To help ensure the continuity of our customers

To help ensure the continuity of our customers' perceptions, we need to create consistently pleasant experiences in every interaction each person has, from visiting a Web site or bricks-and-mortar location, to asking for more information, to buying products, to receiving shipments, to interacting with the actual products or services, to asking for help, and so on.

Consider this very important point: People perceive a series of interactions with your organization and offerings as one cohesive experience -- as if everyone and everything represents threads in the same seamless piece of woven fabric.

Customers don't care whether behind the scenes, your business is spread out all over the world, or whether individual departments consist of contractors or employees, earthlings or aliens. Whenever customers call technical support representatives, for example, they expect them to know all about the features advertised on the Web site that are supposed to be in the product.

So, if there is any type of communication disconnect, you might be able to explain it to yourself, but there's no logical explanation for it in your customer's mind.