Experiences Add Up

The sentiment—“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”—is key.

Impressions are created in a diverse stream of communication channels. And as with any first impression, the consequence is fast. Each creates an experience and immediate impression with respect to your brand. You have to ask: are these interactions creating the business outcomes you desire?

A recent article by the Gartner group introduced the idea of a Total Experience as a broader way to consider how your organization might separate itself from the competition. Businesses have been talking about creating experiences for some time. What’s different now?

For starters, consider the context behind why and when these experiences take place. Technology has dramatically changed the norms of interaction in ways many never imagined. These days, people are more comfortable using technology to remain at a distance, evaluating and purchasing goods and services from their homes instead of a store location.

If your information and method of interaction is easy to understand, you create advocates. The opposite can also be true. Think of the last time you were engaging an application or website where you said to yourself, “I have no idea what they intend for me to do next.” Bring customers and prospects on a journey of discovery that is helpful and informative. Don’t lead them astray.

Let’s take a look at the few different types of interaction every business manages.

Interactive experience

All communication is interactive. Today there are so many options to be managed and optimized. Interactive experiences include everything from touch screens, web interactions, voice recognition, the call center experience, chat functions, text alerts and much more.

Whether someone is a customer or not, they experience your process and attention to detail in different interactive engagements. How these experiences resonate with the user is a brand interaction. Is the touch screen at the airport kiosk easy or do you find yourself waving for personal help? The world is more interactive than ever. How seemless are your interactions? How often do you review and update them?

Transaction experience

The transaction experience is one that should never be taken for granted. Yet, it happens all the time. When was the last time you charted the complete transaction experience your customer goes through? Have you ever looked at each step of the process and identified ways to make things easier or more pleasant with respect to a transaction? Even if you aren’t paying attention, your customers are. They immediately know when something is easy or frustrating. And, their opinion counts the most.

The past years of social distancing have only made us more weary of tiresome technology tools that either take too long or are slow to adjust. The information architecture on a site that is not intuitive, drop down menus that disappear too quickly because roll over states are not set correctly, check out pages that force the customer to rekey everything if you hit submit and one field is wrong. These are just a few of the common transaction headaches. There are countless more. Evaluating and managing the transaction process is as important as comparing your product advantages with respect to the competition. Take time to look at this experience as a differentiator because it is..

The employee experience

The employee experience and work environment have vastly changed over the last two years. Many teams are remote and likely will stay that way as businesses find a hybrid work environment both productive and favored by many potential employees. The experience of evaluating a job, choosing a job, and then working the position itself, is a key component of Total Experience. Human resources are too often overlooked in the brand interaction landscape.

Some questions to ask as you look for the next valuable member of your team:

• How is the open position introduced to a potential team member?

• How is the culture and the brand value reinforced?

• What is the offer process and the onboarding process like?

• How is a remote employee made to feel part of the team when culture is such a differentiator today?

Employees choose positions for reasons other than simply compensation. Reflecting on what compromises the employee experience at your company can not only draw in the best potential, but save time and resources down the road with reduced turnover.

But the employee experience isn’t only important for the hiring process. Once someone is onboard, a common employer pitfall is a drop in experience. Someone new to the team is exciting and refreshing, usually prompting that person to feel welcome and valuable. Without realizing it, however, the person who was made to feel welcome at first becomes suddenly isolated. Chart the employee experience and optimize it just as you would for a transaction. A happy employee is often your best advocate. After all, they talk about their day, the projects they work on, and the work environment in general. Optimize this experience as much as possible.

The post sale experience

Okay, so you have a customer in place. What is next on the experience journey? Post sale—.give yourself a high five! On to the next one. Right? Not the case. Given the prevalence of social media, online reviews, and the ease of making returns, the post sale experience can’t be overlooked.

Many companies understand the importance of the post sale experience. That’s why these businesses often have a “no questions asked” return policy. One reason could be that their confidence in their product is so high, they feel the number of returns would be low. Or, they could understand that returns create goodwill, plus gives them valuable product insight from the field.

Whatever the case, the practice is customer-centric. And, that is the most important thing. As someone once said, “A customer always talks. The question is, what are they saying?” Map this experience as well and create a system where a customer would say that you certainly had their needs at heart.

It all adds up. Every interaction is a cumulative score that creates a total experience. A complete brand interaction.

Technology and outside perspectives can play a role in modeling the experience process for you. Be open to new strategies and resist the temptation to fall back to the way business has always been done. The only way for progress to exist is by moving forward.