Hello, fellow Amorepacific members. The heavy rainfall continues throughout the entire time I'm working on my column. I wish you good health and I hope you stay safe during the summer of 2020 as we go through the unpredictable weather conditions.

At the end of my first column, I explained that the realm of customer experience is expanding every day. Today, I'd like to take a deeper look into what there is in this expanded realm of customer experience. First, according to the below research data, customer experience can be categorized into 'shopping and service experience before making a purchase' and the 'consumption experience of using the product after making a purchase'.

The current scope of customer experience is expanding beyond the above definition, but it still stands as the most basic definition. So, let's take a look at customer experience starting from the above classification. The first is 'shopping & service experience'.

This experience is the experience that happens during when a customer buys a product at a store. It is what we first think of when we think of 'customer experience'. The journey of the shopping & service experience at offline and online stores can be drawn as the below image.

As I look at this diagram, the customer experience journey for online and offline channels seem alike. How does it look to you? Even in two different shopping environments, the agent using both channels are the same 'customer (or person)', and therefore, the process of fulfilling his or her purchasing needs must be similar following a same stream of consciousness.

Under the commonality of this similar journey, both offline and online stores have different strengths and weaknesses. What we should take note of is that these strengths and weaknesses are mutually complementary. Let's take the last step of the journey 'receiving of product' as an example. The delivery of the purchased item to your doorstep is a huge strength of online shopping. If you were to buy the same product offline, you'd have to carry that product yourself. So, a customer would choose shopping online, which has the advantage of delivering the item, if he or she would like to lessen this burden. But there are times you need an item today. In this case, the customer would seek an offline store where he or she can buy the product on the spot rather than making the purchase online, where one would have to wait at least a day for the delivery to arrive.

The modern-day customer shops wisely selecting between the mutually complementing advantages offered by offline and online shopping. The term 'mutually complementary' feels quite positive, but it also means that 'they are not perfect alone and without each other'. Therefore, offline stores strengthen non face-to-face services, while online stores try to significantly reduce delivery time such as by offering next-morning delivery, both continuing to update and upgrade customer experience and maximize customer convenience.

However, as explained above, the advantages and disadvantages of each channel are mutually complementary and are not, in itself, complete or perfect, meaning that we can find an easy solution. If the two channels which complement each other can function together, it would be the perfect shopping environment for customers. In fact, this world of perfect shopping is the near future we face, in the name of 'omnichannel'.

Omnichannel. It is a term we frequently hear, but many of us may still not understand the concept fully. The prefix 'omni-' means 'all', and therefore the concept can be defined as 'a shopping format that combines the mutually complementary advantages of online and offline channels by selectively using the various channels of offline and online'.
Of course, customers today already wisely select between and use both offline and online channels (multi-channel phase). But the future retail will evolve into the omnichannel phase, a further advanced step that allows customers to enjoy the shopping experience that maximizes the advantages of both channels even within one shopping channel. To this end, many companies are making a variety of effort. Examples such as offering customers the service of making the purchase online and picking up the item offline or offline stores with automatic payment systems where customers can just pick an item and leave are some of the early examples of the shopping & service experience of omnichannel we can see today in the evolving retail industry.

Customer experience extends to 'consumption experience', which refers to the experience of using the product, even after making a purchase offline, online or omnichannel.

Consumption experience includes the entire experience from unboxing the packaging after receiving the product to the convenience in using the product container, the fragrance and function of the product, to throwing the product out after using it. Let's take a look at the consumption experience as part of the extension from the previously explained shopping & service experience.

In the past, during times when only offline stores existed, there was a strong tendency to believe that the shopping & service experience is the entire customer experience. At offline channels, the moment of shopping & service experience where stores served customers was the moment that led to sales. So, we focused on the moment when we met our customers. Also, qualitative data like customer response in post-purchase experience was only accumulated as the knowhows of sales staff, and therefore, company-level management of this phase was a faraway concept.

The importance of consumption experience, which was slightly neglected compared to the shopping & service experience in the past, only became significant after the advent of online shopping. That's because the voices of our customers, which were only shared through word of mouth, were now available to companies and even other customers through product reviews and social media.

Consumption experience is important in itself as it defines the impression of the brand and product and can lead to customer loyalty. But now because it leads to follow-up experience that has a significant impact on other customers, consumption experience must be built in a way to be complete within the context of brand and product identity. For example, if a company delivered an image and identity of a product considerate of the environment, but later was found to be non-recyclable or nondegradable when thrown out, or if the packaging was disappointing when a customer bought the product thinking it was of a luxury brand, the company would lose customers' trust.

Customers' impression of the brand and product at the consumption experience phase leads to a follow-up experience that has a huge impact on other customers. This is called the evaluation experience. Let's add this phase as an extension of the previous phase of consumption experience.

This phase is the phase when a customer's opinion of a brand or product, which used to be shared only through word of mouth, now spreads exponentially with the advancement of media. The opinion does not stop at a simple evaluation of whether the product's function was good or not, but also includes the entire customer experience from salesperson's service at the point of purchase, delivery time, after sales service, to even the company's social activities, ultimately leading to building the brand and company's reputation. It is now no exaggeration to say that it defines the success or failure of a company.

Now, shall we add this step of evaluation where the complete customer experience spreads in multiple directions, strengthening existing customers' loyalty, building reputation to impact the experience of other customers and draw the final image of the Customer Experience Journey Cycle?

This column explained a bit more in detail what the individual customer experiences are and how they unfold in order. The final point I'd like to stress is that everyone at Amorepacific, not just the staff working at stores directly serving our customers, is highly related to building customer experience – from designers and marketers who package our brand and product in an amazing way for customers to recognize, manufacturers and researchers who work hard to deliver amazing experience, to UX/UI designers dedicated to delivering a smooth digital experience. Everyone not mentioned in these few examples also contributes to building a great customer experience that is complete.

I'd like to conclude this column asking you to remember that what you do is related to our customer experience, even if your role does not require a direct face to face with our customers.