cx-i

Insights into the online customer experience from Mike Baxter

about cx-i

cx-i stands for insights into the online customer experience. People's online experiences determine the success of e-commerce sites and probably influenced the outcome of the US Election in 2004. This site has regular articles offering insights into the customer experience in online retail, online financial services and online politics.

One of my heart-felt beliefs, which I hope this site might persuade you of, is that it really doesn't matter whether you sell bras or barbeques, PCs or pensions: successful online sales depend upon the creation of usable, informative and persuasive customer experiences. More specifically, there is one set of customer experiences that are conducive to sales and another set that inhibit sales. Most of what I will be publishing on cx-i will be exploring the psychological and marketing research that gives rise to those beliefs and the practical application of that research to the design of online experiences.

My own work on the online customer experience began by focusing on online retail sites - both my analytical work for Online Retail 2004 and most of my consultancy / development work for clients have been in this sector. Over the past few months I have been engaged in a major, long term project for Venda Limited to help them evangelise to clients about the economic value of good customer experience. I developed my concepts from Online Retail 2004 to provide their web developers with resources to understand the online customer experience and meet the challenge of building highly customer-friendly e-commerce sites for a diverse range of clients. When, in March 2005, I was asked to present my ideas to the marketing team at More Th>n, they were convinced that my ideas about the customer experience applied to their market (insurance and credit cards). And so, my work in online financial services began.

But just how widely do ideas about the online customer experience apply? It has been shown that the internet played an important role in last year's American Election and has the potential to play just as big a role in the forthcoming UK General Election 2005. Does e-commerce have anything to teach the political parties about acquiring new 'customers'? I think the evidence is clear - but decide for yourself in the online politics section.