Customer Experience in Uganda: The new value

Nov 23, 2018

Customer experience impacts on a customer’s attitude, especially the affective or emotional component

By Jonathan Phillip Kyetume

The traditional transaction involves exchange of money for a product or service, however today, the evolving consumer attaches the experience with the brand before and after a purchase as associated value for their money and in addition to this customer expectations are higher than ever.

Today it is no longer about the coffee ,but, how and when the coffee is served, the smiles that come along, the ambience and the response to query that makes the fine line to choice of café. So the biggest question now is if your organization can create an excellent customer experience.

Customer experience, defined as a product of interaction between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship. The brand experience is typically experienced by the consumer from the customer journey with the brand, points of contact and the situational environment, including digital experience. Emphasis should be on points of contact which may be human and or machine interface.

In a period of ever evolving competition, both local and global, it is only imperative that Customer experience is exploited as a strategy for brand loyalty. Not only does brand loyalty lead to increased sales and customer retention but also turns your customers into advocates for your brand and further promotes word-of-mouth turning your customer into a touchpoint for your brand.

Customer experience is also an effective strategy for indirect marketing because emotionally engaged customers engage in positive word of mouth, make repeated purchases and are much less price sensitive and the results can be seen through outperforming sustained sales growth.

Customer experience impacts on a customer's attitude, especially the affective or emotional component. Research by the Journal of Consumer Research indicates that more than 50% of an experience is based on emotion. The affective component encompasses the consumer feelings towards a given brand dependant of independent on the consumer's beliefs and also how the consumer identifies themselves with the brand.

A strategic Ugandan brand should then create or modify the customer experience through various customer contact points. In personal contact with a customer the physical purchase situation must be in an ambient environment with exceptional physical and psychological appeals. Anecdotal evidence points to an over emphasis on the external customer with little regard being placed on documenting the experiences of the contact employees as they relate to the customers.

For the digital experience, in addition to the content marketing, consumers associate experience to messaging response times and how customer service operators respond.

Artificial Intelligence innovations have greatly improved the digital customer experience by providing an intelligent, convenient and informed experience.

Also extremely important is creating an effective customer feedback loop which will enable the organization to understand the beliefs, satisfaction, dissatisfaction and attitudes of the consumers.

Unfortunately most organizations often times confuse customer experience with customer service and claim to offer exceptional customer experience. To achieve, create or improve the customer experience, an organization needs to define the customer experience charter and incorporate these through the training and development of staff, understand and, create emotional connection with customers and provide prompt response to customer issues.

Also important is doing customer targeted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Organizations that use websites that have the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sections, should provide online personal assistance to a consumer to create a personal feel with the brand to improve experience.

Since consumers relate experience to the personal feel and interaction, this poses a great challenge to high human touch industries to manage, control and execute great customer experience at the numerous touchpoints.

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