You’ve heard the saying, “Experience matters.” This is a popular saying because it’s true! Typically, this applies to experience in the workplace, however, today we want to talk about your customer’s experience.
The experience your customers and stakeholders have with your organization is your brand. Think about that for a minute: are you offering products or services that clearly meet consumer’s needs, either now or in the future? How easy have you made it for your customers to do business with you? Can they purchase online or on their phone? When they interact with your team, is it a pleasant experience or do current policies and procedures make it difficult to provide exceptional service? Do your hours of operation meet your customer’s needs or your own? Have you scaled back to save money, but in the process forced your loyal customers to go elsewhere because your competition is open?
For our municipal clients, this can be a difficult task
Whether you are a city, water district, county or other special district, the experience you provide your stakeholders matters even more, because they don’t have a choice! You are it! So why not make it a great one? Usually, fear is the reason municipalities don’t go above and beyond. Keeping a low profile was once thought of as a safe zone. In today’s well-informed very connected world, nothing could be further from the truth. If you are a municipality, do your very best to make the mandated government processes easy to access and understand (No acronyms here.) 
Walk through the various processes yourself and see how you can streamline them and improve efficiencies. Ask for feedback on the functionality and aesthetics of your website. For some, tourism dollars really impact the bottom line. If you are, or want to be a tourist destination, give your visitors and guests an experience that is both enjoyable and memorable. Make them want to come back for more!
Whether you are small or large, for-profit, non-profit, or public-sector, the experience you provide your stakeholder is truly your value proposition. As Jeff Bezos says, “Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” What are people saying about your brand? When is the last time you asked them? Maybe it is time to ask again.
If you need assistance in asking the questions, assessing your brand or creating a plan on moving forward, call us, we can help.
