To hit your goals you need competitive advantage. How can you create strategic advantage in your competitive marketplace where imitating competitors seem to frustrate your efforts to differentiate?
The answer for strategic advantage comes through customer experience.
As entrepreneurial companies that focus on operational excellence, the tendency is to think about driving new operational efficiencies to lower costs. We might also think about launching new products. While these are essential, they can be easily imitated.
The reality is that competitive advantage can be created based on how you deliver your products and services—your customer experience.
In his famous Harvard Business Review article, “What is Strategy”, Michael Porter defines strategic positioning as “the creation of a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities.”
The way your company delivers products and services creates your strategic position. This means that you can create strategic advantage as you transform your buyer experience and customer experience.
Consider Uber. For people wanting to get from point A to point B, taxi cabs were the only option. Through the eyes of a customer, Uber looked at every stage of the buyer experience (finding and waiting for a driver) and the customer experience (riding in the cab and paying). This led them to improve every stage of the experience.
Yes, Uber created an app which drover operational efficiencies, but the app was primarily an enabling technology to make the experience better for the buyer. As a result of strategically positioning their company by improving customer experience, Uber generates almost $1 BILLION in revenue each month!
What do your buyers want? What could you do differently than your rivals at every stage of the buyer experience to create a more strategic position versus your rivals?
In their groundbreaking work, The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore say, “Even the most mundane transactions can be transformed into memorable experiences.”
What could you do to improve your customer experience? What if you applied creativity to each stage of your customer journey from the time a prospect first encounters your company through their entire lifecycle with you?
Michael Porter says, “The essence of strategic positioning is to choose activities that are different from rivals.” What could you do differently to create strategic advantage in your market?
