The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences

Learn how to create a competitive advantage for your business by offering a customer experience that’s second to none!

I call it the sea of sameness. This is when, everywhere you turn, you are confronted with sameness. Your palette rarely experiences something different. Your emotions are almost never tickled. Where do you see the sea of sameness?

Everywhere you go! From industry to industry, service provider to service provider, mall to mall, shop to shop, and shelf to shelf. Apparently most competitors have more things in common than they let us believe. There is a lot of room for differentiation. And even in the sea of sameness within an industry, someone can choose to differentiate herself by providing customers with an Experience. This article is the summary of The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences by Matt Watkinson. It is a must read and an easy to read for any organization of any size, seeking competitive advantage.

What is a Customer Experience?

According to Matt Watkinson, ‘Customer Experience is the qualitative aspect of any interaction that an individual has with a business, its products or services, at any point in time’. He used qualitative to reflect the fact that an experience is perceived by an individual’s sensory and psychological faculties. It is not something that can be measured quantitatively like profit, cost, weight or task completion times. Customer Experience isn’t about what something does; it’s how it is done. It’s not what the features and functions of the product or service allow us to do, it’s how it makes us feel. Customer Experience is not restricted to the usage of a product or service; it spans every interaction a customer has with a business or its offerings. This can be anything from seeing an advert through to cancelling a contract, or disposing a product when it is no longer of use. Since the experience involves every interaction, it cannot be restricted to any period in time, or any defined point in the relationship that the business has with the individual concerned. What People buy is the experience not just the product or service.

Despite widespread understanding that the ‘customer experience’ is critically important; customers are still often frustrated and disappointed. Products are too complex to use, small prints leave us feeling cheated, adverts bear little resemblance to reality, and customer services are often rude. Examples of poor customer experiences are a daily occurrence for most people. Matt Watkinson’s book presents ten simple principles that you can use to make improvements to any customer experience. Whether you provide a product or service, are a large or small operation, a physical shop or web based, it doesn’t matter; these principles are universal. Let’s walk with Matt through each one of the principles.

Great Customer Experience Strongly Reflects the Customer Identity:

Wants are a more powerful motivator than needs. Our beliefs and values play a decisive role in our behavior as customers and those experiences that reinforce our self-image and resonate with our personal values leave us feeling good about our decisions, while those brands that clearly stand for something engender much stronger loyalty.

The starting point for Customer Experience is not looking at what people ‘need’, because most people’s needs are met. People actually need very little. We operate in a world of wants, not needs. Everything we buy reflects our values, beliefs and self-image. Even social groups define themselves through the consumption.

Great customer experiences help us resolve the tension between expressing our individuality and belonging to a group. Think about what your brand says about your customers; focus on creating a brand reality than a brand image. This is the foundation of a great customer experience.

Great Customer Experiences satisfy our Higher Objective:

The kernel of a customer experience is satisfying an objective. In a movie, what makes each character interesting are the objectives hidden beneath what they say or do. Customers are no different; wants and needs are derivative, it is satisfying the higher objective behind them that is the foundation on which great experiences are built.

Identifying these objectives comes from having an empathetic understanding of the customer. We need to be able to put ourselves in the customers’ shoes if we are to understand what their goals are. We all have ‘surface issues’ that we will happily discuss and ‘shadow issues’ which are the hidden thoughts or feelings that we are not comfortable sharing; these shadow issues are often the most powerful drivers of our behaviors. Looking at goals is more useful than looking at tasks, because they give us a deeper understanding of what the customer wants.

Great Customer Experience leaves nothing to Chance:

If you improve everything you do, even you by just a little; these tiny gains add up to something big. To create consistent, smooth, customer journeys, every interaction needs to be considered, planned and designed. There is no detail that is too small to consider.

Attention to detail is not only the secret to seduction, it is also one of the secrets to a great customer experience. Customers care about details because they show that the business cares about us. If every detail is right, the overall experience will be right – plenty of small gain creates one large gain.

Great Customer Experience Sets and then Meets Expectations:

Existing expectations, learnt behaviors and associations are the criteria that customers use to judge an experience from the beginning. Great customer experience explicitly considers these factors and exceeds expectations where desirable. Expectations are fundamental to how the brain works.

The dopamine neurons in our brain trigger emotions based on predictions. When everything goes according to our predictions, the dopamine neurons fire up and we experience pleasurable positive emotions. However, if our expectations turn out to be wrong, the neurons stop firing and we feel upset. The brain is designed to accentuate the impact of these mistakes. Since our memories of past experiences are used to set expectations for the future, the memories we have of a customer experience are crucial.

Expectations are powerful and often poorly handled which makes expectation management a golden opportunity for creating competitive advantage. To provide great experience, we need to see the customer experience as one long journey, and a continuous process of setting and meeting expectations.

Great Customer Experiences Are Effortless:

We always want to do more with less effort. Interactions that put the onus on the customer, soaking up their time and energy, are quickly put off or replaced with those that are less demanding. Few things generate more goodwill and repeat business than being effortless to deal with. Technology exists to make our lives easier.

To reduce effort, consider reducing features and tasks; omit unnecessary words, remember less but better. Prioritize task and features so that the most frequently used and important ones can be made as effortless as possible. Reduce the efforts required when making decisions by limiting choices to a manageable number.

Great Customer Experiences Are Stress-Free.

A stress-less customer experience is a major competitive advantage. Most people have unwanted stress in their lives; stress at work, stress at home; many find it stressful trying to get home from work. We are often confronted by products that are confusing to operate; computers crash unpredictably; we call customer service teams that can’t or won’t help us.
The sheer volume of information that we are presented with, and the number of decisions we need to make day-to-day, can leave us feeling exhausted. Customer experience that eliminates confusion, uncertainty and anxiety reaps the rewards, generating a competitive advantage, loyalty and a peerless brand image.

Great Customer Experience indulges the Senses:

Every product or service is fundamentally a sensual experience, so the way in which our senses are stimulated must always have an end in mind, and never be arbitrary or left to chance. From delicious food, to relaxing music or a beautiful painting, we all seek sensory pleasure. Customer experience that delights the senses win our hearts, and have us coming back for more.

Every sense should be considered; they all offer abundant opportunities to enhance the customer experience and differentiate a product or a service from the competition. By carefully considering how the senses are stimulated, we can do much more to increase the appeal of our products and services and create a more pleasurable ownership experience.

Great Customer Experiences Are Socially Engaging:

Human beings are social creatures. Those that make business a social pleasure stand head and shoulder above the competition. The importance of cultivating personal relationships with customers cannot be over stated. We more readily buy from a friend than a stranger. However, our position within a social group is a powerful and private motivator. Those experiences that elevate our status are often the most highly valued. One moment of outstanding personal service can leave an indelible impression on a customer.

Great Customer Experiences put the Customer in Control:

Customers don’t just want to achieve goals; they want to achieve them in their own way. To create the best possible experience, we need to make sure the customer feels in control at every step of the journey. More choice and decision making power does not necessarily result in a greater feeling of control. We should aim to give customers control when it is most effective in improving the experience, in ways that makes the most effective use of budget. Control must be proportional to skill; so competence is a key factor in deciding how much direct control is desirable to the customer.

Great Customer Experiences Consider the Emotions:

The way a product, brand or service makes us feel is critical to its success. We are all slaves to our emotions, yet most see their customers from a purely rational perspective. Emotions can have specific ‘action tendencies’ so to encourage (or discourage) a specific behavior, we may need to evoke (or avoid) specific emotions. Having a target emotional state for each stage of the customer experience provides a goal to work towards that brings empathy and focus to the design process. Since emotions are often readily observable we can incorporate them into testing the validity of our work, or identify opportunities for improvement. We need to promote emotions but actively avoid negative ones too.