If you have been disappointed, your customers would be even more. It’s time for you to incorporate customer experience management into your company’s efforts. Its task is to build up positive customer experiences and, through doing so, form an emotional bond between them and your company.
Why some customers are more satisfied than others
In highly competitive markets, where it’s hard to differentiate through price or product features, your customer satisfaction is an important factor. To satisfy your customers, your product has to surpass what they expect of it. The difference is described in the Confirmation/Disconfirmation-Model.
If the delivered value is equal to what your customers expected, they will be satisfied. While this is a positive experience, it’s not enough to form an emotional bond and won’t necessarily win you a loyal customer.
If your product exceeds the customers’ expectations, they will be very satisfied. This is the state you want your customers to be in, a positive disconfirmation. Those customers are the ones, most likely to form an emotional bond to your brand and become loyal customers.
If your product doesn’t meet the expectations, your customers will be disappointed. A negative disconfirmation can happen for two reasons: either your customer had too high expectations or your product was too bad.
Customer satisfaction is less about your product and more about meeting the expectations your customers have in it. This is where expectation management comes in.
Manage their expectation
When was the last time a friend told you about how awesome a movie is, that it’s the best and you really need to watch it? And when you finally watched it, while being a good movie, you’ve been underwhelmed. That’s an example of bad expectation management. Even the best product can be disappointing if the expectations are set you high.
You want your customers to have expectations, you can meet. Like that, they are more likely to have a positive disconfirmation. Resulting in a positive overall experience with your company.
Get loyal customers
By analyzing your customers’ experience on all the touchpoints and adjusting them accordingly, you’ll be able to influence their expectations and thus their satisfaction with your company.
Customer Experience Management consists of all actions you take to close the gap between your customers’ expectations and their experience. This is how you can stand out from your competition. With loyal customers that root for your brand and, through word-of-mouth marketing, attract new customers.
