Focus is everything in a business, whether it be a new startup or a large enterprise. In my role as a business advisor, I often see well-meaning entrepreneurs try to be everything to everyone, which results in many things done poorly, and few totally delighted customers. People are confused by multiple messages, and employees are frustrated trying to personalize customer experiences.
These days, the whole business experience is often more important than the product. If the shopping process, delivery, and support experiences are not designed-in and delivered consistently, no after-the-fact effort or product feature can compensate for the lack of it.
The specifics and need for an overall service experience design were driven home to me in a new book, "Woo, Wow, and Win," by Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O'Connell. The authors provide details and multiple examples of how imagining, creating, and rethinking the execution of every aspect of the transaction not only better satisfies customers, but advances your strategic goals.
Most experts agree that there are at least nine generic types of customer experiences commonly in use by successful businesses today. As a place to start, I recommend that you model your business after one of the following archetypes, understanding the pros and cons, rather than defining a new one with a large inherent learning curve:
In any case, your challenge is deciding how you are going to market, and designing every aspect of your customer experience. The model selected will drive what offerings you make, and what expectations you set. Just as importantly, it identifies the customers you seek to delight, and the customers you expect to happily look elsewhere without becoming your nemesis.
Service design and delivery can only be successfully done proactively, and it has to start with what you want to promise as the seller, rather than trying to accede to everything a customer asks. Is your company as focused on designing the customer experience as they are on the product or service offered? Your long-term survival and success depends on it.