The One-Customer Lesson That 2020 Taught Us All

If you've been paying attention to headlines this week, it seems like just about everyone is starting to warm up to the idea that this summer will look a lot more like 2019 than 2020. We're not out of the woods yet, but it did get us thinking about what it will look like when we're back to doing business offline as well as online, and the lessons that we're not going to want to throw away. The #1 lesson that we should all be taking with us? Online and offline customers are not different – in many cases they are they same people, and the best brands treat them as one customer.

Here's what I mean by that: There's an entire field of business that's dedicated to creating the best possible customer experience. There are textbooks, consultants, even University courses dedicated to the enterprise value that's created when we can increase loyalty and retention through high value experiences like customer service and store design. At the same time, digital marketing as a business function is now just over a decade old, and it's typically measured by the awareness that we can build and the new customers that we can attract.

What's wrong with that? In 2020 nearly all customer experiences were digital. That means we have two parts of our businesses fighting against each other for the same person's attention. Examples: Should this landing page provide support and product education, or should it maximize its conversion rate? Should this Facebook ad get people to smile, or should it get people to click "buy now"?

The fact that those things would ever be in conflict means that we've messed up in a big way. The customer experience starts the first time that people interact with us, and this year that's pretty much always online, so that first interaction should happen the same way that it would offline: We introduce ourselves, we let them know what we're up to, and we get to know a bit more about what they need. From there, our job is to demonstrate our value, and to make it as easy as possible to do business with us.

Our digital ads, the way we show up in search, our social content, and our website design are all steps in the customer journey, and throughout the pandemic, the brands that have embraced that have been the most successful at adapting. The ones that are still stuck see digital marketing as nothing more than a high tech sales tool, so trying to jam customer experience into that equation is no different than trying to apply them to a timeshare pitch room – it's just not built that way.

Outstanding customer experience and effective digital marketing are not in conflict any more than great designing great packaging is in conflict with delivering a valuable product.

The best brands know that digital has never been separate. Through 2020, they were able to adapt to a digital-first (or digital-only) world by applying the same level of care to the digital customer experience that they always had to the offline one, and they're going to be successful in 2021 and beyond because now they're going to have a customer experience that is consistent and effective no matter where the customer chooses to interact with them.

APPLYING ONE-CUSTOMER THINKING

• Start by understanding the customer journey – how do people first become aware of your brand? List all of the places where that introduction is happening. How would your brand introduce itself to a stranger?
• Next, where do people go when they are interested in you, but not yet ready to buy? How can you use all of those opportunities to demonstrate what your business is all about?
• When it is time to buy, how can you use every touchpoint to make that purchase experience as easy and supported as possible?
• After their purchase, what do people need, and where might they go to talk about your product or service?

Notice that when you go through that simple list with a one-customer perspective there is no conflict between online and offline. Social media, for example, shows up in several places, but doesn't carry the full responsibility of any one category. Some other logical conclusions include the fact that the retail experience must be directly connected to your email, and the website in order to create a consistent customer experience, or that online and offline customer support cannot be different things.

For many of us, this doesn't mean that we need to do more work - in fact, it could mean less. Could that digital asset be used in store? Could our front desk staff support digital customer service? And, could our offline touchpoints be used to let more people know about what we're up to on social media?

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting