With the burst of digital technologies customer profiles evolved rapidly in the last decade. No more you provide services to the customers purchasing and not challenging whatever you offer. Contrarily, we are dealing with a customer profile which knows what to buy, expects to know all the content and benefits in advance, compares performance and prices, and even keeps nudging you after the purchase. The companies, therefore, should keep tracking the whole process from the innovation phase until the postpurchase phase and focus on creating value to customers in each step. That is the ultimate task awaiting the companies in the new era! We are facing a customer profile, as soon as stepping your store, comparing your prices with other stores owing to the smartphones, interrelating the price and value offering of the product concept, explicitly sharing his or her (dis)satisfaction, staying loyal as long as you can satisfy, but impossible to re-attract once being disappointed. Indeed, these incidents could be more dramatic or varied. Surely, under the given competitive environment, the concept of customer experience is being prioritized for the brands. Therefore, it is occupying the agenda of companies and brands for a long time. WHAT IS THIS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, AFTER ALL? “Customer Experience”, as a concept defining the quality and essence of interaction between the company and its customers, has been present in our lives for a long time. However, it came into such prominence in the last decade. Whereas the customers unquestioning the diversity of the offered services and contented without asking for more early on, they became the kings and queens conquering the economy nowadays. Well, why is it so important to create customer experience? In fact, there isn’t a single reason. Because, customers are highly able nowadays in investigating the products they consider buying, in comparing the product alternatives against each other, and in choosing the right option in comparison to the past, and they are more likely to switch their choices. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF DESIGNING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE? Creating loyal customers is much more lucrative and easier to practice for companies than acquiring new ones. Unfortunately, the marketing budgets are gradually narrowing down lately whereas the customer expectations are escalating on the contrary. Based on this view, many people believe that “Customer Experience Development” activities could inflate the costs. However, quite the contrary, it significantly cuts the costs in the long run. Customer complaints is a brief example for that. The research indicates that a 36% increase in the customer satisfaction achieved by the customer representatives leads to a 200% increase in new customer contacts by the representatives which translates into a 17% decrease in the costs. Conversely, the high cost of acquiring new customers entails a major threat on profitability. According to the research, companies can increase their profitability from 25% up-to 125% by retaining 5% percent of their existing customers. Satisfied customers talk about their favorable experience to 4 to 5 people. Unsatisfied customers talk about their unfavorable experiences to 9 to 12 people. 2 out of each 3 customers feel uncared by the person or the company providing the service The studies also suggest that if you could take care and provide a solution for the customers on the very first complaint the satisfaction levels increase. It also prevents company from losing extra labor time and money because of the recurring customer contacts. Customer representatives can deal with different customers each time. This is not only cheaper but also maintains higher satisfaction. Besides with that, when you consider the acquisition of new customers by the virtue of high satisfaction and the opportunity to develop existing customers, you notice how a fruitful investment the customer experience development can be. CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS SHOULD BE WELL UNDERSTOOD We have mentioned earlier that there has been a dramatic transformation in customer expectations particularly in the last decade. Major factor of that is the vast invasion of our lives by the digital technologies. As much as creating overall shifts in customer expectations, digital technologies also create industry specific transformations in customer expectations TAV Business Services General Manager Ali Bora by pointing out the transformation of customer expectations by the means of recent technological developments, highlights the customers’ expectations of speed and comfort that are peaking. Under these circumstances, by underlying the growing services and products of TAV offering speed and comfort, İşbulan comments, “In the progressively digitalizing world we, too, plan to digitalize our services. We aim to transform our TAV Passport Card into an application based product operating without a physical card need. Additionally, the scope of social media in our lives enables the positive or negative feelings of customers to widely spread over the public and transform the customer expectations as a result. Akfen Consulting and Project Development General Manager Barış Barçak comments on the changes of the customer expectations in real estate sector, “Whereas owning a title from a branded residential project was a merely emotional and satisfying deed early on, the extra services included in the projects now have become the decision criteria. A decade earlier, containing an in-house gym facility could be enough to differentiate a project from the competitors, nowadays we are dealing with a customer population considering about the extra appliances and the brand of the kitchen cabinets. After convincing the customer about the material and interior quality, financial negotiations takes the most part of the presentations where we observe the biggest change in customer expectations. Not long ago, 5 to 6 years earlier, the low interest rates offered by the banks would be recognized as an important advantage, nowadays we participate in negotiations pursuing for even longer payment terms which, in my view, are already overlong.” HAPPY EMPLOYEES CREATE HAPPY CUSTOMERS As we all know happy employees create happy customers. Bad management and leadership practices entail discontent on the employees. Never forget that unhappy employees means unhappy customers… Therefore, you should never overlook the essentiality of good human resources policies on creating customer experience. You should instill trust for your workers. As long as your employees feels under threat, they will never take risks on the favor of your customers and merely play it by the book. If you want to instill trust for your customers, you should take care of your employees in order to be natural, well-intentioned, trustworthy and most importantly happy workers. STRATEGIES FOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Corporate culture is prominent in customer experience strategies. Unless your company is customer oriented and your employees share this notion, it is not very likely that you’ll nurture customer experience in your company. Therefore, the companies should primarily establish a customer oriented culture in which the employees have belief on collective success and collaboration. The thing to do following the first step is listening to the customers. Because, providing the right service to the customers requires listening to them. You should comprehend why your customers prefer you and adjust your products and services accordingly. In creating customer experience, another crucial point is being accessible throughout the process of creating and conveying it. Your customers want to contact you about their expectations and complaints. No customers will call you to appreciate. You should take this into account at the beginning and should not avoid complaints. Remember that satisfying the needs of the customers you need is the fundamental duty of your company or brand. Ultimate thing to do is maintaining a bond between your customers and company. The key for this is planning the emotions of customers while they possess your brand or experience your services. As the title highlights it, customer experience is a long journey. If you’re planning to nurture long term relationships with customers, you should plan the route from the beginning and envision whatever you will need along this journey.