They surveyed 137 ‘Customer Intelligence’ professionals with a view to understanding their priorities, plans and budgets.

Previously identified issues and challenges continue to frustrate those surveyed with a lack of a centralized view of their customers still highlighted as a problem.

Emerging in this report though is the number one priority of ‘Improving the Online Customer Experience’.  The report is one of those free ones that are used to grab your personal details so it was short and didn’t expand as to what the respondents might consider a good ‘Customer Experience’ to be.

So let’s think what might constitute a good online ‘Customer Experience’.

At some level, of course, (as any UI designer will tell you) an online experience is all about clear and concise navigation and well structured nested menus on websites. 

There is some truth in this but we’ve got pretty good at this over the last 10 years or so but I do still find some websites frustrating.  I read a tweet from someone a few months ago who said he could quickly and easily find all the names and details of the board members of a bus company in Singapore on their website but couldn’t find out if there was a night bus that ran close to his home.

I think good website navigation, interaction and mapping and all that goes with it is pretty sorted in most cases.  I expect it from websites now and it’s become commoditized in my mind – something that just is.

Some might say that the opportunity to engage with companies and organizations at the various online touch points might go some way to creating a better experience – the company should have a social media presence on Facebook and on Twitter shouldn’t they? 

Well yes, but isn’t this just something we should expect to be the norm nowadays too?

So if you have a great, well-designed website and your Facebook and Twitter pages are all sorted and you even have mobile applications for your products and services how do you get into really understanding what a good online ‘Customer Experience’ really means?

When writing this I was thinking of what Kevin Kelly of Wired said in a recent presentation when he was considering what, on the Internet, has value and lifts it out of the mire of just being something else that can be copied.

Amongst the things he mentioned was the idea of ‘immediacy’.

With the intimacy and the closeness that the online arena now offers consumers this needs to be backed up by an immediacy that we would normally associate with that kind of relationship.

If I transfer that money now it should be immediately reflected in my balance.  I want to book that now and possibly get a better price than booking it this afternoon – I don’t want to email you about it and I certainly don’t want to talk with someone on the phone about it.

If the veneer of front end interfaces and access points provide users with closeness to a brand, that brand must have systems and processes in place that immediately acknowledge and act upon my interactions.

Kelly also mentioned ‘Personalization’ – something I have written about once or twice!

If I visit a website or other online touch point for my bank I don’t want to see the same stuff as someone who is not a customer who might be looking for a reason to move banks.

After 20 years with my bank I have different needs and desires than other customers – I am at a different point in my brand journey.

To recognize this and to tailor and shape online touch points accordingly is powerful and an undeniable contributor to my overall online experience.

There’s an emerging aesthetic consideration too that will increasingly distinguish one online experience from another.

I was listening to the CEO of Flipboard the other day talking about how traditional typesetting and layout is becoming important again with his application.  He talked about how web page development historically took on a technical focus with an emphasis on speed and the amount of data and information. 

With his team he is looking to bring to the fore again more traditional considerations in publishing.

In addition to Flipboard, I have a choice of many RSS readers on my iPad.  In selecting the best experience, the quest is no longer about amounts of data or even the data itself because it’s all the same stuff.

A Good Experience for me is an online interaction where I get some sense that the website or the mobile app or whatever it is understands who I am and is tailoring content, products and services appropriately.

I want to have access to them immediately and when it comes to ‘immediacy’ I would add the notion of location.  My immediacy needs change as I move around.

And if it can all look as beautiful as the Flipboard application, please, then that would be just dandy.