May 21, 2014 By Karthik Chakkarapani

Customer Experience: Why It's the New Currency

in Featured, Customer Service

Companies are facing a critical inflection point as technology empowers customers who are enabling the rise of new and disruptive business models.

In today’s social and digital world employees, customers, and partners are more connected than ever and are becoming self-organizing hyper connected knowledge networks.

Companies need to tap into these networks, engage them at scale and provide great experiences effectively to become a customer centric company.

Age of the Customer

We have entered the age of the customer. Competitive barriers have changed and industry boundaries have dissolved. It’s no longer about delighting your customers; it’s all about providing the best customer experience. The age of the customer demands new business models that focus more on customer experience and not capital, that are easier to grow and scale, and are flexible to customer needs and demands. Customers have more power than ever. With easy access to social, digital and mobile, it’s easy for customers to know even more than sellers about products, services, competitors and pricing.

The New Currency

Customer experience is the new currency and will build competitive advantages in the market. It is also the key to success. Today’s social and digital consumers are eager for a great customer experience that connects them closer to the brand. A great customer experience will drive more loyalty and great customer service will drive more business growth, improve performance, and reduce costs.

Customer Experiences

Delighting customers in each service channel doesn’t pay and customer service and satisfaction alone don’t drive loyalty. Providing a great and effortless personal one-to-one customer experience that is consistent and continuous across all service channels, social and digital, is what drives success and customer loyalty.

Companies need to listen across channels and translate customer insights and feedback from various disparate sources into meaningful and improved unified customer experiences. Companies who want to compete and become customer centric must transform and deliver a great integrated customer experience across all touch points and interactions.

About the author

Karthik Chakkarapani is currently a Director of the Transformation Consulting practice at Salesforce.com. Chakkarapani is an accomplished leader with 15 plus years of experience in technology strategy, transformation, and enterprise architecture consulting across many industries. Chakkarapani has expertise in driving digital and customer-centric transformation through optimization and experience driven business models combined with the right technologies and solutions. Chakkarapani is also a salesforce.com certified technical architect.