Customer interface

Customer experience management involves five steps. They are:

Step 1: Analyzing the experiential world of the customer
Step 2: Building the experiential platform
Step 3: Designing the brand experience
Step 4: Structuring the customer interface
Step 5: Engaging in continuous experiential innovation

The fourth step is to structure the consumer interface. The consumer interface refers to the dynamic exchange of information in service that occurs between the customer and a company. Structuring the customer interface deals with the following three types of exchanges and interactions:

face-to-face
personal-but-distant
electronic

Technology can improve the interface experience and you should train the right staff. The following three aspects are key for managing the customer interface correctly:

Essence and Flexibility
- Essence and Flexibility describes that it is important "what" is communicated to the customer when a direct contact exists (=customer interface)
- Flexibiliy turns the sales space into a living space; sales staff are considered to be human beings, not robots.

Style and Substance
- Style refers to the manner of expressing the Essence and Flexibility of the interface (e.g. style of a Web Site)
- Substance refers to tangibles associated with it ("how" you communicate)

Timing
- Interface exchanges and interactions extend over time (question of: initiation of contact, frequency of contact and the length of time the contact exists)

Customer interface

See also