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It used to be that success was about getting powerful hardware in place or efficient software or great marketing offers. But today, things are suddenly very different.
In 2012 itself, Forrester found that 97 percent of companies surveyed considered customer experience as the top strategic priority, and 28 percent considered it the primary priority.
Seventy-five percent of companies hope to make the customer experience a competitive differentiator.
Today, hardware and software and offers are undifferentiated. Marketing devolves to offering customers a four-slice toaster to convert. But then the competition offers a six-slice toaster, and the margins get vanishingly thin.
So we differentiate today on customer experience. We roll that buzzword around a lot, but what does it mean. It might not be clear for an executive, experience in hardware and software, and offers and toasters.
Sure, in the physical spaces, we make stores with nice appointments and attentive staff, and we train our call center folks to be empathetic, but most of the customer experience challenge today is in the digital channels.
