customer-relationship

My colleague David recently blogged about delivering the experience your customers expect and suggests that it’s time to put CX on the board agenda as a #1 priority – the 93% statistic highlights that it’s now essential to deliver a great experience.

Micah Solomon recently also wrote an interesting article in Forbes magazine about how sounds can be much more important to a customer experience than one might immediately imagine. He cites the example of a hotel where he can hear the surf on a beach and the bar plays relaxing music – all carefully considered to ensure that the acoustics of the hotel make it a relaxing place to be.

This article makes an important point around how the customer experience can be designed.

Sound is just one aspect, but it gives several good examples of how thinking about sound use can be important:

  • In a hotel, is your room quiet enough for sleep or do you endlessly hear the nearby elevator rumbling past?
  • In a bar or restaurant, is the music loud enough to provide an attractive ambience, but quiet enough for a conversation to take place?
  • In an airport, are the important announcements made on a system that is clear or one that sounds like feedback during a loud rock concert?
  • On a bus or train, does the staff actively discourage passengers from playing music or movies on their phones without using earphones?
  • In a hospital waiting room, do the chairs squeak and equipment rattles around noisily?

Some of these examples may sound trivial, although sleeping all night next to an elevator isn’t trivial if you want to work the next day. However, what Micah is saying is that when considering your customer experience it is not only the big things that count.

Yes, you might offer customer support 24/7 across a range of channels, but have you really worn the shoes of your customer and experienced how your service sounds, looks, and feels? Can brands afford to ignore the needs of today’s connected customers? This paper examines what a truly omni-channel experience delivers to customers, why it’s good for business and the steps needed to achieve it.

These ideas around senses and the customer experience are important because how the customer feels is what they will remember. Make them feel great and they will return time and time again. What do you think about this idea around senses? Leave a comment below and let me know, or get in touch on LinkedIn.