While today’s businesses understand the need to provide an excellent customer experience, many don’t truly understand what customer experience means. What’s more, some don’t even realize they already have most of the things needed to provide a truly great customer experience. 

According to an article published by Which-50, 61% of marketing leaders stated that their company has a CXO (Chief Experience Officer), or equivalent position. This alone illustrates the importance modern businesses place on customer experience. However, according to the article, many are misguided and tend to focus on crafting the experience, when what they should be focusing on is the customer’s needs and wants. The fact is, you can’t create a great customer experience if you don’t know what experience your customers want. 

It’s easy to look at your business operations and decide what experience you think your customers will want. You may, however, be misguided by your knowledge and personal bias. Perhaps you think they want speed, when what they really want is service. Or vice versa. Unless you put the customer first; talk to them, ask them and then truly adopt the what they tell you they want, you’ll never have a great customer experience.  

Having a customer-first business environment doesn’t mean that you neglect the company by putting it second. Rather, a great business knows and fosters an attitude that customers and company are equally as important. They know that they work together.  

While this is all well and good, your dealership can’t jeopardize its livelihood for the sake of customer experience. If you do, you may have the happiest customers in the world staring at the “Out of Business” sign hanging on the door.  

The opposite is just as true in that a dealership completely focused on revenue and the bottom line, with no regard for the customer, will also be forced out of business due to a lack of customers. For any business to thrive and grow, a symbiotic relationship should exist between healthy business revenue and satisfied customers. 

How, then, are you supposed to focus on the customer, while also on your bottom line? Through a deep examination of how your dealership can financially support a great customer experience, and then deliver the experience your customers want.  

Your dealership does not have to build movie theaters to provide a great customer experience. In fact, most great dealerships don’t have anything of the sort. The focus should be on the experience your customers want. Then analyze the tools you already have, along with affordable solutions you can acquire, that will enhance or improve the customer experience. 

By approaching customer experience in this manner, your dealership should be able to create an improved customer experience that is financially sustainable. And that’s the only way for the customer experience to remain consistent.