The question whether our economy is in a recession is a difficult one that not even our smartest economists are able to answer. It is not important whether the worst is already over or is yet to come, businesses are facing challenges to win and retain customers today.

Companies that have systematically built relationships with their customers in the previous years should now tap into the potential that lies within the most potential customers. As AdAge reports, marketers are shifting to programs to keep their core audience, their most loyal and profitable customers.

It is a well known fact, that most of a business’ revenues come only from a small portion of its customers. When times get tougher it is more economically reasonable, to invest to keep these customers loyal. Adam Burke, senior VP Customer Loyalty of Hilton Hotels notes:

Our Honors members tend to be the group that buoys us through a downturn. They are the core audience and tend to stay loyal and sustain the business especially through those downturns.

But the challenge remains that betting on your customer’s loyalty cards is not enough. Differentiated and customized services that match your customers needs are the key to keep them loyal. Focusing on their individual experience will help your business make it through these stormy times.

"It’s important […] to understand that loyalty is not a plastic card. It’s about creating experiences and recognition with programs versus just making it a plastic card inside a wallet. That’s what is next for loyalty."

Read the full article here.

Posted in customer experience, loyalty | Permalink | 1 Comment »

The IBM Institute for Business Value published a report titled "Why advocacy matters to retailers" which identifies the key attributes that turn everyday shoppers  into loyal advocates. The main question is of course: What drives advocacy?

Building customer advocacy is harder than simply meeting customer expectations. In our sample, 78 percent of all consumers said their primary retailer meets their expectations, as compared to 21 percent who are Advocates. Understanding the expectations of customers and their reasons for shopping are simply “table stakes” or qualifiers for “getting it right,” but are not sufficient to transform customers into Advocates.

A retailer’s ability to fulfill customers’ expectations and understand their reasons for shopping simply helps get consumers in the door – it does not turn them into Advocates.

But the essential finding on attributes that drive customer advocacy is this:

It is the shopper’s experience with the store that transforms an existing customer into an Advocate of the retailer or, conversely, into an Antagonist. After meeting customers’ basic needs, fulfilling expectations and understanding their reasons to shop, then retailers can develop advocacy.

The report is based on the results of surveys conducted across five retail segments – grocery, large-format apparel, mall-based specialty apparel, drugstore and online.

The following table shows a summary of key initiatives that help to deliver a customer-focused strategy.

 

Download the full report here.

Posted in customer experience, retail | Permalink | No Comments »

The April issue of UXmatters magazine is out and Dirk Knemeyer has written an article titled “Defining Experience: Clarity Amidst the Jargon“.

The word experience has gained significant traction over the past 15 years. Beginning with the mainstreaming of the term user experience in the software industry and, later, extended to the work of marketing professionals who began thinking about marketing as being experiential, the idea of experience as a focused professional area of endeavor is alive, well, and growing rapidly. However, the more our space grows, the more confused and chaotic is our collective understanding of the meaning of these terms. To try to help clarify this murkiness, I want to share my definitional model for the fields of experience and provide guidelines for the use of various terms.

This is an important step forward towards better definitions of the various terms in the field of designing experiences. After reading the article you will realize that one term is missing: customer experience. Since my blog is titled “The Customer Experience Labs” I feel obliged to add a definition for this term.

Customer Experience refers to all touchpoints people have from the moment they are aware of a need until they have fulfilled the need or reached a certain goal. While Brand Experience offers an “inside-out” perspective with a scope that is defined through the organization’s boundaries, Customer Experience takes an “outside-in” perspective and recognizes that there are more actors (organizations) involved when a customer is striving to reach a certain outcome.

One example:

Imagine you are planing your next flight and you will realize that there are more than a few different actors involved. You might have booked your ticket on a travel website like Expedia (Actor #1). You will have to arrive by train, bus or taxi (Actor #2). After arriving at the airport you have to find your check-in counter, check-in and kill time in one of the restaurants, bars or shops at the airport (Actor #3). When boarding the plane you have the first interaction with the airline (Actor #4) and after landing you interact with the destination airport (Actor #5) and public transportation to reach your destination (Actor #6).

All these interactions with different actors influence the Customer Experience. Organizations that adopt the customer’s point of view and look beyond the current organizational boundaries are able to create truly remarkable experiences. All these independent organizations can optimize their Brand Experience, but only by understanding the overall context in which customers are interacting them, an organization can become an “synchronized” actor in the system and remarkable Customer Experiences can be created.

Is it different from User Experience? Yes, since it is not just one specific design but all the experiences that a user (or customer) has in order to fulfill a need.

Is it different from Brand Experience? Yes, since it is and “outside-in” perspective from the customer’s point of view.

Posted in customer experience, experience design | Permalink | 1 Comment »

Sohrab Vossoughi, Founder and President of ZIBA Design, writes in BusinessWeek that "It’s all About About Experience".

Many businesses understand that being "new" or "different" is no longer a differentiator. Countless companies are elbowing their way to the top with designs that are also "feature-rich" or "patent pending." Innovation in product design has lost its meaning and, therefore, its value.

There is still one frontier that remains wide open: experience innovation. This is the only type of business innovation that is not imitable, nor can it be commoditized, because it is born from the specific needs and desires of your customers and is a unique expression of your company’s DNA. Yet the design of an experience is often overlooked in the rush to market.

Read the full article here.

via [Putting People First]

Posted in customer experience | Permalink | 1 Comment »

In May 2007 Microsoft introduced the concept of “Surface Computing” (see article here) and it has become pretty quiet since then regarding the first installations of this system. Speculations have been that the first installations will be in restaurants, hotels, retail locations or casino resorts but until today no announcements have been made.

Todd Bishop of The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports today that AT&T will be the first company to introduce the Microsoft Surface concept in selected stores and allow customers to experience and learn about latest mobile phones through interactive applications.

The big U.S. wireless provider says its retail customers will be able to place specific mobile phones on Surface’s 30-inch screen to learn about features, accessories and rate plans. They also will be able to compare two phones at a time, and use their hands to navigate a high-tech wireless coverage map.

It will be interesting to see how customers will be using this device and how the shopping experience will change. The big question will be whether it will be an actual support off the customer in his shopping ties or whether it will be merely a “toy” that is fun to play with but not delivering any additional value to the customer.

AT&T wasn’t among the original customers announced by Microsoft, and it initially won’t be tapping the full promise of the Surface machines. For example, customers won’t be able to finish their mobile-phone purchases on the tabletop computer. Microsoft’s prototype applications were more complex — showing, for example, how people could drag digital icons across the tabletop to order food and later split the bill at a restaurant.

“This to me is a fairly limited usage of the device. It’s not all that exciting in some ways,” said analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. “But they (Microsoft) know that they’re late. They’re very conscious of time slipping away, so if somebody has an application ready to go, it’s like, ‘Fine, let’s go with it.’.”

On the other hand it will be important to see the larger rollout of this technology because it will definitely reduce prizes for installations like this and pave the way for broader use in other environments.

Read the full story here.

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