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Bernd H. Schmitt

Customer Experience Management

A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting with your Customers

Wiley, 2003

15 min read

10 take-aways

Text available

What's inside?

To manage your customers’ experiences with you, see yourself — and your business processes — as they see you.

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Editorial Rating

Qualities

Innovative
Applicable

Recommendation

The revolutionary approach that Bernd H. Schmitt is advocating here wouldn’t sound so radical to anyone who has ever been in therapy: be aware, see things from other people’s point of view, address their concerns. If you’ve been in $150 an hour territory, this isn’t radical, but in the suites of marketing, the author contends, it is brand new. The book is an interesting follow up to the author’s earlier seminal work on the broader theory of customer experience. Entitled Experiential Marketing, that work made the case for a customer-experience focus. This book is more of a practical how-to, professorially organized into a neat near-outline format. Here, Schmitt makes the case for dissecting, designing and then improving, the customer’s experience with your product. getAbstract recommends this book of marketing therapy to anyone selling a product or service - and it is lots less expensive than putting your consumers on the couch.

Summary

Your Most Valuable Asset

Since customers are the single most important factor in the success or failure of a company, it behooves every company to focus on customers.

This isn’t exactly news, of course. But the fact that every company knows it doesn’t seem to make much difference in practice.

Consider these horrible examples:

Airlines

They "reward" their most valuable customers with frequent flyer miles. But when the customers who fly the most try to use their miles, airlines treat them like unwelcome moochers.

Fast Food Restaurants

They are cheap and fast, but often give surly or indifferent service.

Online Businesses

They can fumble credit card information.

Customer Service Departments

They put customers on hold and have limited ability to resolve complaints.

Service is generally bad and getting worse. Most companies seem to go out of their way to make life unpleasant for their customers. But there are some exceptions:

Singapore Airlines

They offer an extraordinary flying experience.

Starbucks

A home away from home - a "Third Space."

Amazon.com

Have ...

About the Author

Bernd H. Schmitt is a professor of marketing at Columbia University’s Business School and the Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership. He has consulted with Sony, Ford, Procter & Gamble, Estee Lauder, DuPont and IBM. His previous books include Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Act and Relate to Your Company and Brands.