Due to its importance, we have written about customer experience on hundreds of occasions. In this post, we examine two customer experience practices.
Learning More About Customer Experience Practices
The Wall Street Journal now devotes an entire section of its Web site to “Customer Experience.” Here, we highlight two of the articles found there.
[Note: Full access to these articles requires a subscription to the WSJ. Until December 3, 2021, a special rate of $4/month online subscription is available. As always, Evans on Marketing is a fully non-commercial site. We accept no advertising!]
Packaging Mistakes
What are your packaging peeves? Ask most people and you’re likely to get some rather energetic responses. The top complaint is packaging that is hard to open, which every year leads to countless emergency room visits for deep cuts and sprains. Also on the seriously aggravating list: resealable packages that won’t reseal, dispensers that clog or leak, and containers that keep you from emptying every last dollop or drop.
As this litany suggests, packaging can be a neglected aspect, if not an idle afterthought, of product development. It’s understandable given packaging is the disposable part. The barrier, protector, or bright and shiny advertisement surrounding what is actually consumed.
Cashier or self-checkout? That’s the difficult question consumers often face when they finish shopping. The self-checkout line may be shorter. But given all the things that could go wrong, it may not be faster. Retailers, looking to reduce labor costs, are determined to make that decision a lot easier.
The customer experience remains still far from perfect. Customers may face delays due to difficult-to-scan items. An inability to find the code for a product they’re buying. Or weighing errors that require an employee to fix.