Customer experience is king – but marketers still struggle to understand their audience

In an increasingly connected world, customers expect real and authentic interactions with brands.

To meet these demands, brands are shifting the way they think about “customers” and are starting to think of them as people; people who have real lives, relationships and desires rather than numbers that consist simply of views, clicks or transactions.

Brands that can deliver on these customer expectations know the people who buy and use their products at a deeper, more intimate level. This knowledge goes beyond standard demographics like gender, age or income to include their attitudes, wants and needs.

How do these people spend their time? How do they engage with your brand and with other brands? How do they behave as individuals; not just members of a specific demographic?

A more complete picture of customers

Of course, there is still a place for traditional segmentation techniques – marketers just have to use other data sources alongside them to get a more complete picture of their customers. A more thorough understanding of customers is needed more than ever before. Fortunately, with the number of devices and the connected nature of modern people there is much more data available for analysis.

The future of marketing is driven by sophisticated connected, consumers who expect exceptional experiences every time. Given the choice available to consumers it’s the customer experience that’s become the differentiator. Brands have to work that much harder to win customer loyalty, purchase-by-purchase and engagement-by-engagement.

Customise the customer experience

To stand out, today’s marketers must take a ‘deep dive’ into their customers’ individual preferences and purchase paths to customise the experience around their unique and evolving needs.

You’re only as good as your last interaction, so it’s incredibly important to always get it right. If you don’t give your customer an exceptional experience, other companies will.

Consumers will continue to change. New purchase channels will emerge, existing customers will have new needs and life moments that will change their preferences and new generations of consumers will emerge introducing new trends and opportunities for engagement.

To keep up – and stay one step ahead – we need to adapt and build our businesses to support the customer experience.