Copping the 'Customer Experience' Buzzword

I hate when I succumb to the use of buzzwords. So I came reluctantly to the term “customer experience.” It always struck me as psycho-babble B.S. — and I don’t mean Bachelor of Science — that some precocious second-year grad from the Acme School of Business Management came up with to get a bunch of old techheads to stop thinking about their icky old networks. And thinking it impossible to ever accurately measure the quality of individual or collective experiences, I cringed every time I let the phrase slip into an article, thinking myself a shill for whichever nameless marketeer had coined it.

But gradually, I have come to accept the potential for assessing such a thing — emphasis on potential. I began to see flashes of the ability of test companies, data miners, number crunchers and report generators to collectively formulate a reasonable facsimile of the customer experience. Still, I had less faith that service providers would ever really see their businesses this way.

I’ve been fooled before by seemingly earnest CEOs professing their belief in the criticality of customer service. But eventually, money talked and there wasn’t quite enough in the budget for five extra customer service reps or a better IVR, so those visions became just more empty buzzwords.

Lately, however, even this appears to be changing. I also see little signs that the customer experience may be important in practice as well as theory. AT&T isn’t alone in this, but recently the company announced ─ with its partner CheckFree – some enhanced electronic bill payment options for its customers who pay their bills online. Electronic billing is nothing new, but AT&T customers can now view and pay their bills from any of 3,000 online locations across the country in a way that is just as good as going to the AT&T Web site. This is a sign that service providers actually are focusing on the customer experience. Why? Because there is no other good reason to do this.

Most companies are so crazy-eager to drive customers to their own Web sites in order to seize the opportunity for another sale or to form relationships, they fall all over themselves promoting it. But increasingly, service providers are giving up that monthly shot at communicating directly with their customers all in the name of what? Convenience? A hassle-free ...uh ... experience?

They aren’t doing it for the usual reason: because it’s cheaper. And they are no longer forcing customers to do business their way. They are making as many channels as possible available so that customers can do business on their own terms.

It’s just a sign, of course, and a small one at that, but enough for me to stop feeling guilty about perpetuating the use of another buzzword. Sometimes a good buzz is all you need.

E-mail me at heyBOSS@vpico.com or click on the comment button below.