Customer Experience a Key Catalyst for Consumer and Brand Growth

By Emily Were

The first week of October is always that time of the year when businesses celebrate the importance of customer service and the people who serve and support customers. Every year, we have seen businesses trying to outdo each other by coming up with more innovative ways to excite frontline employees who put a smile on the faces of their clients. They also use the period as an opportunity to endear themselves to customers as well.

From decorating their front desks to offering gifts and rewards, all these myriads of activities that take place during the week are aimed at boosting morale and teamwork in organizations. It is a time to reward employees for the significant work they do and, to raise awareness on the value of customer service. October is also the time to remind customers of the company’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

With the customer service week behind us, it is time for business leaders to reflect on the place of customer service in their priorities and those of the broader organization. But most importantly, is how the service can be used to improve brand customer experience for a competitive business edge.

Brand experience goes beyond customer service as it encompasses all the feelings consumers have before, during and after interacting with a brand. It is a holistic approach that combines elements of user experience, customer experience and brand identity in one wrap.

Brands grow when they are bought by more people, more easily and more often. This is not just about growing customer base, nurturing existing customers, and getting them to use a brand more often, it is also about minimizing defection, i.e., an outflow of customers that may prefer to use other brands instead.
For brands to achieve this, organizations must know precisely how to forge the strongest bonds with customers, whilst ensuring the delivery of prime customer experiences. This will not only enable brands to better retain existing customers but also to better acquire new customers for robust growth.
Positive customer experiences improve levels of advocacy, even amongst those with weak desire, and recent studies further demonstrate the importance of good customer experience in building strong relationships.

If companies can create a lasting positive impression among potential customers, they can drive sales and set the stage for long-term loyalty. Not only is delivery of good customer experience important for driving the brand relationship, but it also provides an opportunity to strengthen the brand. Brands across a spectrum of sectors, including but not limited to market research, services, finance, telecommunications, tech, and retail, are now using experience to create spaces for customers and their brands to connect more deeply, with the aim of building stronger relationships and ultimately securing long-term profitability.

For true competitive advantage today, organizations need to design and deliver experiences that go beyond the transactional.
One of the key success factors in this is to make sure that brand and customer experience resonate- that customer experience delivers on the brand promise and reinforces the key values that a brand stands for.

When brands consistently fail to deliver on what they promise, customer relationships begin to erode and can fail over time, which leads to customer defection- and ultimately ‘fewer people’. Conversely, when the experience consistently reinforces the brand promise, perception becomes more grounded, customers grow closer, and they use the brand more frequently. To shape positive memories and outcomes, we need to be aware of the key experiential forces that drive strong and lasting relationships.

Research by Ipsos shows that to drive stronger relationships with customers and to reduce outflow of customers, brands need to deliver on their promises. The signals a brand sends and the experience it offers customers are inextricably linked.

If there is a gap between what the brand says and what it does, customer expectations are violated, and attitudinal and behavioral adjustments can follow.
It is clear therefore that these marketing instruments need to work together harmoniously to maximize the influence on brand choice

At Ipsos, we help organizations to integrate brand and customer experience in a way that allows for synergy and strategic insights that shape experiences which fulfil customers’ fundamental needs. Organizations can therefore create long-lasting and profitable relationships, leading to a better return on customer experience investment.

Companies who successfully implement a customer experience strategy achieve higher customer satisfaction rates, reduced customer churn and increased revenues.

Companies therefore need tools that can help them analyze customer behaviors and take real-time actions to improve customer experience. This will help them to connect with their customers with personalized and relevant messages as they need assistance, support, offer, or any other interaction.
Customer experience is therefore an integral part of customer relationship management and the reason why it’s important is because a customer who has a positive experience with a business is more likely to become a repeat and loyal customer.

It is obvious that the happier you are with a brand, the longer you stay with them. So, if you treat your customers poorly or ignore their complaints, then they are more likely to stop doing business with you. Therefore, companies that deliver a superior customer experience outperform their competitors.

**Emily Were is the Customer Experience and Mystery Shopping Lead at Ipsos in Kenya.