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Marketers who ignore the influence of marketing on customer experience do so at their peril.
Bungling the name of a loyal customer on a direct mail piece. Sending a man a digital coupon for a women's personal care product. Serving a display ad for a product a known customer just purchased online. These are more than cringe-worthy marketing missteps. Rather, they can be serious blows to an organization's bottom line. That's because marketing strategies can have a direct impact on customer experience, which in turn, can lead to dramatic changes in revenue, loyalty, and overall profitability.
Consider this: A slight improvement to the customer experience at a typical $1 billion company can produce an additional $262 million to $272 million in revenues over three years, according to the Temkin Group report "ROI of Customer Experience, 2014." Conversely, research by CX cloud provider SDL reveals that, in the year following customers having a poor experience, brands can expect to lose 65% of the previous revenue from those customers. What's more, 64% of those customers will stop recommending a brand, leave, or give negative reviews.
No wonder more and more organizations are bending over backwards to create compelling customer experiences-and in response the market for customer experience management tools is predicted to swell from $3.77 billion last year to an anticipated $8.39 billion in 2019, according to RnRMarketResearch.com.
"We're seeing more CMOs and senior marketers recognizing that their responsibility isn't just to get customers in the door, but to help grow the business," says Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group, a customer experience consultancy. "That's when they start recognizing that not only is marketing sending out messages that are important, but also that the experience customers have is important because it affects their long-term value."
The challenge for marketers in today's omnichannel world is the complexity of ensuring a positive customer experience. It requires understanding how multiple channels, tactics, and touchpoints can shape a customer's thoughts and feelings about a brand. Messaging, email, mobile, brand promise, loyalty programs-they're all among the myriad ways that marketing can either win over a lifetime's worth of wallet- share or alienate customers altogether.
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One of the primary ways that marketing impacts customer experience is through...