7 Keys To Designing Branded Customer Experiences

Shaun SmithFebruary 10, 20162 min

How do you manage a seamless, branded customer experience across an ever-increasing number of multiple channels?

You can’t.

Here’s What You Can Do

Experience is whatever the customer perceives it to be – and you cannot micro-manage it completely. But what you can do is influence that experience by being very intentional about where and how you deliver your brand promise – in a way that is absolutely consistent at every touchpoint. This is what we call designing the customer experience. Here is a simple summary of steps to take:

1. Map the experience from beginning to end, including social media. Use the customer’s perspective, not the organization’s. You could map one touchline covering the entire experience but if this is too complex, map a touchline for each key customer interaction.

2. Identify the pain points, inefficiencies, redundancies or inconsistencies in how customers experience your brand.

3. Consider your brand promise and how well you deliver it at each point in the touchline.

4. Ensure you think about your most valuable customers and their top expectations.

5. Identify opportunities to streamline and improve the customer experience. Look also for opportunities between existing touchpoints, such as the space between making a purchase online and actual delivery of the goods.

6. Identify hallmark touchpoints that will really differentiate your brand and emotionally engage your customers. These are the touchpoints that you need to over-index.

7. Create a blueprint for approval and identify implications for people, process and product/service and then move to implementation planning.

Watch Out For…Design By Committee

You need cross-functional input, but if you present a blank sheet to the team you will get bogged down in arguments and paralyzed by too many voices wanting to go in too many different directions. So begin by creating a strawman design and then set aside a day with the cross-functional team to debate it, evolve it and plan to implement it.

Excerpted in part from: On Purpose: Delivering A Branded Customer Experience People Love by Shaun Smith & Andy Milligan, in partnership with Kogan Page publishing.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Customer Experience Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

Shaun Smith

Connect With Us