THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION

The successful journey of the customer experience according to Annette Franz

Annette Franz has studied the customer experience for twenty years and nowadays, besides managing her blog (www.cx-journey.com), born with the desire of sharing experiences and reflections grown in these years, she is vice president of Touchpoint Dashboards. What fascinates her the most is helping companies to understand the importance of experience and engage employees in offering a superior customer experience. According to Annette, companies shall ensure that the client is the center of every discussion.

This is one of the most famous sentence that stands on each page of her blog:

You know the quote, Success is a journey, not a destination.

Well, the customer experience is a journey, too. Its’s a never-ending journey. You must always strive to deliver that ultimate customer experience, not only at a single touchpoint but also – especially – along the entire journey. Have you taken the first step?

(Annette Franz)

According to Annette, offering a superior customer experience means undertaking in a never ending journey, since success lies on the journey not on the destination. This implies a deep knowledge and an accurate design of the customer experience in each step of the customer journey.

Apparently contradicting herself, Annette posts another quote:

“Knowing where you’re going is the first step to get there.”

(Ken Blanchard)

This is just an apparent contradiction since the quote by Ken Blanchard is the “conditio sine qua non” to undertake “the journey” described by Annette. How we can start a program with the aim of improving the customer experience without having in mind the values of our brand, or without being familiar with the client and the different steps of her journey?

Undertaking a successful journey does not mean to start something blindly but to set up a destination, the itinerary and the resources to reach it.