Customer experience is fluid. Social factors, environments, and technology shape people’s expectations and the interactions they expect from the brands they shop with. As a part of the CX Pod’s newest series “Redefine Value,” TTEC’s own Mary Nelson spoke with renowned CX guru Don Peppers on the idea of defining customer value in a post-COVID world. Here are some excerpts from their conversation.
Mary Nelson: You've been at the CX game for a long time, you've definitely seen value evolve. What are your thoughts on this idea of redefining value in today's world?
Don Peppers: Well, I think it really does depend on what your definition of value is. When I talk to companies about managing their customer experience, I say customers are different in two fundamental ways to a business. They have different value to a business and they need different things from a business, but we can just as soon reverse that. Also, I could say a company and a customer have two different relationships. A company has certain needs from a customer, and it has certain values for a customer. That's just the reverse of what I talked about earlier.
I think what we're talking about here is what value does a company have to a customer? What can the company do for the customer in return for what the company gets from the customer, which is the money end, fundamentally.
Over the pandemic, we've seen a huge shift in consumers adopting digital channels, and we've seen, as you said, tremendous progress when it comes to digital transformation. What do you think we're going to be hearing more about this year when it comes to digital tools and channels?
Well, I think you're going to hear a lot more about the confluence of delivery and service. The more a company seeks to deliver things directly to a customer, the more likely it's not going to be around to fix things that go wrong. I think you're going to see a lot of technologies brought to market in the next few years for tracking a product's behavior and its performance, even after it's the hands of the customer. Fundamentally products as services.
What customers valued before the pandemic, they may not necessarily value now, or things have shifted. What's your advice for people who are looking at redefining value for their company?
My advice is to realize that every customer values different things: customers are way more different than your products are. I think one of the most important tasks for most businesses today is to differentiate their customers by their customer's values. By value here in this, I'm talking about what the customer wants from the company, what the customer values from the company.
