With the SERVICEBRAND approach, an excellent customer experience is the desired outcome. Research by Bain & Company found that 80% of companies think they deliver a great customer service experience whereas only 8% of customers believe they have received great service.

Good customer experience management can create tangible business value by strengthening brand preference through differentiated, valued experiences which improves customer loyalty and advocacy. This can result in incremental sales from existing customers and new sales from new customers introduced by word of mouth, as well as reduced costs through customer retention and word of mouth introduction of new customers.

Whilst much of the customer experience narrative centres on delighting the customer, there is another school of thought. In 2010, researchers found that reducing the amount of effort for a customer to get their problem solved is a higher indicator of customer loyalty than delight. By acting on this insight and removing obstacles for the customer, they found companies can reduce customer service costs and attrition rates. Indicators of high effort activities include customers switching channels to get their problem resolved, repeating information, generic service, and getting transferred to a different agent. Similarly, other research indicates that “96% of customers with a high-effort service interaction become more disloyal compared to just 9% who have a low-effort experience. Disloyal customers are likely to cost the company more – they spread negative word of mouth and cease future purchases.” This factor is even more relevant because the customer experience is increasingly digital and there is evidence that 65 percent of consumers cut ties with a brand over a single poor customer experience.

We work with progressive leaders to co-create a creative yet practical customer experience strategy. We stimulate ideas to improve all stages of the customer experience journey and create customer experience innovation. Our role as a customer experience strategy consultant sometimes ends there and other times we support the implementation with a range of tools including:
-PulsE customer journey mapping tool
-Customer service standards and operating manuals
-Relationship mapping
-Mystery shopping assessments

It is also important for the customer experience activities to be aligned with the brand identity. We have seen so many customer experience programmes where ‘service excellence’ seems to be operating in a vacuum and is not connected to the ‘roots’ of the organisation.

“There is only one boss. The customer.” Sam Walton