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Customer as competitive advantage
- To be able to differentiate itself in the market, an organisation needs to identify and be prepared to leverage its potential competitive advantages. Within this mix, its customers can provide a route to winning and retaining a base both satisfied and likely to engage with the business and its offerings. However, as analytics Ascendia Trends says: “it is not easy to make a brand’s customer experience stand out from the crowd, particularly in an age when customers are more demanding than ever”.
- A recent report from Econsultancy and Onalytica has attempted to make a few suggestions as to how firms can gain an edge. The study has collected expert opinion and charted the relative importance of various challenges featured in what it calls the customer experience challenge curve.
- Digitalisation is having a particular impact on customer interactions and demands. Econsultancy found that, along with personalisation, digital adaptation could provide competitive advantage.
- The report states: “An overwhelming proportion of our experts believe that the increasing importance of the user experience is unlikely to slow down. The growing expectations of customers mean that organisations which are able to differentiate their CX from the competition will be rewarded.”
- If customer experience (CX) is to be the battleground for competitive advantage, then gaining customer feedback is the ammunition.
- However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many firms continue to look in the wrong places, seeing an asset rather than a group of individuals, when it comes to their customer base. That is perhaps part of the reason why only a minority of firms Econsultancy surveyed said they had the superior CX for their market segment, despite the raft of tools available to help them.
- Perhaps not surprisingly, the analytics found that investing in CX was related to returns; more than two-thirds of respondents said they saw return on investment in improved CX, and almost three-quarters said they would be increasing CX investment in future.
- Businesses maximise customer experience (CX) management by ensuring three things: 1) all component functions (IT, HR, marketing, etc) work together to ensure an effective CX; 2) they monitor CX activity to ensure it is operating well; and 3) they invest in the right technology to enable it all.
- However, neglecting the role that structured, formalised feedback processes can play risks missing a trick. As Forrester recently wrote: “CX pros cannot resist the seductive pull of shiny object syndrome – investing in flashy tech and jumping into emerging channels without rigorously evaluating customer needs, preferences, and attitudes”.
- Notably, the analytics suggest shying away from “event-based innovation processes”. Instead businesses should identify the signals coming in from customer interactions and react in real time to them.
- A few examples to challenge the thinking, include; engaging customers and proactively seeking feedback, using digital and data beyond the basics, placing customer data protection at the core of strategy, and making customer experience part of everyone’s job function.
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