CX for Growth
What makes Growth Brands like the Trillion Dollar Companies and fast-moving Unicorns so successful?
While studying these brands, there was one glaring, overarching similarity - their obsession on the end-to-end consumer experience. Every decision they make and every interaction they create seems to be meticulously planned through the lens of the memory they want to their consumers to have.
“81 percent of marketers expect to compete mostly (or completely) on the basis of CX.”
Before embarking on designing and crafting a new growth playbook for your brand, we wanted to illustrate the importance of consumer experience for growth - what it is, why it matters and how it comes to life.
1 – What is Consumer Experience (CX)?
Consumer Experience is a brand’s intentional creation of the journey and actions a consumer takes to purchase their product, service or brand. From unawareness through research, shopping, deciding and purchase through onboarding, service, support, repurchase, the consumer experience involves all touchpoints, interactions and reactions supporting a consumer’s journey with a brand.
This experience ranges from the removal of pain points in the consumption of a product to the business model in which products and services are consumed to the integrated nature of consumption and replenishment.
2 – Why does Consumer Experience Matter?
Providing a positive and powerful consumer experience is good for consumers and good for business.
Consumers are expecting a good experience with the brands they buy from. According to Salesforce:
67% of customers say their standard for good experiences are higher than ever
51% of customers saying most companies fall short of their expectations
Businesses that are employing successful consumer experience strategies are not only finding new ways to grow but they’re increasing the long-term value of their consumer relationships. According to the Temkin Group:
a moderate increase in customer experience generates an average revenue increase of $823 million over three years for a company with $1 billion in annual revenues
3 – What role does Technology & Data play in Consumer Experience?
As we’ll see throughout the book, there is an innate role technology and data plays to bring Growth Brands to life across the consumer experience. However, it’s never using technology for technology’s sake. It’s a systematic approach to using technology to fulfill the overarching brand and experience strategy.
Technology and data are used for many different strategic priorities as it comes to providing an ideal consumer experience for consumers.
It’s the data to learn about and target consumers
It’s the interaction data to progress the consumer relationship forward as they engage with the brand
It’s the new operations used to remove legacy steps in a process standing in the way of an ideal consumer experience
It’s the tools or platforms in the form of apps and websites that connect the various players involved in the experience (consumer, employee, retailer, customer service, etc.)
It’s the passive data and information that passes from product to experience producing an action like a repurchase or reward
It’s the real-time or aggregate analytics that can be used to optimize an experience or find new value to provide to consumers
As McKinsey outlines in “What Matters in Customer Experience Transformation,” a core element running through their building blocks of a customer experience transformation is data and technology, however it is not a building block in itself.