Deliver Seamless Customer Experience

  • Top 12 CX Issues for Business Customers

    How to Improve Customer Experience thru your Customer's Lifecycle

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    What does it take to satisfy your business customers? A lot. First, you need to understand who they are, what jobs they are doing, and where your products and services fit in. Next, you need to know where the pitfalls are likely to be in the customer journey as they engage with your firm and your products throughout the lifecycle of their relationship with you. We have worked with thousands of businesses and their customers over the past three decades. We have identified recurring customer experience expectations and patterns from these co-design sessions. In this article, we summarize the dozen customer-critical customer experience issues that are cuurently the most prevalent in B2B accounts. Then we report on what customers' expectations are and suggest ways you could meet those expectations.
    Aug. 8, 2020
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  • Customer Experience and Operational Excellence Success in B2B

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    Read why it's best practice to combine your Customer Experience initiatives with your Operational Excellence initiatives. You'll streamline business processes and reduce cycle time in the areas that matter most to customers.
    Jan. 26, 2018
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  • Un-Empowered Employee Limits a CX "Save"

    Microtel Tries its Best, but can't Completely Remedy a Bad Situation

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    A loyal hotel patron expects front line customer service rep to be able to reimburse for minor losses. How much leeway should a front line service rep be given?
    Jun. 3, 2015
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  • Angie’s List Doesn’t Arm Its Front-Line Troops

    Don’t Ask for Customer Feedback if You Don’t Know What’s Going On

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    A recent customer experience with Angie’s List went wrong on many levels simply because the company representative didn’t know what was going on!
    Apr. 16, 2015
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  • Creating Customer-Centric Websites

    Ensure that Your Customers Can Easily Accomplish What They Came to Do

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    Your web site should clearly demonstrate that you understand what it is that your customers are trying to do—their key scenarios—as they relate to your products and services. Are you putting your customers’ scenarios front and center? And are you allowing them to progress through their scenarios without any detours or obstacles?
    Mar. 5, 2015
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  • Customer Journey Mapping

    How to Ensure that Your Customer Experience Journey Map Reflects Your Customers’ Scenarios

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    Here’s how to create a Customer Experience Journey Map. Map the ideal experience for key customer segments. Identify the customers’ Moments of Truth in each Customer Scenario. Combine these as the backbone of your end-to-end customer journey.
    May. 23, 2014
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  • Inconsistent Customer Service Information from Bank of America

    Four Different CSRs; Four Different Responses

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    Trying to sign up to automatically pay my new Bank of America credit card balance each month turned into a long, frustrating mess because of inconsistent processes and the fact that not all CSRs knew what could be done!
    Apr. 17, 2014
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  • Why I Am No Longer a Sears Customer

    Sears.com Fails to Deliver on Promises

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    Sears has failed this shopper for the last time! Read the sad, sad story of hours wasted, responses not received, and powerless customer service agents following self-serving customer service practices.
    Dec. 5, 2013
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  • Gimme That Old Time Customer Service

    A Little Special Attention Can Entice New Customers

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    Even if your product or service is better than the next guy’s, poor customer experience can lose customers. Remember the importance of the personal touch!
    Nov. 1, 2013
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  • Good Service, but Missed Opportunity for Greatness

    A Recommendation for Peapod Grocery Delivery Service

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    Peapod grocery delivery service does a fine job of customer service, but a recent experience revealed a barrier between what they know about a customer and the customer service department.
    Aug. 30, 2013
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  • Owning the Customer’s Total Experience

    A Success Story for a Company that Didn’t Let a Customer Down in a Time of Need

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    When you fail to make sure that your customers have a great and successful experience, whether or not you are in control, you risk losing their business and hurting your brand. But ensuring your customers are successful reaps rewards!
    Aug. 15, 2013
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  • Improving Wretched Customer Service

    Beyond Giving CSRs Authority—Giving Them the Ammunition to Provide Great Service

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    What makes well-intentioned customer service so bad? Martha Brooke of Interaction Metrics offers four common mistakes, and we look at how to empower CSRs to avoid these mistakes.
    Jul. 3, 2013
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  • Customizing Greeting Cards Online

    How Well Did American Greetings and Hallmark Meet My Customer Scenario?

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    Going through a card-buying scenario identified some important lessons for all businesses about keeping promises and providing a seamless experience throughout your customer ecosystem.
    Jun. 20, 2013
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  • Supporting the Demand (Customer) Chain

    Start with the End-Customers, but Make Sure You’re Making It Easy for Every Stakeholder Between You and Them

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    In order to delight your end-customer, you have to understand the needs and scenarios of every participant in your demand chain (or, as we like to think of it, the customer chain).
    Jun. 6, 2013
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  • Utility Customer Experiences: Stark Contrasts in Dealing with NStar and National Grid

    What Each Did Right and What Needs Improvement When Helping Customers in Need

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    Read the best (and worst) practices demonstrated by NStar and National Grid as they help customers deal with a repair.
    Jan. 31, 2013
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  • Amazon Takes on Apple in Digital Music

    Combined CDs and AutoRip Make Amazon Cloud Player More Enticing

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    Amazon’s AutoRip feature surprised and delighted some customers and annoyed others. We like the fact that we now have digital access to MP3 files of the music we bought on CDs for free and without doing anything!
    Jan. 24, 2013
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  • Being Creative on Zazzle.com

    How Easy Is It to Create (and Sell) Your Own Customized Products?

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    Zazzle.com makes it easy for people to create and sell customized products. Here’s our review of Zazzle’s tools for customizing products, creating storefronts, and merchandising custom designs.
    Jan. 17, 2013
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  • Daily Deal Fatigue

    Putting the Bloom Back on the Rose

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    After an explosion onto the marketplace a few years ago, daily deal sites are floundering. Why are consumers turned off and what can dealers and merchants do to win them back?
    Dec. 6, 2012
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  • MySears Community Gets a Facelift

    Community and Commerce Are Still Too Separate!

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    Your customer community should be an integral part of your business and web presence. How well does the improved MySears Community do on integrating community with commerce?
    Oct. 18, 2012
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  • How B2C Customers Are Similar to B2B Customers

    The Roles Consumers Play as They Interact with Your Firm

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    Regardless of what hat your customers are wearing when they do business with you—parent, employee, soccer coach—they all want a great customer experience. Consumers have more in common with business customers than you might think.
    Oct. 4, 2012
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