Defining customer loyalty always brings forth interesting and thought-provoking responses in this day and age of the Empowered Customer.
InMoment, a customer experience optimization platform, is always trying to innovate around the customer. During an interview with Loyalty360, InMoment CEO John Sperry offered a very unique and insightful response to the question, among others.
How do you define customer loyalty and has that definition changed or evolved in recent years?
A few months ago we conducted a study where we asked consumers what was most important to them when it comes to their experiences with brands. What we heard back was profound. Customers want to have very different relationships with companies than in the past, one that may be something beyond even loyalty. They want to engage with brands. They want to talk and listen. The want to help companies improve and to be more successful. They crave authentic, reciprocal interactions. We’re moving beyond the empowered customer toward the invested customer.
How do you define CX and do you see it as the big differentiator in today’s loyalty marketplace?
Customer Experience is the awareness that the relationship between a brand and its customers is multi-faceted and continually changing. It’s the understanding that every interaction a customer or potential customer has with your people, products, services, marketing messages–as well as your competitors their own contacts, and even indirectly with your vendors–impacts their overall relationship with your brand. It is the opportunity to put all of that knowledge to work over time, and in alignment with your brand promise, to create immense value across every part of your business.
What’s more, Sperry said that the survey methodologies companies commonly used to listen to customers are decades old, designed to collect and understand facts and numbers.
“We now want to give brands the ability to go beyond facts and scores so they can better understand what’s really most important to their customers,” he explained. “To that, we’ve evolved from being just a survey or feedback vendor to an experience company.”