Vision Report

Experience-Based Differentiation

How To Build Loyalty With Every Interaction

January 2nd, 2007
BT
Bruce Temkin
With contributors:
Harley Manning , Peter Hult

Summary

With more access to information, more sensitivity to price, and less sensitivity to advertising, customers are getting harder to win and keep. Organizations try to woo these empowered consumers with mediocre customer experiences — but it won't work. Firms need to dramatically raise the bar on the customer experience they provide. How? By adopting what Forrester calls Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD). This enterprisewide effort focuses on three principles: obsess about customer needs; reinforce brands with every interaction; and treat customer experience as a competence, not a function. To succeed with EBD, firms must commit to a multi-year journey. That's why firms need to make this one of their top corporate initiatives. We expect EBD to make fast inroads in financial services, healthcare, and travel industries.

Want to read the full report?

Contact us to become a client

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.