Vox: Customer Experience, Retention, and Profitability Consulting

Check your own company out. Do you have CE issues? Where are your biggest issues? What can you do today to make the customer experience a little better?

+ Your Target Customers - 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. Do you know who they are? How about your least profitable customers? Identify the profile of your most profitable customers, then treat them as the key partners they are.

+ Usability/Functionality - Your website looks good but does it give customers what they want, when they want it? Create an environment where customers don't have to think-show them that you've already thought about how they want to use your site.

+ Channels -Operating in silos and neglecting what's good for the customer creates a slew of missed opportunities for integrating, cross-promoting, and building business.

+ Brand Promise - Everything centers on your brand. If you don't have a brand, get one. Not just a logo, but a true statement of what customers can expect your company to deliver. Then stand by it.

+ Customer Communications - Look at your letters, statements, marketing materials-everything you send to your customers. Do they address customer needs or your own? Take the emphasis off of "We at company XYZ ..." and put it where it should be, directly on the customer.

+ Processes - From call centers to customer feedback-it's about setting up processes that work for your customers. Create loyalty by creating support. Whatever makes it easy for customers is what raises bottom-line results for you.

+ Your Employees - If you don't know already, employee turnover and customer turnover goes hand-in-hand. Align employee incentives around customer-centric motives not product-centric ones. And find ways to engage customers at the frontline, not just make a sale.

+ Strategic Goals - What do you want customers to think? How do you want customers to feel? Before you do anything, develop a clear definition of the kind of experience you want customers to have. Align it with your strategic goals. Then rally everyone around it. It won't do you any good if only a handful of employees are onboard with your vision.