With a move over the past years to focus on the needs of the consumer, ‘customer experience’ has become a competitive battlefield. Which is great news for the customer.

Not so long ago, it was a common experience to make contact with a brand only to feel like you were the recipient of a scripted response, or worse, never have your call or email replied to at all. At BrandHook we often talk about our experience of sending an enquiry email to a furniture retailer about whether certain office chairs came in black, but instead of having our question acknowledged immediately we received an email (6 hours later) to say that a store manager would be in touch within 48 hours. Of course, within 2 hours of us sending the email we had found, ordered and paid for similar chairs through an alternative retailer. So, it is clear that, a culture of not being customer focused negatively impacted sales.

Thankfully brands who are serious about the customer experience, and understand that the customer is in control and making decisions fast, are making those experiences disappear. Our requests are responded to in record time, we feel listened to, are often invited into the conversation with the brands we love – we work with many brands to help them co-create new products and services with their customers – which results in consumers gaining positive brand experiences worth talking about and sharing. And, this positively impacts sales and we feel triumphant and respected in battle.

The idea of keeping the customer experience at the heart of business decisions is a hot industry topic. It is common to read posts on professional social networks such as ‘Customer service is not a department, it is everyone’s job’ – and these are usually received with rejoicing comments such as ‘Absolutely!’ and ‘Too True!’

Equally as popular are posts such as ‘It takes 8 touches to make sales lead’. However, it is perhaps how this type of advice is interpreted that is making some brands march their customer experience tactics into the wrong place.

There is a difference between being customer focused, and resorting to customer harassment. And I think some brands need to understand this. To be customer focused, you need to know who the customer is and what they want. When a customer makes contact with a brand they are giving permission for a conversation to begin – not necessarily wagging the white flag in surrender to an immediate sale.

Over the past week, I have been the recipient of some possibly well-intended ‘customer focused’ initiatives that have seen brands cross the Siegfried Line for the bid to conquer the customer. But in each case the initial desire to engage, has quickly turned to a retreat on my part. Here’s my experiences:

• The Sniper Attack: My car insurance was nearing renewal, so thought I would do a quick bit of research to compare costs online. But not 5 minutes after closing down the site, the customer service rep from the company was on the phone to me wanting to tell me about some deals they had that were not on their website. WRONG! Ok, so I had given them my mobile number and email address in order to use their site, but the right response would be a quick email thanking me for the interest in their product, a quick snapshot of some products that would suit me and a number to call if I wanted more information.
• The Misguided Pursuit: I downloaded a very interesting sounding White Paper from a marketing website, and saved it away to read at a later date. The next day I received an obviously auto-generated email from the Head of Sales wanting to book a demo of their CRM software as they were “in my area next week”. WRONG! The right response would be to make contact acknowledging the paper I had downloaded and perhaps suggest some additional articles I might find interesting – let me get to know them, and realise the value they can bring to my life, before launching a misguided attack.

In both cases, I can see the intention was there, but the executions felt like an ambush. So let’s think about customer experience as dance rather than a military operation. A good experience should be something to enjoyed and look forward to. Because making customers feel like they are about to be taken prisoner will make the troops withdraw altogether.

Written by Megan