Have you ever walked out of an establishment or hung up on a call with a customer service agent, only to be left in utter disbelief of how the interaction you just had could possibly be so far-fetched from what the brand’s claim had led you to expect?  Statements such as ‘we are committed to serving our customers’, ‘we protect your loved ones’ and ‘we are a superior provider’, sometimes appear as no more than commoditized marketing statements, that businesses pay little attention to deliver in a crafted manner to their customers.

Through my 15 years of market research consulting career before becoming an in-house CX practitioner, I had the opportunity to work with companies of various sizes and culture, spanning across industries from financial services, construction raw material to sporting goods.

I interacted with a breadth of company functions including brand, marketing communication, product development, quality assurance and customer service to name a few. While having a well written brand vision statement or brand promise is not uncommon (often seen in polished frame proudly hung on a boardroom wall), few companies had their customer experience delivery truly guided by their brand promise.

Customer experience is about how well we deliver on the expectations of brand promises

Customer experience is crucial in the shaping of the perception of a brand. It is the customer’s memory of an interaction with a company, products, services or people, that defines what the brand stands for – its promise, values, and essence. Such brand statements set customer expectation for experience they are to receive, brought to live through a well-designed customer experience delivery framework.

A good example is Disney World’s brand promise to be the ‘happiest place on earth’. The magical experiences begin as early as the holiday planning stage through digital interaction, finish off with a ‘happily ever after’ fireworks display, and filled with memorable touches and sensational experiences in between an array of endless theme park activities.

A culture that enables the delivery of a branded experience

Getting a complex organization structure aligned to deliver a well-orchestrated branded customer experience is key. Closing the gap between brand promise and customer experience requires a company culture that encourages and nurtures employees to think and act in accordance to the brand promise, throughout the entire chain, both vertically and horizontally.

Delivering an exceptional customer experience is possible only when you understand the relationship between brand and customer experience. By closely linking your customer experience to brand promise, you reinforce brand identity, build customer loyalty and advocacy, and eventually increase customer lifetime value.

”I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

– Maya Angelou

Maggie Leinonen is the Customer Experience Manager at F-Secure Corporation. Before joining F-Secure, she spent over 15 years in the market research industry primarily in the customer loyalty domain, helping multinational and local businesses across continents to understand, measure and manage customer experience.

Come hear more on how to align your organisation’s values with customer experience tactics with Ian Golding who will be leading the CX Masterclass training on May 7th and 8th. Ian’s last visit to Finland was in 2019, but this year it has been expanded into a two-day event with more insights than ever before. Get your tickets soon at www.cxmasterclass.fi. We look forward to meeting you there.

Ian Golding is a renowned CX specialist, who advises leading companies with their CX strategies, as well as measuring and developing CX and listening to your employees. He is the first one to have achieved the Certified Customer Experience Professional certificate and acts as CXPA UK Ambassador.

”Ensure that you do right by your employees first, so that they in turn are able to delight your customers.”
– Ian Golding, Founder, Customer Experience Consultancy