If you are not familiar with the term, ‘Experience Economy’, it’s time you get acquainted with it. Defined by Harvard Business Review as “a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event,” experience economy shifts the significance from quality to experience. So basically, the experience is no more just a parameter for service related businesses, where there is nothing really tangible the customer is dealing with, but even for manufacturing companies. Concepts like TQM-Total Quality Management which put product quality at the forefront are now considered redundant and experience has taken its place. Today customers, don’t just buy something and walk away. They expect to be spoken to or heard, some amount of interaction right from talking about the weather to the finer details of the product the customer is interested to buy is what makes for a memorable experience.
Technology has made instant gratification the norm. Customers want to be satisfied, anywhere, anytime. And companies have no choice but to keep up. So more than anything, technology gives them scope to leverage the emphasis on experience, so even if the product quality is not as good as its competitors, but customer service before and post purchase is great then the quality gets sidelined.
The best part is that the experience economy is not about b2b or b2c it’s just a memorable event which ends up in a financial transaction. It’s just about needs, could be as basic as ordering a dessert at work or as big as buying a software for your company’s HR needs.
The moot point is who can you satisfy your need the fastest and without hassles. In fact, people are choosing e-commerce portals which based on payment options rather than product options.
There are 2 experiences that drive the experience economy:
Customer Participation: Customers today don’t just want to another financial transaction on your accounts book, but want to participate in this process of purchase. A nice, casual chat about the product or even how the customer wishes to use the product. The customer will have queries about your brand’s competitors, and that is their way of getting to know your brand better. Encourage this conversation, genuinely, and you will see that the customer feels valued.
Connection: A customer might spend an hour asking you questions, speaking to you about everything under the sun and yet not buy anything but that is still OK, cause you’ve built what most sellers or companies fail to build – a connection. The physical experience, like the ambiance of your showroom or the user-friendliness of your website, and the mental experience like customer service or a memorable conversation with your manager in the shop is what makes the connection. A connection which makes a potential customer a customer and an existing customer a long-lasting loyal customer!
So marketers if you are looking to sell your brand, sell an experience. An experience which people are waiting to talk about on social media or that includes them-if that happens consider your brand sold!
