Customer Experience
08.11.2018 / Expert Articles
Customer Experience – How to provide a good experience for the end customer
Imagine you have an important presentation to hold and therefore you are traveling to another city. It is early in the morning, since the trip will take you three hours. You even planned one-hour buffer for the drive, in order to be on time to meet up with your client. Which means, that you are waking up at six o’clock in the morning and you are on the road at 7 am. Since it is still very early, of course, you will grab something to eat and drink. Halfway through, you spill some of the coffee on yourself and as fate will have it, you don’t have anything to change into. You think to yourself „what a way to start the day!“.
Immediately thoughts are flashing through your mind – the presentation starts at ten o’clock. You have to be dressed well and cannot stand in front of a crowd with coffee spots on your clothes. Therefore, you start calling up stores nearby, hoping to find clothing suitable for the office. As several attempts finding a rescue fail, you finally have success. Thankfully a salesman is available on time at a store and you can tell him about the current situation.
A bad customer experience would have happened, if the person on the phone was not ready to help or due to time pressure and lack of interest to cooperate, would have rushed you off and was not friendly. It would have also been bad if the seller was not interested in giving additional advice and effort for the customer.
And what exactly makes up an excellent customer experience is a topic, that we would like to discuss today. How it should have taken place as follows: A friendly, in this case, manly voice calms you down and tells you, that he would find something that fits you. He asks you about your size and the desired cut, talks to you about the whole outfit that you are wearing at the moment to find something to match. He even asks how many kilometres are left and what time to expect you. His calming voice gives you the feeling of trust and that the situation will end up well.
Now you are driving to the store, which is only a few minutes away from your destination. You rush over the customer parking – in a complete hurry – and park, you enter the store and a friendly voice is welcoming you with „Hello Mrs. Meyer/Mr. Meyer, there you are. I already picked up three blouses/shirts and hung them up in the changing lounge. I think they will meet your expectations. A freshly brewed coffee is also waiting for you on the side table since you could not enjoy your morning coffee.“.
At that very moment, you are amazed by the quick problem-solving. The blouse or the shirt fits you well and your day has been saved. You felt like someone was ready to listen to you and treated you valuable, even though you did not pay extra money.
Dissident: „Be the first who creates an extraordinary customer experience.“
Why is it so important to look outside the box, to focus on a constant development and to be brave to set new trends?
Over the course of an international competition, an easy market entrance over the internet, start-up-aids and flat hierarchy, brands and firms have to steadily think of ways to contrast themselves from competitors and have to ensure their own share in the market. Also, the risk of customers who drift and substitute for another product hence the fact that it doesn’t fit their ethical standards grows quickly. It is also possible that new scientific findings, tastes, and trends lead people to get in touch with other products. An example of this would be the conventional frying oil, which is often replaced by coconut oil nowadays. A merchandising of the benefits of coconut oil led some households to give up the usage of other frying oils completely. Restaurants and bistros advertise with techniques of cooking and the origin of their ingredients. This is a transition, that should not be overlooked.
Particularly young clients, like the generation x, y and z, are able to trust other firms if they can provide more benefits for example through relevant findings. This can be an advantage for the health but also for a better service or an extravagant experience. The trust over a brand became weaker and is depending on the actual realisation of a brand‘s promises.
Best Practice
In the following, three examples, that help for a better and more positive customer experience, will be shown. The three shown examples are entirely different and higher the image of a company and the bond to the customer, through a gapless and friendly service. Often new technologies and a classical interior furniture get a chance. Thereby no costs and efforts are left aside, to customize products and to create a „SPA-Feeling“ in hectic city centers, train stations or airports.
Amazon
With the help of a strong standardising and goodwill, Amazon built a safe and trustworthy image. Through a perfect organised return policy, the customer knows exactly, that he/she can exchange products that are either broken or not fitting well, without any problems. This is a big advantage as a comparison to the offline market, where the customer sometimes has to endure difficulties and discussions even to use their rights or services. Furthermore, Amazon included an excellent artificial intelligence to their Cross-Selling-Strategy, which gives the customer a real added value and proper goods – or sometimes consumed products. This technology is critical to document the behaviour of customers, to do a customer profile analyse and lastly to increase profits.
Esthée Lauder
A forerunner in its field: the company Esthée Lauder is already using intelligent mirrors very successfully. These give customers the chance to try on make-up on themselves – virtually – in a most remarkable colour precision and accuracy of presentation of form and colour. The customer can smile or even move, the virtual make-up-presentation adjusts to the face.
The easiness gives the customers the courage to even try on colours that they would typically not dare to use on their face. They can also take pictures or do screenshots, which can directly be posted on social-media accounts. That gives the chance of a very quick response and feedback of friends, families and even strangers.
Rituals
A Spa-Feeling despite the rush and hecticness? The Rituals Store can manage this perfectly. Most of the time located on main streets of cities, train stations or airports, Rituals is able to create a pleasantly quiet atmosphere. In dimmed and highly modern rooms, customers can test out cosmetics and wellness items. They even get offered tea of their own collection, scented candles and room scents inspire senses and big sinks welcome you to test out products on your own body. This way products are easier to sell. Customers cannot only smell on the testers, they can even get a complete experience of cleansers, peelings and cremes by directly feeling, smelling and touching. This is a concept that is definitely paying off.
From shop concepts to eventful, completed interiors
Figo GmbH creates room atmospheres and supports brands and companies to present their identity and philosophy, in the form of light, materials, scents, rooms, colours, physical furnishing items, digital elements and symbolically rich combinations. According to a recent PWC survey with over 15.000 participants, customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for products or services, if the customer experience is positive. And that shows the importance of this topic: companies and brands want and should set themselves off of competitors and as a result get more gains. Three out of four participants of the survey pointed out, that customer experience is more important than price or even than the quality of the product itself. 75% of the participants wished for better human interaction and more personal and authentic service. Besides from that, more than the half of the participants said that the market could offer more experiences. The expectations of customers are therefore very high. They can even be disappointed because many brands and companies cannot fulfill half of the expected experiences in a store. Another essential point of the survey is, that customers who get a better and positive experience develop a sort of bonding to a brand or company. They even are more open about giving out private information, which is very important for the growing digitalisation of the retail industry.
Summary:
Good customer experience is created and shaped by:
- Authentic service
- Human Interaction
- Speed and efficiency
- To live and carry out the own philosophy of every element, that the customer gets in contact with
- Constant adjustment and questioning if you know your target group and individual customer
- Surprising costumers positively and being different from the rest
- To dare to be the first
How important assimilation of classical shop elements and digital possibilities are, will be discussed in upcoming blog posts – stay updated.
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You read: Customer Experience - How to provide a good experience for the end customer
About the author:
Carina Patrizia Gerards
M.Sc. International Marketing Management with Consumer Psychology
Carina, born in 1987, is the Marketing Manager at Figo GmbH. She accomplished her studies in Germany and Scotland and already worked in eight different countries, which significantly shaped her working method and the understanding of costumers of different markets. Her actual roots lay in the cosmetics industry, but her love of arts and interior design brought her to Figo and gave her the chance to combine her passion: retail industry, interior and sustainability.