Leveraging Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to drive your Customer Experience

Nowadays a good looking website isn’t enough to separate you from your competitors. Customers expect a refined user journey across all their devices when interacting with a business online.

Taking a cue from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs we recognise that consumer expectations have been steadily rising over the last 15 years. The hierarchy states that basic needs need to be completely satisfied and fulfilled before moving onto a higher pursuit.

So how do you move up the pyramid when it comes to customer experience and achieve your full potential?

Think outside the square

Digital channels offer organisations opportunities to create experiences which go beyond a customer’s already high expectations. It is the experiences that surprise and delight and add real value that make a business stand out in a very crowded global marketplace.

A ‘nice’ looking website doesn’t cut it any more. If you have a well crafted digital product both on a strategic and aesthetic level you may well turn a few heads. But it’s all in the details and the final layers of craft are the most important - aim for beautiful, interactive, intelligent, data fuelled experiences.

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Did you mention data?

Leveraging the data that is available to your business seems obvious but so few businesses do this well. Data is often hard to access as it’s either locked away in silos across the business, in a variety of formats or out of date.

Customer profile and behavioural data can be collected and leveraged to define the customer experience and analytics can be used to refine those experiences over time. Even a simple approach to data can yield fantastic results.

The use of data could be in the form of Single Customer Views, basic Segmentation or simple Journey Mapping. A more sophisticated approach can include lead scoring, predictive modelling, performance analytics and machine learning.

The outcome of such an approach can often redefine how you operate, how you go to market, what products and services you offer or what promotions you run and when.

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Don’t concentrate on any one channel

Businesses need to think about every customer touch point as an opportunity to deliver an amazing customer experience.

Avoid taking a single channel in isolation. Establish an ecosystem of interactions following the unique journey customers take across multiple channels. Starting with digital media or search through to dedicated landing pages on your website or even through to a call centre.

Individual channels can play a role in a much broader engagement with a customer, improving processes, efficiency and also loyalty.

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Measure ROI

If a business is investing in improving the customer experience through a new channel, a new service or new technology, they will want to measure the return on such an investment.

A positive return will reassure the management team that it’s been a worthwhile exercise. There are a number of metrics that can be used to measure ROI. The obvious ones are sales and revenue but engagement and customer satisfaction (Net Promoter Score) can also be used.

How can your business move up through the pyramid. Here’s one approach you might take.

Nowadays good design is quite common, the bar has been raised - industries as a whole have understood the importance of a digital presence, a responsive - mobile friendly website. But just having a working, functional website or app is just going to make you another in a very dense pack. A pack that falls under the realm of ‘good’ design (and I use that term loosely). The world is saturated with good design… so

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Why settle for good, when you can be great?

Adding the final layers of craft are the most important - beautiful, interactive, intelligent, data-fuelled experiences.  That's what great looks like.

The team at Elephants Can Dance work with clients to identify opportunities to create highly rewarding and memorable customer experiences.  Get in touch to chat about how we might be able to support you do the same.

 

Nick Vandermolen, Design Director and Head of UX

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