Can ignoring customer experience be costly?

The larger a company's market share, greater is the risk that it will take its customers for granted - HBS terms it as the “Dominance Trap.

A Bain survey revealed 80% companies believe that they deliver superior customer experience while when their customers were surveyed, only 8% agreed.

As profits increase, management begins confusing customer profitability with customer loyalty, not realizing that the most lucrative buyers may also be the angriest and most alienated. Traditional market research approach may also lead the firm to view customers as statistics, supplanting CSAT figures as proxy for actual customer behavior. Managers can become so focused on the data and metrics that they stop hearing the real voices of their customers.

It is easy to believe that you are keeping customers happy but to actually get customer devotion is the real challenge.

Improving Customer Experience in Financial Services – Why and How?

Am I Customer ID 127346 or Alicia Samuels to you? Does my Bank care only if I’m a High Net worth Individual? I really need to buy a House, and not specifically Mortgage or Insurance. Why is it difficult to be respectful, transparent and upfront? Can I trust you with my money and my needs?

Customer Experience (CEx) is sum of all experiences a customer has with the company over the duration of their relationship, i.e.,  lifecycle stages of awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy.

As financial services become commoditized; so does the treatment of customers. Keeping the customer engaged across repeated transactions hence emerges as an important differentiator as well as a challenge. Customers are willing to pay more, buy more, be loyal and become brand advocates for those who provide superior experience.

 As an example in a recent study; the annual commission for even such commoditized Products as MasterCard Standard or Visa Classic debit cards was found to be 1.65 times higher for top banks against those who scored least on Customer Experience. With the current economic slowdown and recovery, the customer needs and expectations have shifted to a “new normal” while financial companies tackle supposedly contrary goals of customer delight and cost reduction.