by twieberneit | Mar 4, 2017 | Blog |
These days, customer experiences increasingly need to be delivered with the help of technology. This does not mean that direct interactions and people are no more important in marketing, sales, or service; on the contrary, but that an increasing number of customers is using the web, social media, chat, or an app to identify suitable products or services or to resolve an issue, when needed. The Customer Executive Board found that 57 per cent of the buying process is already completed before sales personnel get engaged. A Cisco retail study confirms the American Express findings and states that around 60 per cent of all in-store purchases start their journey electronically. The American Express Global Barometer claims that 60 per cent of all customers abandoned a purchase because of poor service experiences. Over the past 20 or so years the way products and services get sold and customer service as well as marketing get delivered to customers changed dramatically. Gone are the times where a potential customer was addressed via a radio- or TV-spot or an ad printed in a newspaper, or a letter in the mailbox … – well, it still happens, but the focus shifted. We started off from one single, unidirectional marketing ‘channel’ – the customer comes into my store and interacts with me, a person. From there on we added an ever increasing number of additional channels, like the ones mentioned, plus many more. In today’s omni-channel world we also have telephone, e-mail, web-delivered ads, mobile apps, branded and white-label communities, social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., chat, messenger applications like WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Snapchat,...
