Are you providing the best possible customer experience?

“Customer experience” is the sum of all the interactions a company or a consumer has with your business. It’s the feeling they get when they see your brand. It’s the way you communicate and they understand your message. It’s what happens when you pick up the telephone and take their call. It’s how you deal with invoicing. It’s every single thing that someone would experience when they are doing business with you.

In short, assuming you are providing a top quality product or service, customer experience is everything that matters to your customer.  It’s also the last great frontier of differentiation in the new economy and the means to stopping the commoditization that is sweeping your industry – no matter what that industry is.

As the global business landscape grows more and more competitive and companies are figuring out how to perfect their products and services, there are very few ways to differentiate other than price. And commoditization is born when competing companies appear to offer the same things differentiated only by price. The problem with the commoditization trap is that as companies have to continually lower their prices to remain competitive, it rapidly devalues a business’s offering, and eventually they’ll no longer be able to afford to provide as high a level of service, making it impossible to remain in equal exchange with their customers.

What businesses need to do instead is focus on the single biggest differentiating factor there is — customer experience. Companies need to analyze every moment of interaction with their customers, in order to anticipate customer needs, concerns and desires, and then be able to deliver those things before customers realize they want or need them.

Case in point: Southwest Airlines.

Have you ever tried to change a reservation with Southwest Airlines? They’re happy to take your call, and then they’re happy to make the switch. And then they don’t charge you anything for it. The level of service they provide is almost unthinkable.

Compare that with another airline: When you call, an outsourced operator in another country answers, and doesn’t seem to try to understand what you’re saying, and doesn’t have the authority to even help you. You get passed around to several different operators. The service is not only rude, but generally unhelpful. You walk away frustrated, and if you actually do get your flight changed, you’re charged $150 for the privilege of dealing with them.

In the new era of conscious commerce the latter kind of experience is unacceptable.

People are expecting more in the way of customer experience.  What’s great about that is I’m also finding they are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, making having a GREAT one the single most important thing you can do for your business.

Companies who focus on providing the best customer experience (along with a truly great product or service) will find themselves excelling globally as the conscious commerce era sets in to stay. Your competitive opportunity lies in your ability to get the customer experience right. It’s the way to dominate your industry, and more importantly, command the price you want for the service or product (value) you provide.