How the Next Generation Enterprise is Different
From Products/Services to Comprehensive Customer Experiences (part 9 of 10)
Goods and services everywhere are being commoditized — bought and sold almost exclusively on the basis of price. Some companies are working hard to create new genres of economic offerings that center of a customer experience -- memorable value and events that engage each customer in an inherently personal way.
In a world where customers are informed, fickle, and have choice, and where margins are thin, and profitable growth can be elusive, delivering a compelling customer experience can make all the difference. To be sure, the everyday experience customers have dealing with your business can determine its success, regardless if industry -- financial services, retail, consumer products, business services, energy, industrial products, or commodities. The character and quality of the customer experience you provide governs your ability to acquire, retain and improve the profitability of customers.
Despite widespread recognition of these facts, most organizations neither deliberately design nor effectively measure and manage their customers' experience. For customers, the experience is fragmented, inconsistent, and frustrating more often than comprehensive, customized, and compelling.
Moreover, leading organizations are beginning to deliver a Next Generation Experience that enables customers to configure, customize, or co-create the experience they want to have -- not just consume the one you want to give them. Preliminary research suggests organizations that make such meaningful improvements in their customers' experience, can realize bottom line performance improvements of 10% to 25%. This comes from increased retention, additional sales, reduced customer acquisition costs, and strengthened price performance.
This required re-thinking everything in the customer experience value chain -- from value creation and co-innovation, channel management, marketing programs, customer engagement, new models of the brand, sales programs, support and service and distribution platforms. The four P's of marketing (product, place, price and promotion) are no longer a valid framework to think about the totality of customer experiences and relationships.
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