The Consumer Experience Mindset

The phrase ‘consumer experience’ has become quite a hot topic of discussion in many industries. From auto to CPG to B2B, a brand’s consumer experience is quickly becoming a key focal point for businesses simply because consumers are requesting it - basing their purchase decisions on the experience the brand creates over price and product.

So what is a consumer experience? To us, it’s a brand’s intentional development of the journey consumer takes and the lifestyle they join when they choose to do business with you. Every action, interaction and reaction over the course of the relationship is meant to continuously create value over time.

The challenge businesses are facing around ‘consumer experience’ is the underlying mindset it requires - it’s simply not part of traditional organization’s vernacular or processes. Brand leaders doing it right, understand that to create a valuable experience, they must focus on the long term value their brand creates with their consumer - starting with ownership and retention then work your way out to acquisition.

This is where the friction starts. Many traditional brands have their marketing organizations set up for acquisition, not retention. They focus on optimizing their marketing and sales channels to deliver the KPIs that will most likely produce a purchase - not build brand value. The latter a short term focus and the former setting up for sustained success in the long term.

The ‘Consumer Experience’ mindset is:

Long Term Value: Looking at the long term value of consumer relationships requires a retention over acquisition focus. It requires and organization to change the metrics they measure themselves against.

Relationship Building: Long term value is created by planning, mapping and building relationships with consumers on an individual level. A combination of data, eased transactions and personalization will give consumers an expanded reason to do business with your brand.

Brand Fulfillment: Consumer Experience leaders build their brand by repeatedly fulfilling their brand promise at key moments of interaction, not just communicate it through advertising.

Continuous Beta: Building an effective, evolving consumer experience, requires a brand to continuously learn, launch and expand new value propositions. Being in continuous beta gives their brand the power to grow.