Focus on internal versus external

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A problem that companies struggled with in the pre-digital era is their tendency to be primarily internally oriented and to a lesser extent to put the customer (experience) at the center of their actions. In my experience, this tendency is stronger as the organization becomes larger. The attention paid to internal politics is often many times greater than the sincere attention to the customer, certainly in the boardroom.

A good example I think is the way in which Net Promoter Score (NPS) is dealt with in many organizations. When there is a dip in the NPS scores, departments and managers quickly tend to cover themselves and/or 'blame' others, instead of jointly better understanding the root cause of the scores and thereby optimizing the customer experience.

3. Focus on products versus experience
Despite all the attention for customer journey australia whatsapp number list mapping, many organizations seem to be preoccupied with only one part of the customer journey, namely the part where the customer comes into contact with the core product or service. I find this phenomenon striking in the cultural sector, in which I have been involved regularly as a marketing consultant in recent years.

Many museums are largely focused on the content of their collection, theatres are mainly concerned about what happens on their stage. It is forgotten that culture lovers are also just consumers who orient themselves (online), buy a ticket, park their car, hang their coat in the cloakroom, use the toilet, drink coffee in the café, can be cold/warm, and so on. However, cultural organisations are certainly not unique in this attitude. In fact, companies that seriously work on the entire customer journey and do not only focus on their own product, seem to be in the minority.



On the way to 'experience'
Despite increasingly advanced (digital) marketing tools and methods, most organizations are unable to shape an adequate customer experience. Yet I am hopeful that a better functioning experience economy is in the offing in the long term. In our connected world, shared consumer experiences increasingly determine the perception of the brand and thus the purchasing behavior.

Organizations and their marketers will sooner or (too) later realize that they are not there with just offering an attractive product. In order to be able to control brand perception, customer acquisition and retention, companies will ultimately come to that one crucial and comprehensive factor: experience.