Recently I made a purchase on store.sony.com. After completing the purchase on-line I didn’t receive an email. After a few days I called them. The shipping had been delayed; and they didn’t send an email either. I was shocked that Sony didn’t have that aspect of customer relationship down. Every key event needs to be communicated to the customer; in particular they should be given at each interaction the opportunity to create an account or access their account.
HBR has a good article on the topic titled “The Truth about Customer Experience” – ”Touchpoints matter, but it’s the full journey that really counts”.
Here is an extract:
“In our research and consulting on customer journeys, we’ve found that organizations able to skillfully manage the entire experience reap enormous rewards: enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced churn, increased revenue, and greater employee satisfaction. They also discover more-effective ways to collaborate across functions and levels, a process that delivers gains throughout the company.”
“Companies have long emphasized touchpoints—the many critical moments when customers interact with the organization and its offerings on their way to purchase and after. But the narrow focus on maximizing satisfaction at those moments can create a distorted picture, suggesting that customers are happier with the company than they actually are. It also diverts attention from the bigger—and more important—picture: the customer’s end-to-end journey.”
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