Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with more than 80 clients and companies in 18 different vertical industries.
My goal in working with each was to identify their strategic positioning — the long-term positive differentiation of their product service or brand.
I also attempted to identify the vision, mission and values of the firm; however, many clients did not share my believe of the importance of these three core fundamentals of the brand and would forego any discussion of these items.
Vision, mission, values and strategic positioning are still important underpinnings of the marketing of any product or service. They must be inculcated into your brand, lived by leadership and understood and reinforced by every member of the team, especially, at every consumer touch point.
This is even more important today, because the customer experience is more important. Your customer-facing employees need to understand, and enthusiastically reinforce, your vision, mission, values and strategic positioning in order to deliver a consistent and outstanding customer experience that will keep customers coming back, buying more and telling their friends about you.
That is how mom and pop retailers will survive versus Wal-Mart, it’s why Southwest is more profitable than any other airline, it’s why Apple keeps selling products and services at premium prices.
Nordstrom’s just armed their sales staff with 6,000 mobile point-of-sale devices so customers can buy what they want without standing at the register waiting for the sales person to ring them up.
If you provide a superior customer service, people won’t be price shopping you. They’ll be coming to you because they know you provide the best value (a.k.a., customer experience) for the money.
What are you and your company doing to provide an outstanding customer experience?
Do you know how your customers would define an outstanding customer experience?
I can assure you there are as many different answers as you have customers. Just ask them.
Chipotle For Life 