Customer interface
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Customer experience management involves five steps. They are:
- Step 1: Analyzing the experiential world of the customer
- Step 2: Building the experiential platform
- Step 3: Designing the brand experience
- Step 4: Structuring the customer interface
- Step 5: Engaging in continuous experiential innovation
The fourth step is to structure the consumer interface. The consumer interface refers to the dynamic exchange of information in service that occurs between the customer and a company. Structuring the customer interface deals with the following three types of exchanges and interactions:
- face-to-face
- personal-but-distant
- electronic
Technology can improve the interface experience and you should train the right staff. The following three aspects are key for managing the customer interface correctly:
- Essence and Flexibility
- Essence and Flexibility describes that it is important "what" is communicated to the customer when a direct contact exists (=customer interface)
- Flexibiliy turns the sales space into a living space; sales staff are considered to be human beings, not robots.
- Style and Substance
- Style refers to the manner of expressing the Essence and Flexibility of the interface (e.g. style of a Web Site)
- Substance refers to tangibles associated with it ("how" you communicate)
- Timing
- Interface exchanges and interactions extend over time (question of: initiation of contact, frequency of contact and the length of time the contact exists)