Today everything is customer experience. Even the things you don’t do, but that have your name on it affects CX. Though let’s keep it simple: customer experience is just about removing anxiety and increasing excitement in a consistent manner.

Removing anxiety

Every question a customer has is a potential source of fear for her. Every next step in the user journey that has an ambiguous outcome drives anxiety. Nobody likes anxiety and if there is a way to get rid of it people sometimes go a great length. Including switching service providers or brands in general.

Warning signs that you are maintaining anxiety are lists of frequently-asked-questions and answers. Why should customers ask you the same questions frequently? Standard boilerplate responses of customer service representatives are also a sign that there is something wrong. It is all effective, but it does not create a great experience. They keep the poor experience and don’t improve it in the long run.

FAQs and boilerplate are responses to small spikes of anxiety that you have caused by leaving gaps, and those could have been small spikes of excitement if you bothered to work on your well-structured todo list which you have now transformed into an FAQ (well it is always easier to list issues than to solve them). Instead of answering a question on social media using a templated reply, why not work with your customer to make sure this kind of question should never be asked again.

Increasing excitement

It is not about putting up the balloons and throwing confetti (though it helps). A celebration is just one type of excitement, which is excellent, but there is more. Something as simple as confirmation can reassure a customer that she is on the right way. Looking forward to the future is another way of creating excitement (for example with a countdown to the holidays you just have booked). Alternatively, a simple manual (upfront or of course afterward) to explain how the item they want to use is working can create much excitement. It is about triggering the imagination how great life will be, based on their actions. Alternatively, it is about reassuring them that they made a correct decision.

Consistency is better than incidental greatness

Customers’ benchmark of your service is the highest level of service they have experienced. Everything you move below level is a dissatisfier and can create more anxiety (“did I do something wrong that I get this outcome”)

Consistency is not the same as average. If you put your feet in the fridge and your head in an oven. Your average temperature is ok. However, it is not a very consistent experience and probably makes you feel quite miserable.

Consistency removes anxiety. People know what happens next and at the same time, it increases excitement because of that same reason. It provides precise control in the variation, just enough to not make it identical but similar. Even though the outcome is not completely clear the range of the results is identified and are in line with the expectations of the customer.

Keep Customer Experience simple

Identify where your customer has anxiety and remove it. Increase excitement where possible and where applicable. Deliver the experience consistently so your customer has a reasonable expectation of what is next and what she can achieve during her interactions with you.