How Empathy-Driven Customer Experiences Accelerate Business Results
“Empathy is the ultimate form of customer insight.”
— Don Peppers, pioneer of one-to-one-marketing and marketing futurist
If you want to lead in customer experience (CX) , you must be able to think like your customers. By putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what they need and value, you can create meaningful experiences that build trust and loyalty. Delivering empathy-driven experiences—designed based on a company's deep understanding of customer needs, motivations and behaviors—creates lasting relationships that increase customer lifetime value (CLV).
The Connection Between Brand and Customer Experience
Customer experience is the new brand. CX has become the key competitive differentiator for brands, replacing product and price. More than half of consumers ( 58% ) say customer service is more important than price, and 58% would pay more to receive great customer service.
Gartner defines customer experience as “the customer’s perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels or products.” More than just a transaction, CX is about the whole journey and how customers feel along the way.
Delivering exceptional CX means creating value by providing a great product, helpful service and/or tools that make customers’ lives easier and ultimately positive emotional associations. Companies with great CX humanize their brand so people feel they belong to a community instead of just being an anonymous customer number. If the brand is the promise your company makes to customers, customer experience is how you deliver on that promise. It’s not just saying you’ll do something, but how you do it.
Customer experience should not be something you only think about when there's a problem. CX should be baked into everything your company does from day one. For example, Nike’s brand promise is “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world (*if you have a body, you are an athlete).” How does Nike deliver on that promise? By putting customers first and focusing on building long-lasting emotional connections with them. The brand takes action in helping athletes reach their potential and overcome obstacles with personalized products and services that cater to customers' specific needs and preferences. The Nike By You program, for example, allows customers to customize their own shoes, while the Nike Run Club app provides personalized training plans and coaching. They make it easier for all consumers to shop for their products whether they're using a user-friendly website and app, or brick-and-mortar stores around the world. Nike prioritizes investment in their CX programs so they can make an impact in every athlete’s life and help them reach their potential. How do you more your company promises? By starting with empathy.