The demanding online customer - a headache or the most important key to success?

That a positive or negative customer experience affects your business in one way or another, no one probably contradicts. Many studies today indicate that a positive customer experience is more important than price and product, which may not really be the whole truth as both the product and the price are part of the customer experience.

However, we can agree that experience is an important factor that can be decisive when making your choice. If I have had a fantastic experience, I may be willing to pay more for a product or service.

What then is a customer experience? In short, it is the sum of all the experiences your customer has with your brand, services and products. It is not more advanced than that, is it… or? No, not really. And by that I am referring to the ability to truly understand what a customer experience is and not how to achieve an optimal experience. But understanding what affects the overall customer experience and working to improve it from all aspects is not quite as simple.

Before you start taking a look at that particular challenge I would advise you to focus your eyes internally first. I think the first step or insight you have to take in is to actually care about what your customers think. Not only by executing a comprehensive market research, but actually using your knowledge about your customer's thoughts as a scale which your entire organization and its decisions relate to.

Constantly asking yourselves the question "-Will this have a positive impact on the customer experience?" is key. By asking that question, you also put the customer at the center of the decisions or investments you make. It also makes your business start working towards one and the same goal.

So today's hot tip is to really care about your customers and to start using customers and customer satisfaction as an indicator of the decisions and investments you and your colleagues make.

In a number of articles, I will highlight this area and give tips on how you should work to increase your customer satisfaction. Next time, I can tell you to download our white paper on Unified Commerce, perfect for you who are about to create a new strategy for your online business or maybe update the one you have?

Stay tuned!

Author

Daniel Miari

CXO

Star Republic, SQLI Group