What does your story mean for the customer experience?

As more and more companies are realizing the value of a customer experience-led approach to drive growth and loyalty, creating experiences that are authentic and true to your brand become even more important to differentiate in an ever-more competitive landscape.

Today, brands have more opportunities for interaction than ever before. But digital has also made the user journey far more complex as the multitude of possible interactions grows. A potential customer may be interested upon seeing a piece of branded content, only to read a bad review, then talk to a friend who is positive about your product, to finally purchase the product online after further research.

By combining online and offline behavior and data, this reality is giving companies a better understanding of how people really behave – and how they make their purchase decisions, what makes them tick and what their real needs are. This opens up for an opportunity to become truly customer-centric, delivering real value to your customers at every interaction.

The total customer experience is essentially as a sum of tiny micro moments of inspiration, enlightenment or education. Every time you solve a need a customer has, whether it’s through a piece of marketing content or an innovative product function, you have a chance to make your brand story come alive. With your brand story at the core, you can ensure that these moments are authentic, true to your values and in line with the overall impression you want your customers to come away with.

Building a memorable customer experience is essentially about creating associations with your brand at every possible interaction. Whether it’s the service you provide in-store or a sending post-purchase e-mail, using your brand as a filter for making decisions along the customer journey is key to creating a unique, ownable - and potentially standout - customer experience.

Since the customer doesn’t see their journey as a linear process, it’s essential that your organization doesn’t either. The shift to a customer experience culture requires a total commitment throughout your organization – and a complete understanding of your brand’s story internally, far beyond your marketing department. Only by breaking down the silos can you create rich customer experiences that crosses channel and function and that are true to your brand – and meaningful to your audiences.

So what does your brand story have to do with the customer experience?

Everything.