What matters to customers has changed

Another thought on why companies struggle to effectively manage customer experiences may be the massive changes in customer expectations…

Historically companies focused primarily on delivering products and product features to customers- which often met customer expectations. A typical sales process from the customer perspective would include gathering information about different product offerings, comparing features, maybe testing the products by speaking to others and then making the purchase. For companies this is a fairly easy process to understand and design.

What matters to customers now has however changed. Product features have become a given and purchase decisions now include a strong emotional and experiential factor- how the purchase makes the customer feel. This emotional factor drastically increases the complexity of managing customer experiences. Furthermore while customer experiences could previously be managed in silos by single functional areas such as marketing, the shift in customer expectations now requires the involvement and shared responsibility of cross functional teams and leadership.

I truly believe that the companies that accept and manage the things that really matter to their customers will reap the rewards.