The Experience Economy and What it means for your business
The Experience Economy and What it means for your business
Many businesses are missing the mark of good customer experience. According to Capgemini, 75% of businesses believe they’re customer-centric, but only 30% of customers agree — and this gap is huge.
To close this gap and succeed in the experience economy, businesses need to understand their customers better and their expectations. However, the task should be to provide an experience better than their expectations.
Here are some pointers to get you started
Map your customer journey to highlight all the touch-points and interactions in which your business/ brand interacts with your customers. For a premium cafe, it could start when the customer makes an online reservation or calls for one and includes the interiors, food & beverages, service, etc.
This helps to
- Highlight the problems, the good experiences and opportunities to improve
- Rethink existing processes or create new ones to suit the requirements
- Bring the right focus on the experience
- Align everyone in the organization to the same goal and do what is best to get a better experience for customers
For example, 
helped travelers find cost-effective accommodation at homes and lodges. After some time, Airbnb found that travelers wanted more and looking to experience the local locations and activities, beyond what conventional tours provided for. In 2017, Airbnb Experiences was launched, whereby Airbnb hosts could offer guests additional activities that would be interesting to travelers with a local flavor. Like seeing Yakshagana in Udupi. This has enabled travelers to have a local immersive experience plus ad value to the whole Airbnb proposition
Good products don’t necessarily make the best experiences. There have been many examples where technologically superior products have flopped because the user experience has been terrible. There is a lesson to be learnt from Apple.
always designs a product with the end-user in mind.
It is simple and intuitive. Tech-wise they may not be the best but in customer feedback, they come up trumps
The experience economy applies anywhere. To use a cliché, in a restaurant, don’t just sell the food, sell the sizzle.
While tech has played a significant part in enabling a good experience, there are many places or occasions which require human intervention. In a retail landscape, it can be at a retail store. Are your staff trained well, do they know how to interact well and so on
In the online space, are your customers able to interact with customer support properly, are the support teams helpful to solve problems etc.
The experience economy has given a different perspective on how customers consume products, thereby giving priority to experiences than just ownership of products. Make it memorable, and you have a lifelong customer
Map your customer journey
Map your customer journey to highlight all the touch-points and interaction which your business/ brand interacts with your customers. For a premium cafe, it could start when the customer makes an online reservation or calls for one and includes the interiors, food & beverages, service etc.
This helps to
- Highlight the problems, the good experiences and opportunities to improve
- Rethink existing processes or create new ones to suit the requirements
- Bring the right focus on the experience
- Align everyone in the organization to the same goal and do what is best to get a better experience for customers
For example, Airbnb helped travellers find cost-effective accommodation at homes and lodges. After some time, Airbnb found that travellers wanted more and looking to experience the local locations and activities, beyond what conventional tours provided for. In 2017, Airbnb Experiences was launched, whereby Airbnb hosts could offer guests additional activities that would be interesting to travellers with a local flavour. Like seeing Yakshagana in Udupi. This has enabled travellers to have a local immersive experience plus ad value to the whole Airbnb proposition
Dialogue with customers
While gathering demographic & psychographic information of customers are necessary businesses along with transactional data, I personally there is nothing like having a face to face with customers to get a qualitative understanding especially about the finer points. Technology has enabled multiple easier ways to interact with customers directly like bots, AI-based interfaces etc.
I am a firm believer in conversations have a great impact on great experiences as this involves treating customers like humans and not as listings on a database.
Market an experience
Good products don’t necessarily make the best experiences. There have been many examples where technologically superior products have flopped because the user experience has been terrible. There is a lesson to be learnt from Apple.
Apple
always designs a product with the end-user in mind.It is simple and intuitive. Tech-wise they may not be the best but in customer feedback, they come up trumps
The experience economy applies anywhere. To use a cliché, in a restaurant, don’t just sell the food, sell the sizzle.
Handling customers
While tech has played a significant part in enabling a good experience, there are many places or occasions which require human intervention. In a retail landscape, it can be at a retail store. Are your staff trained well, do they know how to interact well and so on
In the online space, are your customers able to interact with customer support properly, are the support teams helpful to solve problems etc.
The experience economy has given a different perspective on how customers consume products, thereby giving priority to experiences than just ownership of products. Make it memorable, and you have a lifelong customer.
This is 3/4 of a four part blog series from Vejay.
Go to 4/4 : Happy Employees – Happy Experience – Happy Customers
This is 3/4 of a four part blog series from Vejay.
Go to 4/4 : Happy Employees – Happy Experience – Happy Customers
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Author: S Vejay Anand
Vejay Anand is an independent consultant with expertise in strategy, marketing, sales and operations. ​He has over two decades of experience across industries including retail and technology. Leading new business initiatives as the President at Coffee Day and founding two startups have given Vejay key insights​​ that benefit the organisations he consults at.
