from the moment they realize they may be in the market for your product or service, to their actual purchase, and then to post-purchase delivery and support.
“Since customer experience is based on perception, it’s uniquely personal. ”
Since customer experience is based on perception, it's uniquely personal. This means that two customers can have exactly the same transaction with your company but two completely different customer experiences.
Have you ever been a diehard fan of a store or service that a friend or family member couldn't stand? Or vice versa? Think about it: Did you have two different experiences, or did you just perceive them differently?
CX is a business discipline with proven methods, best practices, and standards
Just like accounting, marketing, and IT, customer experience is a business discipline with a common set of best practices, methodologies, and principles.
CX as a discipline is probably new to you if you're like many small businesses owners, and you likely haven't been trained in methods to manage that part of your business.
While it's probably best to leave your accounting to a CPA or trained bookkeeper, bringing yourself and your team up to speed on key CX concepts is very accessible.
The CX discipline has six competency areas:
Strategy
Customer insight and understanding
Experience design and improvement
Measurement and return on investment (ROI)
Organizational adoption and accountability
Customer-centric culture
This article will introduce you to a few building blocks within the competencies—outside-in thinking, the customer experience vision statement, and the customer's voice—and how to begin to apply those concepts to your business.
Mock Orange has a lovely smell to go along with it’s sweet white blooms.
The CX Mantra: Think From the "Outside-In"
The number one rule of CX is to think from the customer's perspective, that is, from the "outside-in."
How does a business operate from the outside-in? They put creating value for the customer at the core of every business decision instead of putting value for the company first.
The term, popularized in the book of the same name by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, has become the CX pro's rally cry.
No matter the size of your team, make outside-in thinking your company's north star.
How easy is it to be your customer?
In Outside-In, Manning and Bodine also shared that "Customers perceive experiences at three different levels: meets needs, is easy, and is enjoyable."
Think of your own experience as a customer, perhaps at one of your distributors or suppliers. Which companies do you choose because they simply meet your needs? Which scores the highest for easy? Which are the most enjoyable to work with? Do any fulfill all three?
Take a step back from your own business and objectively rate your products and services against the needs met, is easy, and is enjoyable criteria. Consider the feedback you may have received from customers, business partners, or employees. Are there any common themes or areas for improvement that stand out?
“Take a step back from your own business and objectively rate your products and services.”
Create Your CX Vision Statement
What do you want your company to be known for?
Best-in-class experiences are intentionally created and can only happen when every team member is clear on the intended customer experience and their role in creating it.
Yet, in companies both large and small, this most fundamental question frequently goes unanswered. Employees are left to create their own interpretations of what the company is trying to achieve.
Avoid this confusion with a CX vision statement.
The CX vision statement describes the intended customer experience that the company wants to deliver
It's a brief statement, and it’s easy for everyone in the organization to remember. Unlike a company's public brand statement, the CX vision statement is used internally to align, educate, and inspire employees.
Don't skip this step! It's difficult, if not impossible, to create great, consistent, on-brand experiences and a successful customer experience strategy without a customer experience vision.
It's also unfair to ask your team to operate without clear communication of the company's goals and how they are expected to contribute to them.
Gomphrena can be grown as a live cut flower or to be dried.
What does the CX vision statement include?
A straightforward approach is to craft a statement that follows the AIM framework created by Forrester, a global research and consulting firm.
In 2 or 3 sentences, describe the customer experience you intend to create, and then evaluate the statement on how authentic, inspiring, and mobilizing it is.
Refine the statement until you're satisfied that it fulfills all three attributes.
Consider the following criteria:
Authenticity: What does the brand promise customers, and what are the company values?
Inspirational: How will we inspire the team to take action and think creatively?
Mobilization: Have we provided enough detail so the team is clear on how they should act to deliver the CX vision?
As you brainstorm and craft your CX vision, it's helpful to imagine your company as a person and describe its personality. Is it confident, whimsical, generous, nerdy, intellectual, or a daydreamer?
What do we want our customers to feel when they use our products or services? Creativity, calmness, excitement, joy, surprise? What is the brand promising customers, and what are the company values? Perhaps sustainability, innovation, freedom, or individuality?
Don't overthink it
If creating a CX vision sounds daunting, too corporate, or something you just don't have time for, don't get discouraged and don't overthink it. A 60 to 90-minute team brainstorming session with a whiteboard and some sticky notes are all you need to produce a CX vision statement.
If you're a solo-entrepreneur, it might be helpful to enlist a friend, family member, or trusted business acquaintance to help you brainstorm and refine your vision statement.
“If you’re a solo-entrepreneur, it might be helpful to enlist a friend, family member, or trusted business acquaintance to help.”
Need a good example of a CX vision statement for some inspiration? They can be challenging to find since they're typically internally facing, but a publicly available mission and values statements are suitable stand-ins.
Team Flower's mission and values statements come to mind. While not specifically labeled as a CX vision statement, the following from the Team Flower About Page checks all the marks:
"Team Flower is a support community dedicated to educating, connecting, and empowering floral professionals worldwide. Whether you're an established florist, farmer, artist, or industry pro—or simply love flowers and are just starting your business—there's space for you here! Everything we do at Team Flower is designed to lighten your load. On this flower journey, you need kind friends to encourage you, guide you, and lend a hand—that's why Team Flower was created."
What will your CX vision statement be? Your business might aspire to be "the florist that premium event planners and venues trust to bring their clients' special day to life with creativity, warmth, and heartfelt enthusiasm."
Maybe you're creating "the most memorable and personalized way to both gift and receive flowers." Your CX vision statement will be uniquely yours, conveying how you intend to create value for your customers.
Your vision statement is complete! Now what?
Share it with your team and use it to guide your work. Evaluate both existing and new opportunities, products, and services against how well they fit the vision. Be brutal in going forward with only those that align with the vision.
With your CX vision statement in hand, you're now ready to increase your level of customer understanding.
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Are You Listening to the Voice of the Customer?
To operate from the "outside-in," you'll need to stop making assumptions and guesses about your customers and develop a fact-based understanding of what's really important to them.
Your customers' feedback about how they perceived their experiences with your company, product, and services, is called Voice of the Customer (VoC).
Gathering VoC data can range from complex research projects to simply gathering customer comments from your social media feed into a spreadsheet.
The most important thing is to get your team focused on finding gaps between what your customer expects and what they actually receive.
Focus groups, surveys, customer reviews, social media comments, recorded call data, customer interviews, observing customers using your products are all readily accessible sources of VoC data.
Review and discuss VoC data with all employees regularly and in as close to real-time as you can to quickly address customer concerns and discover new ways to create customer value.
Do you know when your customers choose you and when they don't?
One of the most revealing questions you can ask your customers is quite simple; When do they choose your products and services, and when do they not?
This answer will provide enormous insight into how well your company meets their needs, is easy, and is enjoyable.
For example, maybe you don't realize that a certain event planner seeks you out for corporate functions but not for weddings. Or maybe a CSA subscription customer doesn't consider you when they want to send birthday flowers to a friend. Just ask!
Does this really apply to my business?
What if I already know my team and I create great customer experiences?
Excellent! It sounds like thinking from the outside in will be easy for you then!
“How well does each piece of the puzzle support your CX vision statement?”
No matter the size of your business or how well you think you already understand your customer, remember, you operate within a larger ecosystem to create value for them.
That ecosystem includes people like your suppliers, shipping and delivery services, venues, and farmer's markets. It also includes all the technology you use and digital touchpoints such as your website, social media, event registration, voicemail, text, and payment processing.
How well does each piece of the puzzle support your CX vision statement? There are ways to improve your customers' end-to-end experience right now, and there will continue to be for as long as you're in business!
Aim for small, incremental CX improvements
With a clear vision of the experience you intend to create, a commitment to outside-in thinking, and some voice of the customer data, you're ready to tackle some of the opportunities you've identified to improve your customer experience.
Start small and get your team excited by successfully tackling some quick and easy projects. With a few quick wins under your belt, you'll naturally evolve to building and sustaining a best-in-class customer experience.
