The Evolution of CX from Past to Present Customer Experience (CX) has changed step by step from past to present, both conceptually and in terms of the feedback channels used for customer experience management, and with the development of technology (especially with the developments in the field of artificial intelligence) and also with the formation of the customer profile of each period, and this change continues in the time period we live in.
Customer service as a department emerged in the early 20th century. Businesses began to care and pay attention to customer feedback, albeit limited to this development. With the invention of the telephone and its widespread use around the world, it became an important tool and the first communication tool at the point of contact with customers.
Fundamentals of Customer Experience
The origins of customer experience can be traced back to market research and consumer theories that developed and emerged within the marketing department in the 1920s. During this period, customer experience was defined and practiced around a series of basic operations that took place after the purchase, rather than as a process. In fact, rather than a customer experience, a short-term relationship with the customer was realized on the axis of customer service. By the 1960s, with the commoditization of services and the explosion of consumerism after the Second World War, market research spread to almost all sectors and expanded.
Customer Management and Value-Oriented Approach
In the 1980s, the concept of “Customer Satisfaction“, which was used to measure the experience as the most popular among the CX metrics until a certain period and which is still being measured even though its use has decreased compared to the past, was used by the marketing field. In the early 1990s, the customer value management approach was developed from the concept of customer satisfaction. With the development of CVM, the approach that initially focused on post-purchase satisfaction was expanded and started to be used in factors such as product/service quality, communication processes and pricing.
With the developments in many areas after the Second World War (especially economic developments), customer-centered approaches began to come to the fore. With the rise of CRM systems in the 1980s and 1990s, customer management gained a more systemic dimension. With CRM systems, the concept of “360-degree view” of the customer came to the forefront.
The Evolution of Technology and Feedback Channels
The concept of customer experience was first used in 1994 by Lewis (Lou) Carbone in a study published in Marketing Management magazine under the title “Engineering Customer Experiences”. Carbone is also referred to as the father of the experience movement in the industry.In addition to the use of the concept and other developments (especially with the widespread use of the Internet globally), CX research, which was mostly conducted by telephone and physical mail in the early days, started to be carried out through dedicated emails.
In the late 20th century, with the emergence and widespread use of the internet and the emergence of the online shopping channel, customer feedback has made historical progress. With this development, customers gained the ability to share their opinions about a product with a wide audience. As a result of this development, companies have sought to make the customer experience seamless and to ensure that the brand maintains its reputation.
Change in Metrics in Customer Experience
In 2003, Frederick F. Reichheld’s article “The One Number You Need to Grow“ published in HBR was a turning point in the metrics used in customer experience management.Beyond customer satisfaction, it was concluded that loyal/supportive customers have a direct relationship with a company’s growth rate, and from then on, NPS started to take an important place in measurements made through feedback channels.In parallel with this date, the concept of “Enterprise Feedback Management” (EFM) was developed, which refers to the process of collecting, managing and analyzing feedback from employees, customers, partners or other stakeholders through various channels.
Establishing Professional Communities
In 2011, a group of customer experience professionals (led by Bruce Temkin and Jeanne Bliss) came together to form the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA). CXPA is dedicated to advancing the field of customer experience management and offers a variety of resources, networking opportunities and training programs to help professionals in the field improve their understanding and implementation of customer experience strategies.
Customer Journey Maps and Changing Perspective
After the 2010s, the concept of the “Customer Journey Map”, first used by OxfordSM in 1988, and its application in experience management planning has become widespread. With the widespread use of the customer journey map in businesses, the perspective on customer experience has started to change. After this period and today, customer experience has shifted from product perception to customer perception and has started to become a long-term process that continues from the first encounter of the customer with a brand to the last purchase process and even after the purchase is made. In this period, customer touch points and customer journey maps have started to emerge in both virtual and physical environments for the channels that may occur with the customer. As a result of all these developments, businesses have started to build their perspective by putting the customer at the center. Today, companies are investing in technology, data science and personalization to improve CX, trying to make their processes with customers both unique and close to perfect. Multi-channel feedback processes have become extremely important in the period we live in customer-oriented concepts.
Technology & Personalized Experiences
In the future, the CX issue will enable more individualized and more personalized experience processes to emerge with breakthroughs in many technological fields such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, internet of things, machine learning, big data and virtual reality.
As customer needs and expectations continue to change (which seems likely as long as human life continues), the developments in customer experience will continue to be shaped according to the requirements of the age we live in.
References
- https://customerthink.com/a-brief-history-of-customer-experience/
- https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/prediction-the-future-of-cx
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11002-020-09525-9
