Every organization strives to provide an excellent customer experience because they realize the impact CX has on the bottom line. Huge amounts of data are available to guide CX efforts and technology can help to facilitate the delivery of a positive experience. Yet, surveys show that the experience marketers think is being delivered is not the same as what customers say it is. 

The evidence:

• A survey from Acquia found that 87% of marketers believed that their organization delivers an engaging CX, yet just under half of customers said that brands do not meet their expectations and two-thirds could not remember the last time a brand exceeded their expectations.
• The Acquia survey also found that almost three-quarters (74%) of marketers felt like technology made it harder to deliver a good CX, yet 62% planned to spend more on marketing technology in 2019.
• Another survey found that 91% of consumers think that ads have become more intrusive over the past few years and 84% say that intrusive ads give them a negative opinion of the sponsoring brand.

There is obviously a gap between perception and reality in CX. But how do you address it?

It’s important to recognize the changing demographics. Millennials are averse to traditional marketing messages and don’t respond to them well, except on social media. But there’s more to the issue than demographics.

Customers want – and expect – a personalized experience. They get frustrated when the website experience isn’t personal (75%) and also think companies should immediately know who they are when they call and why they are calling.

Consider focusing your marketing efforts on personalization. Although there are many methods available for personalization, they pretty much all start with mapping the customer journey. Once the journey mapping is done, use these steps to enable your personalization plan:

• Listen to your customers by looking at data across all channels. Your data may live in various places in the organization, so some “silo-busting” may be necessary to bring it all together. You should look at current and historical data to develop a robust picture of how your customers behave.
• Analyze customer behavior using the journey maps and data on an ongoing basis so you can update your assumptions as needed and respond quicker to behavior changes.
• Every touchpoint needs an action from you. You can determine this from the data you’ve gathered. You’ll need a method for delivering the actions, which ideally will be delivered cross-channel. Also, the experience will need to be integrated across channels.