Customer Experience in the Right Hands is Powerful

By Stephen Medve

October 29, 2019

customer experience, Flywheel Strategic, Technology Analyst

Technology analysts today use a whirlwind of buzzwords to describe customer experience. For companies like Flywheel Strategic, it is a set of data-driven exercises that help organizations make sense of what customer experience means for their customers. My interview with Scott Snowden, Partner at Flywheel Strategic, was enlightening — discussing the deeper topics around how to roll up your sleeves and achieve engagement. 
 
After introductions and a chat about personal interests and passions, I thought I would ‘lob’ Scott a soft-ball question. I asked him to tell me which of these three analyses he agreed with, in terms of the definition of customer experience.

1. https://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/customer-experience/
   Gartner defines customer experience as the customer’s perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels, or products.

2. https://go.forrester.com/blogs/definition-of-customer-experience/
   How customers perceive their interactions with your company.
   "Customer experiences are three things from the perspective of the customer. They are useful (deliver value), usable (make it easy to find and engage with the value), and enjoyable (emotionally engaging so that people want to use them)."

3. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/library/consumer-intelligence-series/future-of-customer-experience.html
   What truly makes for a good experience? Speed. Convenience. Consistency. Friendliness. And human touch—that is, creating real connections by making technology feel more human and giving employees what they need to create better customer experiences. 

Scott’s answer was fascinating. He identified Gartner’s analysis in defining customer experience as the one that really made an impact on him. I was impressed that Scott immediately understood what all great marketing leaders eventually come to understand — which he discusses at length in our video interview. What impressed me, even more was that the insight came from someone seasoned in the data and engineering world as opposed to someone with a marketing background. This further led me to appreciate how Scott has helped transformed his 15-year company from a design-build shop to a company that has a deeper suite of services to help customers expand and increase their digital brand through longevity. 
 
With the warm-up throw done, I began adding some pepper to my next questions; What happens once you get past these talking points? What should organizations be doing to get started? How do they engage in a true customer experience digitally? 
 
Scott obviously didn’t rattle off a checklist, per se, to my questions. Instead, he described his guideline to tackling evolving initiatives by using sound marketing techniques, software, and data. These were the concepts I was hoping to understand from a person that doesn’t just put a plan on a table and gets someone else to execute. Scott explained that his company goes end-to-end on a campaign. He emphasized how important it was to start small, not to be afraid to fail on an event, that it’s about iteration and refinement, and that the right data is key to understanding your customers. It was also crucial not to plan too far ahead so that changes can be made to the software and content strategy. 
 
It was a privilege speaking to Scott; he always has brilliant observations. For fun, I ended our interview by having him respond ‘Fact or Fiction’ to some statements that I was keen to hear his take on. In true Scott Snowden form, he addressed them all intelligently and thoroughly.

1. A GDPR privacy act will become law in the USA in January of 2020.

2. Technology vendors are now strategically aligning themselves to sell tools and services for the marijuana, hemp, and hemp product industry.

3. Wearables will begin to decrease in popularity in the next few years.

4. Vendor, Progress Software, is pushing into the Digital Experience Platform space.

Would you like to hear more from Scott? Progress Sitefinity will be hosting an in-depth webinar on Thursday, November 7th, 2019, where Scott will discuss how he helps his customers and uses Progress Sitefinity’s enterprise digital marketing suite — Digital Experience Cloud.
 
You can join by clicking here.
 

Stephen Medve

Stephen Medve is the Senior Analyst at CMSC Media. For the last 12 years, Stephen has been working as a Sales Consultant and Solution Advisor helping medium, large, and enterprise companies select their backbone IT ecosystems which include ECM, WCM, CRM, and eCommerce and digital marketing platforms.