Customer Experience Centres can help your business connect with customers in an engaging and meaningful way, helping raise brand awareness and increase sales. These interactive spaces give potential customers the chance to experience your brand in new and exciting ways. You can showcase your products and services, but you can do so much more than traditional sales tools - providing dynamic, customer focused dedicated spaces where people can take a personalised customer journey.
Personalised.
As technology influences customer behaviours our expectations of what brands should deliver also changes. People expect a highly personalised and collaborative approach when it comes to making purchasing decisions. Prospective customers are better informed than ever about your products and services, even before you engage with them. They can discover your website, LinkedIn profiles, customer reviews and ultimately your company’s reputation. This means that traditional selling techniques are no longer cutting it for B2B businesses.
Business brands need to innovate and adapt their sales strategies so they can build strong customer relationships to make those crucial deals, ‘Experiencing’ a brand is far more powerful than simply being told about it and CEC's can offer a unique and highly effective space to do just that.
Customised.
By offering an environment designed around customised experiences, your potential customers are more likely to feel that you understand and care about their needs. This is a powerful proposition for potential customers and can help a business to not only convert prospects to sales, but also build long lasting business relationships.
It gives you the chance to showcase your brand in a way that is meaningful to each potential customer. When successfully implemented, a CEC offers customers an exciting and structured introduction to your brand, making them feel special by offering a personalised experience.
CECs can also address customer challenges. You can position your brand as being an invaluable problem solver. You listen to your customer and respond to their individual needs – and by extension, highlight how your products and services are the solution to their challenges.
CECs Compared to Briefing Centres.
Executive Briefing Centres tend to support a one-way communications approach; your customers are presented with a sales pitch and briefed on your company’s vision and product/service offer. CEC's are more interactive and customer focused. Customers want an experience that they are at the heart of, which feels authentic and personalised to their needs. As such, CECs tend to have a higher level of interactivity to engage with potential customers, rather than a passive sales experience.
Here are some common design aspects to consider when developing a new CEC, including:
- It's all about you.
Knowing your customer and providing a uniquely personalised experience is a key driver. You want your customer to have an impactful brand experience. But to do this, you need to get to know them and understand their needs. Defining different audience needs, motivations and potential journeys is crucial; for example, mapping out the different experiences required for new customers who want to know more about your products, or existing customers looking for new innovations.
- Tell your story.
Your Customer Experience Centre should tell the story of your company in a manner that connects in a meaningful way with your customer. It should reflect who you are, what makes you unique and distinguishes you from your rivals. Being able to demonstrate your company’s commitment to customer service will give a great impression of your brand and that always resonates with customers. Make sure the experience they have when visiting your CEC is welcoming and user focused as it can positively reinforce your brand messaging and image.
- Planning the customer journey – make it interesting!
Customer Experience Centres should feel authentic and welcoming, giving customers a seamless and effortless experience. Identifying the customer journey and interaction is crucial, including what you want to say, what you want them to do, and how you want them to feel – and react. Storyboarding may help to identify every step of the journey to give it a natural flow, as well as pre-empt every potential conversation, and map out key touchpoints to blend the physical space with human interaction.
- Choosing the right tech for the job.
Harnessing the power and interactivity that digital technologies can provide is pretty much expected of any CEC - digital innovations can take your customer’s experience to the next level. But choosing the right technology for the job is essential. Digital technologies, including immersive technologies such as 3D spaces, should enhance and not lead your choices when it comes to developing a CEC.
Your CEC should be adaptable, where content can be regularly reviewed and updated. By planning for a flexible space, you will be maximising opportunities to promote your brand and offer an excellent customer experience going forward. Designing your customer journeys, mapping out the experiences you want them to go through, the emotions you want them to feel and finally the decisions you want them to make are critical in the successful realisation of the CEC. At Platform Group, this is what we do, making the experience for you and your customer memorable, repeatable and valuable. The digital platforms that we have built over the years have been informed by our desire to enhance the customer experience and we continue to refine our approach to building the ultimate space for you to engage with your customer.
Have a look at some of the amazing centres we have created for some of our clients and if you want to know how we might help you just drop us a line.
