Only four, you ask? Please. I have a plently of myths busted. This is a teaser for an upcoming slideshare.

Customer Experience is gaining some momentum and rightly so. This is for all the nay-sayers and doubtfuls out there.

Four Customer Experience Myths Debunked

1. Customer Experience Innovation & Improvement is a Lavish Splurge

If you’re going to buy an extravagant office chair, like this one, so it’s more “comfortable” doing more business, then yes it might cripple your budget.

Did you know that in Forrestor’s study Competitive Strategy in the Age of the Customer, 92% of companies revealed customer experience was a priority but 45% said they did not have the adequate funding? Rather perplexing. Does your budget reflect the importance of customer experience or is it chump change? Hey, that chair looks good…

Customer experience can absolutely be successful without breaking the bank. Not to mention it can save you a load of money from lost business. Some creative and thoughtful examples include:

  • Potbelly’s sent our former team member, Jason, a thank you for always visiting their location.
  • A hotel placed flower pots in men’s urinals when hosting a women only conference.
  • Writing personalized emails to every subscriber that’s responded to your newsletter (or handwritten notes to your customers).
  • Identify customer needs and plan accordingly – for example, Optum Healthcare trains their nurses to be emotionally receptive and sensitive to patients – they provide a “port in the storm.”
customer experience myths
Improving the experience is a very realistic goal.

2. If Nobody’s Complaining, the Experience is Great

My waiter was slow but omgosh those blue eyes. The burger was overcooked but what a great craft beer selection. I should leave a review on Yelp. But it’s not really a big deal so I won’t. I need to instagram my #foodporn anyway.

As Jeannie often reminds us, humans are wonderfully irrational and in this case, simple. Sometimes they just get distracted by a better competitior without saying anything because you didn’t exactly drive them away.

See the flaw here? They should be raving about you. Tweeting, making referrals and leaving reviews as if they’ve finally found a fantastic technology , marketing, cooking or whatever it is you offer – as their partner in crime that lands on somebody’s blog of “Top # Influentials or Products to Watch Out in 2014.”

Because frankly we know those blogs come out all the time.

Also, surveys are a problem.

3. Customer Experience is About the Big Picture

It takes TWELVE seconds to hold a positive experience in awareness in order to make the transfer from short term memory to long term memory. You can say thank you to a little spot in our brains called the amygdala, which uses two-thirds of its neurons searching for negative experiences.

So you can understand our obsession with microinterations and tendency to sweat the small stuff.

You can also look at them as touchpoints (what IS one anyway?) in your complex customer journey map. Touchpoints encompass every interaction made with your business and include:

  • 404 error messages (probably our favorite thing to look for and share).
  • Personalized experiences (addressing readers by name in your newsletter, etc)
  • The thank you page that appears after filling out your contact form (how many fields is that by the way? Is it one too many?)
  • Do they HAVE to have an account to buy or test the product? Turn off.
  • A tiny extra scoop of ice cream on top of your regular scoop. You just have to hike to St. Paul in Minnesota to Izzy’s. (Check out Stan Phelp’s Purple Goldfish Hall of Famers).
customer experience myths
June 2013 Microinteraction of the Month

You can delight or repel your customer with the smallest things. Our Listly List of last year’s top 12 microinteractions or Jeannie’s TEDx video is a great way to dive in the world of microinteractions.

4. Customer Experience is User Experience

Now, some of the things I mentioned above may sound like user experience ideals on the digital end, but hear me out.

User experience helps drive and reflect the customer experience. Which is massive. It encompasses the brand promise, the attitude and motivation of your employees, the delightful moments (365 day free return shipping?), the warm cookie for you from DoubleTree hotel (an easy online booking doesn’t beat dessert), and convenience….to list a few.

For example, you have established a stunning ecommerce user experience – even the shopping cart icon is noticeable with it’s heart with the number of items icon when you’ve added items. However, the customer gets to one last page they discover the cost to ship and/or return is overpriced. Or it only takes VISA. That, my friend, factors in the customer experience, and why shopping carts get abandoned. See more on user experience v. customer experience.

I hope this gets you tickled and excited about improving your customer experience.

If you’re looking for a place to start, let me break some really great news. Our newsletter yesterday “Improving Customer Experience This Year is Meaningless Without This Strategy” will do just it for you. If you fancied this, subscribe for more helping hands this year!

Photo credit: JoelMontes via Creative Commons