Align Customer Strategy and Experience for Maximum Impact

Many organizations have begun to look at their customer experience with an eye toward increasing the efficiency of their marketing, sales and service efforts while minimizing costs. This can be very effective.

However, organizations that want to maximize their customer experience management activities need to look beyond a “one size fits all” mentality when it comes to the customer experience and incorporate customer intelligence and strategy into the delivery of the customer experience.Customer intelligence provides the insights and understanding of how your customers are different from one another – what their wants, needs, motivators and behaviors are as well as how profitable they are to your organization. Armed with this information, the marketer or experience manager can then determine the following:

1. What strategy should the organization have for a specific customer or group of customers? How does this strategy translate into specific goals and objectives? For example, for one group of customers, the strategy may be to direct those customers to less expensive touchpoints because they have low profitability, and, based on their behaviors, are unlikely to purchase additional products or services. The goal may be to decrease the cost to serve for these customers by 25%. For another group of customers, the strategy may be to increase their profitability through a variety of experiences aimed at cross-selling products that other customers like them had found useful. The cost to serve for these customers may increase, but so would their profitability.
2. How should resources (time, budget and staff) be allocated against these goals?
3. What is currently preventing the organization from realizing these goals? Are there “pain points” or “disconnects” in the customer experience that negatively impact the customer’s experience (and subsequent value to the organization)? Which are most important to the customer and how can they be addressed? How do these priorities vary by customer group?
4. What type of experience should these customer groups have to reach the goals and objectives set by the strategy? What customer needs, feedback or insight backs this? How will this experience vary by customer group and strategy? Which touchpoints will be impacted and how?
5. Finally, how will success be measured? Is it possible to set “behavior milestones” at the customer level that show positive impact? Can you leverage customer input and social networks to learn how well you are addressing customer pains?

By using customer intelligence and building a strategy for groups of your customers, you will be able to modify the customer experience to meet the needs of your customers and reach your sales and marketing objectives. This results in a relevant customer experience – far more impactful than a one-size-fits-all experience – that drives business results.

(previously published on Quaero.com on January 22, 2009)