Providing Ultimate Customer Experience

With the advent of social media, coupled with the increased choice for consumers in virtually any industries, one key factor to remain ahead of the game is providing the ultimate customer experience.

I am not talking about benchmarking yourself with Ritz Carlton. Unless you're in the hospitality business and at the same time, working at a 5-star or higher hotel company, you can't benchmark this way. (besides, you are missing the point)

Customers are not only more belligerent these days, customers can determine whether you can win or lose your business. Word of mouth is found to be twice as effective as mass marketing. 91% of people buy product or services because of recommendations and good words from others.

Word of Mouth is a powerful tool every company should tap into especially when people are getting more and more empowered and barriers to communication have been drastically broken by the innovative ways internet has evolved.

How do you ensure that you achieve ultimate experience with your customers?

SAS outlines 5 levels of customer experience(called Customer Experience Maturity Model) that company practices, of which the highest level (level 5) is titled Experiential Master. In this level, customer reaction is highly predictable, company takes proactive approach to predict customer behavior (instead of asking "why customer A buys this?" they ask "what else does customer A needs from my shop and when?"), customer experience is quantitatively measured and adapted on a regular basis, customer database and behavior analysis are automated, and employees are empowered to serve.

Level 1 is when company do not know at all about its customers, and are usually consists of startups.

Click on The State of Customer Experience, Capabilities and Competencies to download the full report to get more information.