Executive Briefing
September 7, 2010
Improving the Customer Experience Drives Stronger Business Performance Across Markets (Q1, 2010).
At Osprey, we're continuing our multi-year study of the link between focusing on the customer experience and improved business performance. In the last quarter (Q1, 2010), we tracked "category leaders" including Deutsche Telekom, Singapore Airlines, the Virgin Group, JetBlue, and Starwood Hotels.
All these companies have sharpened their focus on the customer experience despite economic challenges across their markets. Each of these companies has maintained its business performance edge by nearly every measure despite increased sensitivity by consumers on pricing.
What can we learn from the successes of market leaders during an economic downturn that can be applied to other companies and sectors? The answer is that it pays to focus on enhancing the customer experience but to do so with increased cost management.
The correlation between superior service and favorable brand perception is undeniable. But truthfully, the answer is broader and more complicated than that.
Our research and field work show that consistently delivering an emersive, interactive and personalized customer experience correlates with strong financial performance. Doing that requires a thorough understand of customers' needs, wants, and expectations, as well as mastery in cost management.
Yet many companies have only a shallow understanding of what their customers prefer and have even less insight on how to transform their touch points to influence customer behavior.
One thing is clear: few drivers have greater impact repurchase intention than service perception, whether it’s delivered by the Web, phone or in-person. The customer experience is crucial to peak, sustainable business performance and the reasons are evident.
This is the realm where operating costs, sales revenue and workforce productivity converge, creating some of the toughest business challenges and offering the most promising opportunities that organizations face today. Yet this is where the most promising performance opportunities are found.
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