What Is World-Class Customer Experience?

What makes a world-class cus­tomer expe­ri­ence? Recent research reveals that the over­all per­for­mance in cus­tomer expe­ri­ence by British brands has nev­er been low­er in the last eight years, while the over­all per­for­mance by Amer­i­can brands rose in 2017. British brands that were once renowned for excel­lent cus­tomer expe­ri­ence sev­er­al years ago have strug­gled to keep up with their cus­tomers’ evolv­ing expec­ta­tions for the ser­vices they receive.

As UK brands have been chal­lenged to meet their cus­tomers’ expe­ri­ence expec­ta­tions or adapt to new ways of buy­ing in recent years, they’re dis­cov­er­ing that per­cep­tions of their brands have declined. This news comes even as deliv­er­ing a world-class cus­tomer expe­ri­ence con­tin­ues to rise on the agen­da for mar­keters. In fact, UK brands are pour­ing mil­lions of pounds into improv­ing their cus­tomer rela­tion­ships, in their efforts to improve their customer’s experiences.

But, throw­ing mon­ey at the prob­lem isn’t (nec­es­sar­i­ly) the solution.

Part of the issue is that brands are still organ­i­sa­tion­al­ly struc­tured to focus more on the prod­uct than on the cus­tomer. Fur­ther­more, today’s brands aren’t just deal­ing with phys­i­cal prod­ucts; they’re now sell­ing con­tent, ideas, and con­cepts. Cus­tomers want more from these brands than just a ser­vice or prod­uct; They want to know that the brand is there to meet their needs and lis­ten to their concerns.

To that end, Adobe recent­ly launched a large-scale adver­tis­ing cam­paign focused on encour­ag­ing brands to “make expe­ri­ence their busi­ness.” The cam­paign high­lights sev­er­al brands as Expe­ri­ence Mak­ers, such as Coca-Cola and T‑Mobile. These brands are fol­low­ing Adobe’s lead in reimag­in­ing every part of their busi­ness to focus on the expe­ri­ence of their cus­tomers. The aim of the cam­paign is to show com­pa­nies what expe­ri­ence-focused brands are doing to pro­vide world-class expe­ri­ences to their customers.

Most mar­keters realise how impor­tant expe­ri­ence is to the cus­tomer, but many don’t know how to improve their cus­tomer rela­tion­ships. With Adobe’s new cam­paign, brands can gain prac­ti­cal insight from oth­ers who are lead­ing the way. A lot of encour­age­ment can be found in what oth­er brands are doing right. Adobe is help­ing bring those brands and their strate­gies to the atten­tion of the mar­keters look­ing for them.

Where is your brand when it comes to deliv­er­ing a world-class cus­tomer expe­ri­ence? What does your com­pa­ny need to do to improve the expe­ri­ence you pro­vide your customers?