Customer Experience ABC: customer experience terminology in plain language.
1 November 2020
Optimizing customer experience: understand what you are talking about.
Personally, I have a strong dislike for the excessive use of jargon. Many companies simply fail to use clear language that is understandable to everyone. And I make that same mistake sometimes myself, assuming (too) quickly that a certain term is known by everyone by now. Since customer experience in plain language is practically my trademark, I felt it was high time to clearly explain the most common customer experience jargon.
In total, I will discuss about 20 technical terms using examples over the coming weeks. You'll get the practical tips and tricks along the way as a bonus!
Age of the customer
The age of the customer. We are referring here to the era we are currently living in, an era in which the customer calls the shots and where customer experience is the most important differentiating factor for companies. But what exactly do we mean by that?
Let's take a car dealer as an example. In the past, let's say the early 1990s, you walked into a dealership of brand X as a customer. You presumably based your choice on previous experiences with this brand or marketing you had seen on a poster or in the newspaper. The dealer would then tell you what your desired model would cost and how much your current car was still worth. You had little to no access to simple means to verify this as a consumer and depended largely on the salesperson for your information.
Fast forward to 2019. If I want to buy a car today, I can already build a preliminary configuration of my vehicle online with most car brands. In other words, I already know roughly what the car would cost me. But it doesn't stop there. Thanks to the internet, among other things, I can easily compare what other customers paid for their cars, and thanks to numerous review options, I quickly know which dealer offers the best deal and/or where the customer experience is excellent. I can research the value of my current car myself on the numerous second-hand websites, which also indicate whether or not I wish to sell for a realistic price.
Conclusion: In this age of the customer, the customer has access to a wealth of information that goes far beyond what a company's marketing department sends out. As an entrepreneur, you had better be aware of this and take it into account when determining your strategy.
Brand promise
Literally translated: brand promise. In other words: what you, as a company, promise to do for your customers. One of the most well-known examples in the Benelux is that of Coolblue: 'everything for a smile'. Simple, actionable, and clear to everyone. Moreover, Coolblue succeeds very well in effectively fulfilling this brand promise; just Google 'Coolblue experiences' and marvel at how many people take the trouble to share their positive experiences with the world.
Would you like to write a strong brand promise for your company yourself? Then keep the following tips in mind:
- Keep it simple! Ideally, a brand promise consists of one or a maximum of two simple sentences and can even be shorter. Like with BMW, for example: “the ultimate driving machine”
- Make it measurable or actionable. 'We want to be the best at everything' is therefore not a good brand promise... “Strever provides you with certainty regarding your pricing, so that you don't leave money on the table and can charge what you are worth” *is* a measurable brand promise. Moreover, they immediately tell you why you should use their services.
Please note: writing down a strong brand promise is harder than you think. And the more people in the meeting room, the greater the challenge becomes.
Customer Performance Indicators (CPIs)
To understand what a CPI is, we will first briefly explain what a KPI, or Key Performance Indicator, is. Simply put, KPIs are measurable variables used to measure and analyze the performance of your company.
Some examples of KPIs are:
- Revenue or revenue growth
- Number of new customers
- Absenteeism within the workforce
CPIs are also performance metrics, but they are focused around the customer. The best-known CPIs include CSAT, NPS, and CES*. However, Churn (the number of lost customers during a specific period) or Referral Rate (the number of customers who actually recommend your company to someone else) are also examples of customer-related metrics.
Before you enthusiastically start determining your own CPIs (or KPIs), just a quick note. CPIs are indispensable within a customer-oriented organization because, among other things, they offer you the opportunity to measure the extent to which your customer-oriented efforts are having an effect.
But before you can steer this, you must first have a clearly defined customer experience strategy and vision, which you then share and implement throughout the entire company.
Customer Satisfaction Score, Net Promoter Score, and Customer Effort Score. Don't panic if this is still gibberish to you; all these terms will be covered in the rest of the ABC of customer experience.
Delivering Happiness
This time, no actual customer experience term, but a great book recommendation. Delivering Happiness is the story of Zappos, written by CEO Tony Hsieh. Don't worry if the name Zappos doesn't ring a bell immediately; the company isn't really well-known in Belgium. Zappos is a US-based online shopping platform for shoes and clothing, a bit like Zalando, which is better known here.
So why do they get a spot in this alphabet after all? Simple, Zappos is a prime example of an extremely customer-centric company. Or as Tony himself puts it: “Zappos is a customer service company that happens to sell shoes.” The book recounts the origins of this customer-centric enterprise in a pleasant and easily readable way for everyone, and underscores the importance of a good internal culture for your employees. You will also read, among other things, how they struggled to maintain this culture during the growth of their company and how they tackled it.
Delivering Happiness is by now no longer just the name of a book, but of a real company whose brand promise is the following: “create a happier culture for a more profitable business”.
Questions about customer experience? Don't let them get you down!
At Customerry, we share our knowledge of customer-centric working and building a (better) customer experience strategy with great pleasure and passion. Curious what we can do for your organization?
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