Build Loyalty Through Experience Management

I SEPTEMBER 2007 I www.asq.org reat organizations establish strong emotional connections with their customers. Emotional connectivity with customers decommoditizes a business, elevating a brand beyond price and features to a higher level of meaning and commitment for customers. Connecting emotionally with customers requires an organization to create a cohesive, authentic and sensory-stimulating total customer experience that resonates, pleases, communicates effectively and differentiates the organization from the competition. Maintaining an emotional connection requires systematic management of the customers’ experiences with an organization and its offerings from the customers’ perspectives. Why is this important? Because it is the customers’ overall experiences with an organization and the goods or services it offers that evoke the perception of value that determines brand preference. Actual experiences of customers trump all else. It is important to systematically manage customers’ experiences. All organizations are service ones in the sense that all create value for customers through performances (services). Some firms are hybrids, creating value through manufactured goods and services. The services can facilitate the sale of the goods, directly generate revenue or do both. Other firms exclusively market services. But G