How Content Drives Consistency in Customer Experience

The constant addition of digital communication channels and devices have obliged organizations to create seamless customer experiences across these proliferating channels. 

Businesses struggle to ensure that the experiences they create and the promises they make translate into the actual experiences that consumers have when interacting with their brands — no matter the channel or device. 

Failing to deliver on brand promises quickly destroys an organization’s online reputation. 

But positive customer experiences are one of the fastest ways to gain the public’s trust, helping to set a brand apart from the thousands of others that make promises and fail to live up to them. 

Organizations that treat their clients as people, not numbers, and deliver on their promises have tapped into the needs of their client base beyond the physical sale of a product or service. Clients feel valued and supported. And content is one of the best ways that brands deliver on promises they make. 

Using content to create a progressive and positive cross channel brand experience requires setting in place a communication strategy that supports the brand.

Here are some points to keep in mind when implementing a digital omnichannel communications strategy:

1. All employees depend on the organization providing communications that build their own brand perception. This in turn dictates their level of service delivery and their drive and willingness to play their part in ensuring the organization meets its objectives. 
2. Similarly, the experience that employees create when dealing with clients will create those clients’ brand perception. If this experience is consistent with the brand promises and the organizational objectives, it will result in a successful omnichannel experience. 
3. Client experiences have formed a vital part of an organization’s online image as the digital world has transformed communication from a one-way to a two-way channel. Enabling consumers to voice their opinions and share when organizations fail to deliver gives brands an opportunity to learn and improve their deliverables.
4. The public persona of the brand on websites, social media, online reviews, etc, should be present in every point of contact that a consumer has with that brand, whether with a client services consultant or an employee at a party outside of office hours. Intranets might not be for public consumption, but they are just as important to ensure employee engagement, buy-in and loyalty. If your employees don’t respect and love your organization, and your clients are unhappy, you are failing at the most powerful form of marketing — word of mouth. 
5. You should target your marketing content at getting the buy-in and trust of both the public and your internal stakeholders, and at rectifying situations that need to be mended. While a bad online review might negatively influence consumer’s perception of your brand, a response showing your determination and commitment to correct the situation holds the potential of turning a negative experience into a positive one. 
6. Content marketing can no longer be viewed as a function independent of the rest of an organization. A successful communication strategy requires buy-in from all stakeholders.  

Step Up or Move Aside

Organizations can either take advantage of the benefits offered by the digital sphere or fall further and further behind. 

The saying, “If you’re not on the internet, you don’t exist” becomes truer every day as consumers find more and more of what they want online and have their needs met simply by typing into a search engine from anywhere, anyplace. 

The digital world gives brands insight into consumer behavior and preferences, attitudes and opinions, direct contact and targeted contact — all at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising and market research.