Managing customer experience is increasingly becoming an important aspect of long-term brand building & customer loyalty. Of course, advertising, marketing and better customer experience have to co-exist. But, bad customer experience can send all marketing investments into the dustbin. Plumb your customer experience first, then invest in marketing & advertising.
EricMyers has this interesting post on this subject:
| Advertising/Marketing | Customer Experience Improvements |
|---|---|
| More expensive over time | Less expensive |
| Activities are limited to a particular product, service or offer (cannot be easily leveraged) | Improvements can be easily leveraged across all products, services or offers |
| Gains are typically time-limited (only hold for the duration of the campaign) | Gains are more likely to be permanent |
One area where I would like to take Eric's thought ahead is to look at customer experience beyond just the web. Any customer touch point is key to building a good customer experience. Because, today we are dealing with multi-channel customers.