Customer experience is created by optimizing all touchpoints, i.e. points of contact between customers and the company. These are often not obvious from the company's perspective - but it is worth taking a closer look and analyzing the touchpoints. After all, companies that pursue a customer experience strategy grow stronger and generate more sales.

You can also read part 1 of the interview with Frank Bunge and Wolf Nöding here: "Customers today know better what they want" - Interview on customer centricity with Frank Bunge and Wolf Nöding

A solid database is the basis for customer experience

Katja Heumader: What strategy can be used to improve the customer experience?

Wolf Nöding: It is difficult to give a general answer to this question, as the approach and strategies are very much tailored to the respective company situation and ongoing programs, such as online strategies or business expansions. However, roadmaps with several phases, which are based on the stages of customer experience maturity models and proceed step by step, have proven successful.

Transparency and insights play a major role in customer-centric processes. As a first step, it is therefore advisable to generate a solid, at least minimal database for qualitative and quantitative insights about the target group in order to derive development measures with added value for the target group.

The second step, in addition to technical and business-relevant activities, is the planning and prioritization of developments that support the target group in using the services and products.

And finally, it is important to get key stakeholders on board in order to obtain support for further valuable customer experience measures. Ideally, they will recognize the added value for their own roles and business goals and get involved accordingly.

KH: What role do data and its analysis play in optimizing touchpoints?

WN: In order to know in which customer contacts (touchpoints) the company has what need for action, the most comprehensive information possible is required. The answers to questions such as "What are the most customer inquiries?", "What are the most complaints about?", "Where in the online route do customers have difficulties?" should be known. For companies, this is relevant to success.

Frank Bunge: A holistic customer experience must start at every single point of contact between the customer and the company - this refers to the points of contact from a purely customer perspective, i.e. outside-in! This includes some touchpoints that only occur on the part of the customer, without direct visibility of the supplier. For example, the search for a fault. The comprehensibility of assembly instructions, ... It is therefore important to identify and analyze all touchpoints. Data from customer surveys can help here. However, it is also important to know the customer as a person (persona) with their factual and emotional expectations and needs. Once the weak points of the customer journey have been identified at the individual touchpoints and measures for improvement have been introduced, the effectiveness must be measured using data such as the NPS (Net Promoter Score) and NES (Net Easy Score). You often only hear about customer journey mapping, which shows the experiences at the individual touchpoints. However, proactive customer journey design, in which possible negative experiences are identified and avoided in advance, is important. This is how sustainable improvements can be achieved.

Customer experience challenges the entire company

KH: Which parts of the company are involved in improving the customer experience and what are their respective tasks?

FB: Every employee in the company should have a customer experience mindset. After all, customer-supplier relationships also exist internally. Ultimately, every internal process should also generate added value for the end customer. That shouldn't be that difficult: Every employee should treat their customers as they themselves would expect to be treated as a customer.

It is important that this mindset is exemplified from the top down. If a company's management explicitly puts growth and profit before customer orientation, it will be difficult to establish a customer experience mindset in the company. These company managers should bear in mind that there are now enough studies that prove that the companies that grow the most and generate the highest profits are those that put the customer at the center of their thoughts and actions. This is also logical: these companies retain their customers in the long term through customer enthusiasm. And - what counts even more - customers are also prepared to pay for good service, whereas they will leave if the service is poor and, in the worst case, spread their displeasure on social media. Without customers, companies can neither grow nor generate profit.

KH: How are employee and customer satisfaction related?

FB: Employees are a company's most important resource. Company loyalty differs greatly between younger generations and older generations. The length of service is significantly shorter. For companies, this means that they must make greater efforts to retain good employees in order to ensure continuity in their customer approach. At the same time, you need enthusiastic employees to inspire customers. For this reason, customer experience and employee experience have been increasingly linked in recent years. Only companies that consider employee experience to be just as important as customer experience (and of course user experience) will be and remain successful. I like to talk about HX here - where the H stands for both holistic and human - human, because the focus is always on people.

KH: Which corporate structures and cultures promote or hinder a positive customer experience?

WN: From many years of project experience, I would say that this question addresses almost the most important point of all, namely the corporate culture. This is probably the decisive point with regard to a successful customer experience in the company!

First of all, it makes sense to distinguish whether a company is actively pursuing a customer-centric strategy (customer experience strategy or similar) - with the necessary activities - or a "classic business model".

Assuming there is a "top-down" order at C-level, team organizational mechanisms are very important. Teams that can act in a highly interdisciplinary manner and with a high degree of autonomy are usually much more successful than departments and teams organized in a classic hierarchical manner.

KH: If the corporate culture and working methods have such a strong impact on the customer experience, is it even possible to achieve rapid improvements in the customer experience?

WN: Quite clearly, yes. Experience has shown that many quick wins can be achieved in the initial phases without a great deal of effort.

KH: Thank you for this clear and optimistic outlook!

The interview with Frank Bunge and Wolf Nöding was conducted by Dr. Katja Heumader for the TCI editorial team.

"Mastering transformation projects with the Enterprise Transformation Cycle" - published August 2020

The Transformation Consulting International has been supporting national and international transformation projects in companies for many years. Based on this extensive wealth of experience in practical implementation, the second volume entitled "Transformationsvorhaben mit dem Enterprise Transformation Cycle meistern: Projekte erfolgreich planen, durchführen und abschließen" (Mastering transformation projects with the Enterprise Transformation Cycle: successfully planning, implementing and completing projects) has been published by the renowned Springer-Verlag. As a continuation of the first volume, it takes into account further wishes and suggestions from readers and presents concrete transformation projects and situations in which TCI experts use the ETC in their daily work. The editors of this 500-page volume are Mario A. Pfannstiel and Peter F.-J. Steinhoff. You will find numerous theoretical and conceptual contributions as well as practical case studies on the "Enterprise Transformation Cycle".

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