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Grow revenue and profits by creating a loyalty-building customer experience

After stripping costs out of their business, leaders scramble to hit analysts’ lofty profit targets. The intense focus on right-sizing and profit maximization has distracted many leaders from an obvious source of profit and revenue: customers.

Loyal customers may be willing to pay more for products and services.

Unfortunately, refocusing on the customer isn’t as easy as flipping a switch. All systems and processes, not to mention people, must be aligned to support the customer.. So, the question for many leaders is not whether to re-focus on the customer, but rather how to do so.

The path forward begins with a holistic analysis of the customer’s experience. This analysis asks questions like:

• Who are our target customers? What is important to them?
• What is the current customer experience?
• What should our customer experience be to drive the kinds of loyalty behavior – referral, repeat business, willingness to pay premium, etc. – we need to achieve our business results?
• How do we ensure that we deliver the desired experience consistently to customers?
• Do we believe our people will be differentiators in driving the customer experience?

Leaders act on this analysis to create a branded customer experience®. A branded customer experience (BCE) is the consistent, intentional delivery of the Brand Promise or Customer Experience strategy through every interaction customers have with the organization- its people, processes, products and services. Fundamentally, BCE:

• Creates a unifying companywide commitment to a compelling customer promise or strategy
• Builds lasting capability among people and processes to deliver a uniquely valuable customer experience
• Incorporates an integrated measurement system to track business results
• Generates tangible increases to the bottom line through improved customer loyalty and employee retention