Trying to offer a lower price, more features, faster delivery, better service and greater customization at the same time does not create a strategy; it creates a wish list. A distinctive customer experience usually requires trade-offs. Some obstacles should be removed, while others support the value proposition. Marketing and customer service therefore need to distinguish unnecessary friction from constraints without which the brand would lose its differentiation.
“Improve the customer experience” sounds like a safe strategic objective. The problem is that it does not say what the company should do differently from competitors. Better in what? For which customer? And which attributes of the offer is the company willing to sacrifice in order to gain a real advantage elsewhere?
CustomerThink points out that genuine differentiation requires trade-offs. Management would naturally like lower prices, more features, faster delivery, better service, deeper customization and higher margins all at once. That combination is not a strategy. It is a list of competing demands.
It is useful to distinguish two kinds of friction. The first is simply bad. It includes repeated password resets, endless support queues or asking a customer to provide information the company already has. Such obstacles create no value and should disappear.
The second category is strategic friction. CustomerThink cites examples such as IKEA’s self-assembly furniture, Costco’s membership model or a long tasting menu. Objectively, these impose a constraint on the customer. At the same time, they enable the business model and value proposition for which customers choose the brand. If a company removes every step merely because it requires effort, it may also remove part of its differentiation.
This matters for customer teams. A metric such as the number of clicks or time to task completion does not by itself show whether a shorter path is strategically better. In a luxury service, for example, personal consultation may have more value than immediate self-service. In a low-cost offer, standardization may instead be a condition of the price.
Customer experience also tests marketing promises. A company may claim that it is easy to do business with. But if the contract requires a lawyer, implementation takes six months and a simple invoice question travels through three departments, the customer will believe the experience rather than the advertising.
A practical audit therefore should not begin by asking where the customer has to make an effort. Start with the value proposition you want to protect. Then classify each significant friction as necessary, strategically useful or unnecessary.
The goal is not to delight every customer on every parameter. Such an offer often ends up in the middle of the market: good enough at everything but without a strong reason to choose it.
KEY TERMS
- Strategic friction: A customer constraint or effort that is a necessary part of the chosen value proposition.
- Unnecessary friction: An obstacle that creates no value for the customer or the business model.
- Differentiation: A recognizable reason for a customer to prefer one offer over competitors.
- Strategic trade-off: A deliberate decision not to optimize one parameter so the company can excel in another.