The Customer Experience

Few companies understand the power of the Web better than Dell Computer. It began selling products online in July 1996. It now gets 2 million Web visits per week and does 30% of its business via the Web. That's $18 million worth of hardware, software, and accessories per day. Dell's Premier Pages -- customized sites for thousands of business accounts -- are reinventing how Dell sells products to corporate customers. So when Michael Dell and his colleagues declare that three words hold the key to their company's future, and that these words will determine who wins and who loses in the next round of Web competition, it pays to ask a simple question: What are those three words?

Visit Dell's headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, outside of Austin, and you can't miss them. Nearly every bulletin board in every office has a sign that reads "The Customer Experience: Own It." Hanging above a set of cubicles -- home to employees who sell computers to government accounts -- is a gift-wrapped box labeled "the 'Customer Experience.' " That label serves as a reminder that at Dell, bonuses and profit sharing are tied to what those three words signify. Thousands of employees wear a laminated photo ID around their neck that spells out the Dell mission: "To be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve."

The customer experience. Building a great company on the Web isn't about "aggregating eyeballs," "increasing stickiness," or embracing any of the other slogans that masquerade as strategy. It's about rethinking the most basic relationship in business: the one between you and your customers. How well do you meet their needs? How smoothly do you solve their problems? How quickly do you anticipate what they'll want next? The real promise of the Web is a once-and-for-all transfer of power: Consumers and business customers will get what they want -- when and how they want it, and even at the price they want. Jerry Gregoire, 47, chief information officer at Dell, puts it this way: "The customer experience is the next competitive battleground."

What is the customer experience? "It's the sum total of the interactions that a customer has with a company's products, people, and processes," says Richard Owen, 34, vice president of Dell online worldwide. "It goes from the moment when customers see an ad to the moment when they accept delivery of a product -- and beyond. Sure, we want people to think that our computers are great. But what matters is the totality of customers' experiences with us: talking with our call-center representatives, visiting our Web site, buying a PC, owning a PC. The customer experience reflects all of those interactions."

Dell doesn't claim to have discovered all of the elements that create a definitive customer experience. Indeed, 16 months ago, the company formed the Customer Experience Council, a group that is scrutinizing every aspect of how Dell interacts with customers. A handful of other Net companies are operating on the cutting edge. At Furniture.com Inc., a Web retailer based in Framingham, Massachusetts, delivering a great customer experience means addressing the limitations that come with buying furniture at a store. At Biztravel.com Inc., a great customer experience means offering only those features that are of value to frequent business travelers. At Gap Inc. Direct, the Web arm of the popular clothing retailer, delivering a great experience means translating the value of the Gap brand from the physical world to the virtual world.

What follows is a summary of the best practices developed by these four customer-experience innovators. Together, they form a lesson plan for the next stage of Web-based competition. "Online, you don't differentiate yourself by what you sell," argues Jeffrey F. Rayport, a professor at Harvard Business School and the executive director of Marketspace Center, the e-commerce division of Monitor Co., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "You have to differentiate yourself by how you sell -- by the experiences that you create around finding, trying, and purchasing. In the actual world, providing a bad experience is damaging. But people will keep going to the same supermarket, because it's on the way home. On the Web, a bad customer experience can be fatal."

Furniture.com -- Even Better than the Real Thing

It's awfully convenient to buy books from Amazon.com. But surfing the Web still can't compare with spending a lazy Sunday afternoon browsing in a bookstore. It's often cheaper to buy music at CDNow. But if you want to see the new hip-hop styles, or the latest developments in body piercing, nothing beats a late-night trip to Tower Records. There is still something satisfying about shopping for products that you want in retail environments that you enjoy.