It is easy to understand the importance of multi-channel consistency across everything brands do, when they interact with customers. But it is quite difficult to implement and then measure the results of "consistent customer experience".
A recent white paper in interactive marketing, on Lexus had some facts and evidence of how customers feel if brands do this well:
a.Shaping attitude towards the brand:
Interactive channels like showrooms, contact centre, website play the most important role. These three channels showed high correlation scores towards shaping customers’ attitude towards the Lexus brand. TV, Print, Direct Mail experience come a lot lower in the rankings.
b. Future purchase intention:
Lexus car ownership experience, contact centre and TV experience played an important role in customers’ minds on this attribute. Website was ranked next after TV. Surprisingly to me, TV’s importance during this stage was a very interesting finding.
c. Propensity to recommend
Lexus’s customers are far more pragmatic when it comes to referrals and are not influenced by any other communication channel. Satisfaction with ownership of the car had the strongest correlation.
I felt this research has some interesting points for us to take out:
1. It is easy to prioritize channels at every stage of the pre & post purchase sales cycle.
2. The importance of holistic customer experience is evident. Therefore, giving the right focus to each channel and crafting a strategy for each one of them is critical.