<p>It’s a fact of life for any company: Give customers delightful experiences, and you get loyal customers. Even if a competitor offers similar products or services at lower cost, people will usually choose the company that provides the most positive and frictionless experience. </p>  <p>But here’s another reality: Customer experience builds over time. It’s the cumulative impression a customer retains after multiple interactions with a company through months or years. In other words, customer experience has a long tail.</p>  <p>Take air travel, for example. The experience of a single traveler is affected by dozens of different activities owned by dozens of different working groups. The passenger may use the app to book or re-book, a kiosk to check in, and talk with a customer service rep at the gate. </p><p>They may get emails or text messages updating their flight status or need to use a chat function on the website to confirm itinerary details. Then there’s the in-flight experience.</p><div class="article-body-ad-placeholder">{"gptAdId":"testId"}</div>  <p>These many touch points happen in isolation, but they all add up to one overarching experience that customers judge a company on. Thus, once people convert, purchase, sign up, or otherwise indicate that they want to do business with the company, it’s incredibly important to continually hone and refine the customer experience.</p><h2>Customer Interaction Types</h2>  <p>That’s not easy. Because customer experience doesn’t live in a single department team, or division; it is far harder to manage and continually optimize it. Companies should think of customer experience holistically, as a long tail with three interaction types that each need to be considered and put in context:</p><h3>1. The Initial Experience</h3><p>First impressions matter, and that certainly is the case when a customer downloads and uses an app for the first time, gives a new retail website a try or stays in a new hotel. This is especially true for B2B models since most of them are tied to successful onboarding to drive continued use. That’s why so many companies get obsessive about their shopping carts, signup forms, checkout processes and app download experiences. </p><p>But first experiences with a brand are just that. A great conversion process will never be the one thing that cements loyalty in your buyers. There is so much more that a business needs to nail if they want the customer to stick around.</p><h3>2. Ongoing Use and Adoption</h3><p>Most companies know that customer engagement doesn’t stop after that first experience, but surprisingly few of them prioritize those touch points in the customer journey over the long term. </p><p>So, naturally, the ones that monitor their customer experience for months or even years after an initial experience or onboarding takes place gain a distinct advantage over competitors. Refining the interactions that make top-notch customer experiences should be as much a part of a business as attaining sales goals and scheduling launches.</p><h3>3. Customer Support Interaction</h3><p>The final piece in the puzzle of the experience long tail is the help desk, customer support mechanisms or any other functions that help people troubleshoot. If they’re enthusiastically engaged up to the point they need to seek help, then end up thwarted or confused, good luck keeping that customer.</p><p><strong>Related Article: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/here-is-where-businesses-are-spending-their-money-on-customer-experience/" target="_blank" title="Here Is Where Businesses Are Spending Their Money on Customer Experience">Here Is Where Businesses Are Spending Their Money on Customer Experience</a></strong></p>       
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r40oXpkcexQ" title="YouTube video player"></iframe>
 <h2>Best Practices for Customer Experience Long Tail</h2><p>It’s critical for companies to gain insight into each of these facets of the customer experience long tail. A strong approach to that has four best practices:</p><div class="article-body-webinars-placeholder">null</div><h3>1.&nbsp;Regular Health Checkups on the Existing Experience</h3><p>Regular assessments of path to and point of conversion, initial experience, ongoing use and adoption and customer support interaction constitute a proactive approach that the smartest companies embrace. Companies should regularly test how they’re faring with customers at each of these stages.<strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong>To make the most of that effort, it is wise to create a standardized approach that can be repeated at regular intervals. This will enable the organization to keep a running record of results and track improvement (or decline) over time. The company might ask users, for example, to walk through the process of setting up a new bank account, have them find and download an app, or register for a service and narrate as they go.</p><h3>2.&nbsp;Data-Driven Investigation</h3><p>Health checkups on existing processes are open-ended explorations that may or may not reveal issues at critical conversion points. But when employing data-driven investigation, a company is homing in on something specific. </p><p>For example, if one of app’s key features isn’t being used, the data will show that. Then it’s up to the company to figure out questions such as: What’s keeping them from using or interacting with this feature? Is it hidden or hard to use? Or do they just not see its value? If the company doesn’t investigate, they’ll only be able to make educated guesses, which can lead to changing the wrong element and further obscuring the true issue.</p><h3>3.&nbsp;Competitive and Best-in-Class Assessment</h3><p><strong></strong>Running competitive analysis on a regular cadence will help reveal how competition is performing. It also can identify opportunities for differentiation and understand how the landscape is changing over time. Similar to health checks, companies should consider running competitive and best-in-class user tests on a regular cadence to keep tabs on competition and best practices, identify opportunities for differentiation, and understand how the landscape is changing over time.</p><p><strong>Related Article: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/no-service-design-no-customer-experience/" target="_blank" title="No Service Design, No Customer Experience">No Service Design, No Customer Experience</a></strong></p><h3>4. Customer Journey Tracking</h3><p>When a business runs a user test, they’re likely isolating a single aspect of the customer experience to gather feedback and make improvements. But the customer doesn’t experience anything in isolation in the real world. The challenges that they encounter and the decisions that they make when interacting with your company happen on a continuum and, sometimes, over a long period of time. </p><p>So, without taking a step back and assessing the entire customer journey, the business won’t be able to improve the holistic customer experience. By observing customers and prospects — from initial perception to final steps in their decision-making to ongoing engagement — companies can generate ideas on what to change.</p>  <p>By following these four steps and treating customer experience as a long tail instead of a moment in time, companies can gain a powerful market edge over others stuck in siloed thinking.</p><div class="ink-overlay-container"></div><div class="ink-overlay-container"></div><div class="ink-overlay-container"></div><div class="ink-overlay-container"></div><div class="ink-overlay-container"></div>

Customer Experience

The Long Tail Effect and What It Means for Customer Experience

Feature

eBook

eBooks

The right survey strategy needn’t be complex, but it must be deliberate. This e-book provides you with the four key elements of a brand building survey program.

How to Make Every Survey a Top Customer Experience

White Paper

White Papers

The rate of change in eCommerce has always been fast. Yes, Covid-19 has come along and put everything into overdrive. But a lot of these external factors were already in play before we even knew Covid existed.

How to Stay Ahead of Ecommerce in 2022 and Beyond

Buyer's Guide

Buyer's Guides

A content style guide is the backbone of your enterprise content strategy — it’s the difference between providing average or incredible experiences for your customers.

Content Style Guide

Research Report

Research Reports

While most organizations still struggle to fully understand their customers, the successful ones are exhibiting technology investment patterns which result in the delivery of superior customer experiences.

The State of Digital Customer Experience

It’s no secret that the most successful companies are able to attract and retain top talent, yet employee experience remains a consistent challenge for many of today’s global enterprises.

Digital Workplace

Employee Retention

Customer Data Platforms Market Guide (2022 Q1)

This market guide examines the current state of the industry for a detailed look at leading vendors that are pushing the limits of what a DXP can do.

Digital Experience

Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) Market Guide

Featuring real-world case studies and insights for your organization, this report will help you to deliver, manage and improve your digital workplace, and support your workforce as you navigate what the next phase of working will look like.

The State of the Digital Workplace

Today’s omnichannel customer experience world is proving challenging. Nearly 20% of brands saw a decrease in CX quality. 

Online

Exceptional Omnichannel Customer Experience: What it Looks Like, How to Achieve & Measure it

Are you leveraging deep customer insights to hyper-personalize your communications? Or are you still just talking to a segment?

How to Hyper-Personalize Your Customer Communications Across Channels

Learn how some of the world's most beloved brands are setting the bar for employee engagement.

Unlocking the Power of AI in the Contact Center

Learn why employees are still resigning in 2022

Beat the Great Resignation with Process Improvement

Digital Workplace Experience - Q3 2022

How Great Organizations Empower Customer Experience Teams

Digital Experience Summit  - Q3 2022

Succeeding in the Era of the Intelligent Workplace

Digital Workplace Experience - Q4 2022

Future CX - Blending Physical & Digital Experiences

Digital Experience Summit - Q4 2022

Boost employee engagement and retain workers in a hybrid environment

How to Boost Employee Sentiment in 2022

How Louis Vuitton, Carrefour, Tesco, Pepsi Co., and PVH made the switch to NoSQL

5 Modern Data-Driven Applications That Transformed Employee and Customer Experiences

As hybrid workplaces become the norm, intentionally embracing this new way of working is one key to success.

Empowering and Enabling Teams in the New Hybrid Workspace

Robin recently surveyed 300+ professionals to better understand what great leadership looks like in a hybrid world.

Power Hybrid Work With Tech That Connects

Collaboration and Cooperation: Two Key Elements That Drive Successful DCX

The digital employee experience has never been more critical

2022 State of the Digital Workplace

FHI 360 saves $400k with Intelligent Hardware Refresh

Create Cost-effective Hardware Refresh Cycles

The New Era of Well-Being: How to Realize Your Potential and Succeed at Work & Life

Digital Mental Health Support: Helping Remote Workers Fight Burnout and Loneliness

How creating engaged workplaces drives business impact and delivers optimal customer experiences

Modernized Knowledge Management: The New Driving Force Behind a Great Employee and Customer Experience

How to create a plan that brings collaboration back into the office

Rediscovering Collaboration in the Office

Digital Experience Summit  - Q2 2022

Embracing & Optimizing the Hybrid Workplace

Digital Workplace Experience - Q2 2022

Customer Experience Strategies for an Accelerated Reality

Digital Experience Summit - Q1 2022

Welcome to the New Now of Employee Experience

Digital Workplace Experience - Q1 2022

Keys to ensuring technology platforms are intuitive and accessible for all

Voice of the Employee: Aligning Employee Listening with User Experience Tools and Services

Learn the factors that are important to employees as they evaluate new job prospects

Hiring New Talent in the Era of the Great Resignation

Learn about what has worked - and what hasn’t - to help retain talent at other organizations

Retaining Employees in the Era of the Great Resignation

Effective human capital management practices are key to thriving during the workplace revolution.

Workplace Origami: Making Sense of the Forces Shaping the Workplace in 2021

How the Liberty Mutual team is approaching personalization in the workplace.

How Liberty Mutual Drove Global Efficiency with Drupal as the Foundation for their Intranet

The workplace is changing in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. Here are the top considerations for organizations as they adapt.

Top 10 Challenges For the Workplace of the Future

Learn how leading organizations use EX tools to connect people with the resources they need in the field or on the move.

Making the Employee Experience Empathetic to Frontline Workers

Learn how to build a work environment that enables people to do their best work and creates more satisfied and productive teams.

If Employee Experience Isn’t Your Department’s Top Priority, It Should Be

Learn how Mondelēz International’s unified communications team is improving employee experience with better communication.

Making Teams Work: The New Era in Unified Communications

Learn how to accelerate your business's digital transformation with modern and agile development platforms.

Low-Code — The Enabler that Brings IT & Business Together

How AI improves each stage of the search journey

Moving Beyond Traditional Enterprise Search

How to leverage business process management (BPM) for operational excellence

These Companies Excel at BPM and Process Automation and You Can Too

How to build a new team culture dedicated to the proactive mindset.

Mondelēz: 3 Steps to a Data-Informed, More Proactive IT Department

Learn the three steps companies should take to create a successful hybrid enterprise and enable better productivity.

How to Create a Successful Hybrid Enterprise Using Slack

Join Workgrid’s Rob Ryan and Frank Pathyil to discuss the challenges in building or buying an intranet.

How to Modernize Your Intranet and Avoid the Build or Buy Headache

Get a frontline view on the considerations and technologies organizations are evaluating as they reopen the office.

Let’s Get Ready to Reopen!

In this webinar, we’ll explore real-world use cases that illustrate the transformational benefits of employee-centric IT.

The Race for Digital Transformation: Employee-Centric IT Against the Odds (with Paddy Power Betfair)

Digital workplace expert Sam Marshall leads a live fireside chat exploring the challenges in adapting to a complex world of work.

How AI Can Unify Your Digital Workplace

Hear how leading companies are reimagining their digital transformation projects and identifying new opportunities for growth.

Making the Complex Possible: How to Accelerate Your Digital Transformation

Explore the innovative tools that help make the transition back to hybrid and in-office work seamless.

How to Use Space Reservation Tools to Return to the Office Safely

Explore how to implement a cross-departmental center for employee experience and make the biggest impact.

Liberty Mutual: Building a Center of Excellence for Employee Experience

Hear how Cisco embraced a culture of trust and conscious leadership to power an inclusive workforce.

[CMSWire Webinar] Best Practices for Enabling a Remote and Hybrid Workforce

Join us to explore the future of collaboration and knowledge management in modern organizations.

The Long Tail Effect and What It Means for Customer Experience

About the author

Tags

Featured Research