Defining and Creating the Optimal Customer Experience

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1 Defining and Creating the Optimal Customer Experience

2 Executive Summary A brand is a promise a promise that must be kept; delivered consistently day in and day out. The customer experience is the fulfillment of that promise. Customers encounter your brand in numerous ways; products, packaging, price, advertising & marketing, sales & customer service personnel, etc. Each of these contacts or touchpoints molds the customer s overall ongoing impression of the brand. Your customer experience ultimately defines you. It should be carefully planned and controlled. It must SM reinforce your brand and the image you wish create. Learn how to define and implement a consistent customer experience by: Starting with the brand promise and creating the reasons-to-believe. Identifying the customer touchpoints and determining which are most influential. Defining the optimal experience and aligning the organization to deliver it. By controlling your customer experience you can ensure the promise you make to the marketplace will be kept day in and day out across every key customer touchpoint. 1

3 Start with the Brand Promise Customer experience design begins with an understanding of your brand. Your brand defines who you are, how you operate, and how you are different from others in the marketplace. Without it, you are merely a commodity, lacking distinction, character, and value. Ultimately, a brand is a promise a promise that must be kept. It must be delivered consistently day in and day out at each customer touchpoint. Managed correctly, your brand will become one of your most valuable assets the embodiment of what you bring to the marketplace. Create Reasons-to-Believe Your brand promise is irrelevant if your customer doesn t believe it. Therefore, your promise must be supported by its reasons-to-believe. Some call these brand pillars. The brand pillars give substance to the promise and define specific expectations for the customer. For example, Saab Automobile promises an intelligent choice for individuals seeking uniqueness and unconventionality. What makes Saab an intelligent choice? What makes it unique and unconventional? Why should the customer believe this promise? Saab framed its brand promise with four brand pillars: Individual and personal design Sporty performance Safety and security Intelligent technology These brand pillars put definition around the promise and gave the customer reasons to believe the promise will be fulfilled. It gave the company specific direction for designing the desired customer experience through tangible customer touchpoints like vehicle design features, customer service activities, finance programs, advertising campaigns, dealer sales approaches, and dealer showroom design/layout. Keep the Promise The Customer Experience If the brand is a promise you make, then the customer experience is the fulfillment of that promise. Customers encounter your brand in numerous ways: products, packaging, price, advertising and marketing, sales and customer service personnel, etc. Each of these contacts or touchpoints molds the customer s impression of the brand. Some of these touchpoints are obvious, like product performance, advertising, and sales staff. Other touchpoints, like the product manual, store lighting, or post-sales support, may be more subtle in its brand affects. There are four basic elements to designing and implementing a customer experience that supports the brand promise: Identification of ALL customer touchpoints Determination of the most influential touchpoints Definition of the optimal experience at each of the key touchpoints Organization alignment to consistently deliver the optimal experience 2

4 Identify the Customer Touchpoints Each step of your business process contains a number of touchpoints moments when the customer comes in contact with your brand. The overall customer experience is the summation of all the direct and indirect interactions the customer has with the company. The ultimate goal is to have each touchpoint reinforce and fulfill the marketplace promise. Walk through your commercial processes with key executives and individual departments. Using your basic understanding of the products and services you offer, ask questions like: How do you generate customer demand? How are sales inquiries fielded? How are products sold? How are products delivered? How are products used by the customer? How is after-sales support provided? How are customers retained? This comprehensive trace of your marketing, selling, and servicing processes allows you to create a simple map of the touchpoints that define your customer s experience with your brand. For TD Canada Trust, the various sub-processes that make up the mortgage loan process were clustered into three buckets: acquisition, servicing, and retention. Marketing Closing On-Boarding & Servicing Re-win Acquisition Servicing Retention Within each sub-process, the customer touchpoints were identified. For example, for the TD Canada Trust sub-process (at right), the touchpoints that ultimately defined the customer s experience included the products offered, the selling channels, the loan documents, and post-application data requests. Product Line Internet Additional Data Requests Loan Officer App Documents 3

5 Determine the Most Influential Touchpoints All touchpoints are not created equal. Some will naturally play a larger role in determining the overall customer experience. For example, if your product is ice cream, taste is typically more important than package design. Both are touchpoints, but each has a different affect on the experience as a whole. There are many ways to determine which touchpoints drive the overall experience. The method used often depends on the complexity of the products and/or commercial processes, your existing knowledge base, and the overall project budget. Methods cluster into three basic categories: 1) Quantitative: Includes survey instruments and covariate analyses of force-ranked touchpoint pairs. (For example: Which is more important a 0.25 point savings on a mortgage rate or a smooth closing? Which is more important a smooth closing or a knowledgeable loan officer?) 2) Qualitative: Includes external focus groups and one-on-one interviews. 3) Inference: Includes analysis of existing research and institutional knowledge. Define the Optimal Experience The optimal customer experience must be defined for each of the most influential touchpoints. To accomplish this, go back to the brand pillars. Use internal brainstorming groups, both functional and cross-functional, to interpret what each pillar means for each key touchpoint. The output is a simple matrix that ensures that the brand promise is designed into the customer experience at all high-impact touchpoints along the overall commercial process. The example below shows how Saab applied its four brand pillars to its major touchpoints. Marketing Interior Design Exterior Design Showroom Sales Staff Sales Staff Financing Financing Individual and& Personal Design Sporty Performance Safety and Security Intelligent Technology Align the organization to consistently deliver the optimal experience This final but crucial step begins with an assessment of the current state of touchpoint alignment. Each touchpoint will deliver experiential elements that are in alignment with the newly defined optimal experience (green activities) and some that are out of sync with the optimal experience (red activities). Internal teams can determine the source of red activities and how to address them so that these components of the overall experience can be brought into alignment. Product Line Internet Additional Data Requests Loan Officer App Documents 4

6 As you strive for alignment, identify the people, processes, and tools that ultimately drive the touchpoint. On stage employees have direct contact with the customer. The affects of their actions are highly visible. However, the affects of off stage employees those that do not have direct contact with the customer are less obvious. Similarly, the impacts of work processes and tools (i.e. technology systems) on the customer experience are less intuitive. The TD Canada Trust example below illustrates this point. When the customer applies for a loan, he or she works directly with a loan officer. The loan officer collects the necessary information from the customer and loads it into the application system. Oftentimes that loan officer is supported by a processor. Both of these employees have direct customer contact and are therefore on stage. The application system feeds data to the decision support system used by the underwriter who must approve the loan. The underwriter does not work directly with the customer thus the underwriter is off stage. In this example there is a breakdown in communication between the two systems the application engine and the decision engine. Some of the information that the underwriter receives is incorrect. The underwriter, using erroneous information, creates a list of stipulations that must be satisfied before the loan can be approved. The underwriter feeds these new requirements back up to the processor who goes back to the customer and requests additional documentation to satisfy the stipulations. The request for additional documentation falls outside TD Canada Trust s optimal customer experience. It is driven by a broken process and a well-intentioned underwriter both invisible to the customer. Yet the impact on the overall customer experience is very real. Customer Actions Apply For Loan A Final Thought Line of Interaction Employee Actions ( On stage ) Line of Visibility Employee Actions ( Off stage ) Line of Internal Interaction Support Processes and Tools Loan Officer Engine Processor Underwriter Decision Engine Every product or service you bring to market yields a customer experience. Is it the experience you intended? Does that experience fulfill the promise you made to the marketplace? By working with your teams to identify the people, processes, and tools that drive your customer experience, IMPERATIVES can help you design and control your own, unique, optimal customer experience. The promise you make to the marketplace will be kept day in and day out across every key customer touchpoint. We invite you to visit or call us at (952) We can discuss your challenges and determine if IMPERATIVES may be of service. 5

7 About IMPERATIVES ( Headquartered in Minneapolis, IMPERATIVES is a mid-size consulting firm supporting clients coast-to-coast. We focus on building businesses, defining brands, creating optimal customer experiences, and developing customer loyalty & retention. We distinguish ourselves by helping our clients bridge the gap between strategy creation and marketplace implementation. This is accomplished by helping our clients develop achievable strategies that draw on SM their existing capabilities. Through Strategy Activation we translate those strategies into specific operational tactics, processes, roles and responsibilities that align the organization and prepare it for successful strategy implementation. Finally, we work internally across functional lines to lead key initiatives and help manage marketplace execution. For more information please feel free to call our Minneapolis office at or write to us at info@imperativesllc.com. 6

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