Customer-Centricity Is Mandatory for 2015

Article by Ernan Roman Featured on customerthink.com

For 2015 putting your customer at the center of every strategy and business process will be essential for acquisition, retention and competitive differentiation. No more just talking about it. This coming year, it has to happen.

Here are three tips with examples of companies that are getting it right when it comes to excellence in customer-centricity.

You Want Fans, Not Just Customers
TGI Fridays, recently earned a top spot in the Dunnhumby Customer Centricity Index which noted that when it comes to restaurants, “experience matters as much as the food.” TGI Fridays was recognized for its major differentiator, loyalty. TGI Fridays was also honored in the Loyalty360 Awards.

According to Michelle Malish, Senior Director, Customer Relationship Marketing & Loyalty:

“Fridays is intently focused on ... meeting the needs and desires of our most loyal fans. [We use] member data and insights to enable relevant, multichannel communications that build and sustain engaged relationships, support brand activations, drive incremental traffic, and create brand advocacy… We develop, test, analyze and launch new program benefits and concepts that meet our guests’ needs… Depending upon the marketing program, we may use behavioral and personal profile data to tailor messaging content, copy tone, offer strategy, channel, and contact frequency. Our goal is to deliver memorable guest dining experiences, reward members for their loyalty, inspire social sharing, and create brand fans.”

The company’s Give Me More Stripes loyalty program not only offers rewards but also has a social component that states, “In here there’s plenty to talk about,” and gives fans a platform to share their experiences.

Create an Emotional Attachment to Your Brand
When customers feel a part of the brand they will develop an attachment to the experiences associated with it, and want more. According to a Gallup poll:

“[Consumers are] more inclined to spend with businesses they feel good about… consumers will give more money to the businesses they feel emotionally connected to...the vast majority of customer buying decisions are influenced by emotional factors.”

Noting an emotional connection to their web experience, Norwegian Cruise Lines was recognized by Key Lime Interactive’s Comprehensive User Experience Report for their “Consistently positive emotional experiences … the site significantly outperformed its competitors’ in terms of time spent on the site [which] increased the brand’s perception as ‘entertaining’, ‘appealing’, ‘fun’, and ‘family-oriented’.”

Use Customer Feedback To Make Improvements
ANZ Bank, a top-four international financial services firm, was the recipient of the International Customer Experience Award for “[showing that] service, satisfaction and ROI can improve by listening to customers.”

According to Mark Hand, ANZ Managing Director Retail Distribution:

“Our real-time customer feedback tool… allows us to track the [customer] journey, and then make improvements to our customer experience programs. By collecting insights and feedback at key steps, we’ve improved our conversion rates, responsiveness and communication processes in every way.”

By using real time feedback to improve the customer experience ANZ achieved these results:

• 15 percent increas e in customer experience scores

• Up to 48 percent survey response rates – more than 10 times the industry standard.

Five Takeaways:

1. When you create compelling and competitively differentiating customer value, retention will increase dramatically.

2. Use customer behavioral data and voice of customer insights to drive development of new engagement programs.

3. Use multiple channels and multiple ways of gathering customer insights. Then, tailor messaging around the customer’s journey at every stage.

4. Cultivate fans that want to have a relationship with your brand.

5. Understand the emotional reasons that customers will identify with your products, services and overall brand.

Being customer-centric in your marketing means that you recognize your customers as more than a transaction. You take the time to get to know why they choose your company and then put in place strategies to nurture trust and deliver meaningful brand experiences designed to engage and retain.

3 Questions You Need To Ask Now For 2015 Success

Article by Ernan Roman Featured on CMO.com

Right now is the time to re-evaluate your marketing in terms of the new expectations your customers have developed in the past 6 months. What new insights are they providing regarding what they want—or do not want—from your customer experience, communications and company interactions?

Here are 3 key questions to ask right now. The answers will ensure that you take the smart actions for success in 2015.

1. Are You Ignoring Key Customer Segments? 
You could be missing out on new business because of perceived brand positioning. Take stock at year-end to audit your overall brand message and determine whether it is moving you toward your full potential--or limiting your growth.

Case in point: Buffalo Wings & Rings, a chain of 55-plus sports restaurants in the U.S. and abroad, has spent the past couple of years refining its image and brand appeal to women and families in order to reach a larger universe of customers.

As part of that effort, the brand embarked on a total redesign of its locations. Specific changes included soundproofing the restaurant area to reduce noise from the bar, where sports events are broadcast; adding cushions to seats and benches for more comfort; and relocating games for children away from the front door and the bar area.

In addition, Buffalo Wings revamped it Web site to give customers the ability to interact, get information, and become part of a community. "We wanted to create a new experience for the sports and wings category... Your brand is created by customers and how they use you," said Buffalo Wings chief executive Nader Masadeh. Added Diane Matheson, director of marketing, "[We] wanted to refine the brand and strengthen the concept with a distinct point of view." Results: This year sales have grown 12.5 percent to $72 million. Next year, the company plans to add up to eight new stores in the U.S. and 10 overseas.

2. Are You Communicating Effectively?
Different types of customers have different preferences for communication. Just because you have a communication method available does not mean it’s the best option for your core customers. So pause now to challenge your assumptions regarding content, clarity of communications, sales channels, and preferred customer media. This will provide insights regarding key improvements for 2015.

Also, consider: Per Voice of Customer research conducted by our firm for client MassMutual, the majority of customers indicated that they want proactive and customized communications that are personalized by their needs and life stage.

Case in point: Multibillion-dollar telecom service provider CenturyLink needed to understand why its call centers were receiving such a high call volume. It discovered that its own processes required customers to call multiple times to establish or modify service. To solve this pain point, CenturyLink revamped its processes. It also developed a new system, called Digital Dialogue, to integrate more than 35 disparate systems from multiple communication channels, and transformed the CenturyLink Web site into a seamless self-service experience.

“We’re trying to give customers better information. ... If we can give customers information before they have to ask for it, they feel that we’re having intelligent dialogue with them, and that we’re on top of things,” noted Lindsey Pardun, IT principal architect at CenturyLink. “And if we do need to talk to them, we can have a much more efficient conversation.”

Results: In the first two months after the launch of Digital Dialogue, 187,000 calls were automatically routed to the right agents.  

3. Do You Have An Effective Retention Strategy?
A recent Retention Science study noted that only 23% of marketers track the rate at which customers churn, less than 40% track customer lifetime value, and, not surprisingly, 70% believe their retention marketing efforts are average, poor, or need improvement. In dollars and cents, an Adobe study found that online retailers would double their revenues if they retained 10% of their existing customers. Instead, 80% of marketers were using their digital marketing budgets to acquire new shoppers.

Case in point: Groupon realized that its initial business model of daily deals and a bombardment of email with heavy discounts did not turn out to be a sound strategy. To better retain customers and give them a reason to come back, the company had to rethink its relationship with both its business partners and end-user consumers.

Groupon is now focusing on its online marketplace, reducing reliance on email, and improving relevance. It encourages subscribers to search for deals and explore its marketplace (a pull strategy) instead of relying on email (push strategy).

The company is also creating a tablet-based operating system for merchants called Gnome, which empowers it to improve customer retention by better managing transactions, keeping track of customers to launch specific marketing campaigns, and simplifying the whole process of redemptions.

While the company is not out of the woods yet, its efforts are paying off. Groupon saw 23% revenue growth to $751.6 million in Q2 2014, with a 29% rise in global gross billings. The total active customer count rose by 25% year-on-year during the quarter, with North American customer count rising by 18%. The North American transactions percentage resulting from search was 24% in the third quarter, compared to 9% in the same quarter last year.

TakeawaysThe needs and expectations of your customers are changing with astonishing velocity. Now is the time to:

• Investigate where your missing opportunities are hiding, and develop new strategies and methods of presenting your company to new customers.
• Understand whether your communication avenues are effective and make necessary changes to embrace customer needs and resolve pain points.
• Strengthen your customer-acquisition plan. Don’t rely solely on recruiting new business.

Use these final few weeks of the year to reflect on how much you don't know about customers’ evolving needs and what you must change to maintain relevance and competitive differentiation. Use multiple methods to learn from the voice of your customer and then act on those insights. The wisdom of the customer is unfailingly correct.

Disney Finds Magic In Reciprocity Marketing

A healthy change is taking place: Consumers are demanding that brands engage them in conversations versus one-way blasts.

But for this to be effective, both consumers and marketers have to change previous behaviors.

» Consumers have to recognize that to receive more relevant and personalized communications, offers, and experiences, they need to provide deeper personal or business information.

» Marketers have to recognize that to competitively differentiate, they have to provide significantly more personalized communications, offers, and experiences. However, true personalization is based on much more than traditional transactional data. Marketers must earn the right to collect increasingly deeper levels of preference-based data.

How is this accomplished? With trust. According to the 2014 BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards, “Across categories when considering [a] purchase of a new product, shoppers consider it extremely or very important that it comes from a brand they trust.”

Trust is the basis for obtaining deeper engagement with customers. It is a cycle:

• Trust makes customers receptive to a reciprocity-based exchange of data in order to receive enhanced experiences.

• The improved customer experience reinforces trust.

• That, in turn, enhances trust.

• Now customers are more motivated to provide deeper additional information.

• Marketers can now engage customers in a deeper level of reciprocity-based interaction.

• And the cycle continues, based on ever-deepening personalization and value.

An exciting example of reciprocity-based marketing is Disney’s MagicBand bracelet app. In return for the collection of consumer data, Disney offers guests the ability to “enter the parks, unlock Disney Resort hotel room[s], and buy food and merchandise. Plus, [the] MagicBand gives FastPass+ access to all the experiences selected online.” Users of the band and app can receive an email or text message about availability of reservations or rides noted as being preferred experiences.

In terms of data collection, MagicBands link electronically to an encrypted database of visitor information. The bands contain a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that allows for the collection of intelligence that is coupled with guest input into the My Disney Experience app and Web site (input is voluntary.) All of this data gives Disney valuable information about customer preferences, which are then used to provide high-value experiences.

The Disney value proposition is in sync with findings that have emerged from Relationship Research our firm has conducted regarding what customers expect in a reciprocity-based relationship:

Trust: The marketer can be trusted to deliver on a fundamental brand promise.

Listen: The brand will listen to customers’ needs, suggestions, and concerns.

Deliver: The brand will provide communications and experiences relevant to customers based on their individual preferences.

Key Takeaways

Following are four key takeaways for implementing reciprocity-based marketing strategies:

• It is not customers’ responsibility tell marketers what they want. Marketers must ask--and then respond with reciprocity-based customer experiences based on feedback.

• Competitive differentiation is rooted in the ability to deliver offers, communications, and experiences based on the exchange of deep customer data and preferences.

• Multichannel reciprocity-based marketing addresses the customer experience across all touch points, departments, locations, and company levels.

• A high value, reciprocity-based customer relationship needs to be maintained throughout the life cycle of the customer, not just during the points of initial sale or add-on sales.

7 Game-Changing Marketing Trends To Engage Customers, Build Your Brand

Article by Ernan Roman Featured on CustomerThink.com

Given the need for speed and agility, a critical priority for marketers is to reevaluate your current marketing strategies to determine if they are achieving two key objectives; competitively differentiating your brand and engaging customers across the multichannel mix.

Here are 7 game changing marketing trends you need to consider as you reevaluate your strategies. As you read these trends you’ll see that they address these key customer needs and expectations:

• Empowering the buyer to become an active participant in their experience
• Increasing relevance
• Increasing differentiation and engagement
• Solving problems and needs.

#1 Extreme Creativity

Extreme creativity is now required to help you achieve competitive differentiation in an increasingly cluttered and distracted market.

To target business decision makers and reinforce their message of big technology and big data to increase efficiency, GE used extreme creativity in the form of popular Sci-Fi movies in their “Brilliant machines” campaign. The TV spots use creative approaches to show how GE can solve major problems. GE also launched an innovative social campaign which generated 200,000 social engagements across #GEInstaWalk posts, 3.5 million unique viewers and over 3,000 new followers to the GE account.

#2 New Technology

There is a constant stream of new technology to enhance user experiences at every touch point. What’s key is to understand how your specific customers want to use technology to improve their experience with your brand.

HDFC Bank, winners of the Gartner CRM Excellence award, used technology to unify sales, service, and relationship management processes for a concerted CRM experience across all channels and devices, including branch, internet and mobile banking. This integrated, technology-based solution covered more than 40,000 users and its entire 3400+ branch network. The bottom line is that this new use of technology resulted in many improvements including reducing customer complaints by 30%.

#3 True Personalization

According to the 6th Annual Personalization Consumer Survey “consumers expect and desire personalization throughout their online shopping experience. And, 83% see value in being recognized with personalized experiences across channels.”

LE TOTE, an online shopping platform that launched in 2013 breaks new ground in the online fashion shopping experience through true personalization. The company’s personalization algorithm presents merchandise to each customer based on their supplied personalization elements such as measurements, age, location, as well as the items placed into their online “dream closet.” It has achieved rapid success because it provides a uniquely personalized online shopping experience.

#4 Leveraging the Power of Community

The power of community has taken consumer participation to a whole new level by empowering traditionally passive buyers and turning them into active brand contributors.

A powerful example is Quirky, which provides potential inventors with an online “store” to bring merchandise “made by real people” to audiences of “real people.” The concept of empowering the community to vote on which new product ideas have potential and should go into manufacturing, resonates. This community wants to participate in every facet of the process; from idea to development, marketing and ultimately buying these products. This very active community of over 200,000 people is able to vote, rate, and comment on potential new products.

Other notable community marketing campaigns are Lays, “Do us a Flavor”, Crocs social media contest (to vote on new products) and Sharknado2 ‘s fund raising efforts. All of these work because they actively engage fans by allowing them to become participants in the experience. Additionally, it gives brands relevant consumer insights about market preferences.

#5 Embracing the real customer journey

The path to purchase of your buyer is one that every business needs to understand in order to offer necessary education and a seamless experience. Understanding the path to purchase lets you make it simple and easy for people to do business with you.

Online travel site, TripIt believes that the customer journey is not a series of events, but a continuous experience. “It’s about the journey we’re on with the customer,” director of marketing Elisa Haidt. The company gives customers a way to make real-world journeys easier by organizing a trip into a master itinerary. A recent promotion for customers with one-year anniversaries offered a trial version of the premium version which resulted in a 900 percent increase in adoption because it integrated the buying journey into the fully-rounded customer experience.

#6 Multiscreen communication

Whether BtoB or BtoC, customers are accessing content on a multiple screens. According to new data from Usablenet; mobile traffic to BtoB sites will soon outpace B2C traffic and 52% of business people reported that they are using mobile devices to research products for their businesses.

Microsoft Advertising’s Cross-Screen Engagement study found that 68% of consumers engage in “content grazing,” multi-tasking using several devices at once. This leaves marketers with the challenge of rethinking how they present marketing messages so they deliver a good user experience no matter how the customer is digesting online content.

At this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity the company showcased a campaign by Lexus using Microsoft solutions for a multi-screen consumer experience.

#7 Location based marketing

Though this trend is still somewhat controversial, there is no doubt that location-based marketing is here to stay. The ability to use location to target consumers with messages based on not just who they are, but where they are, opens up tremendous opportunities for marketers.

An innovative example is Livedeal.com a geo-based deal engine that connects merchants and consumers via a mobile marketing platform. The service lets 8,000 restaurants publish over 10,000 deals “real-time” and “instant offers” to nearby consumers, who download the app to use the service. The company recently ran its first media awareness campaign which increased traffic by nearly 250 percent, showing that consumers are warming up to the benefits of sharing their location info in exchange for a discount at a nearby business.

Additionally, many online location-based price comparison services, have embraced the popular consumer trends of location-based mobile shopping as well as the phenomenon of “showrooming” (checking prices on a mobile device while in a brick and mortar location.) RedLaser, lets shoppers access current deals at local stores or scan the product’s barcode, to discover if a better price is close by. This works because rather than being targeted, customers are offering up their location to seek out helpful information.

We live in exciting times. Innovation is marketing’s best friend. We hope you’ll think about how these 7 marketing trends can transform the quality, relevance and ROI of your marketing.

3 Tips for Involving Customers With Your Brand

The Challenge: Companies need to involve customers with their brand by providing emotional connections that drive engagement and purchases.

Here are 3 tips to help you achieve greater brand engagement.

Tip #1: Customers project how they see themselves in your brand attributes.

In an, E-Score study on the Rankings of America’s Top Brands, it was noted that, “a… brand’s attributes and personality can be an extension of how the consumer wants to represent [themselves] and connects to what they expect to achieve from a product or service.”

Tip #2: A purchase is a viewed as a form of self-expression by consumers.

In a study from University of Geneva on Brand Value and the Respective Role of Brand Sensitivity, Situational Involvement and Enduring Involvement it concluded that there is a predominant role in how a customer views their self-expression as it relates to a brand purchase;

• Interaction is a predictor of purchase intent.

• Customers’ situational involvement (linked with anticipated usage) may have a higher impact on the brand purchase intention than the actual perceived value of the product.

Tip #3: There has to be an emotional component to engagement in order for involvement to take place.

It was noted in the International Review of Management and Business Research study, “Investigating the Role of Brand in Forming the Consumer Involvement” that in order to understand consumers’ behavior, knowing the structure of consumer involvement is highly important

• Brand reputation, loyalty, awareness popularity, and perceived quality all have a significant correlation with consumer involvement.

Online retailer, ModCloth has put these key facts into action by developing a customer base that is highly engaged and involved. They have come up with unique strategies for turning customer insights into innovative website features and relevant content;

• CEO Eric Kroger had this to say regarding customer involvement, “Our vision and where we believe the industry is heading is retailers who align behind distinct communities of customers, and those retailers understand those customers better than any other retailer.”

• From the moment that a customer arrives on the site they are invited to become a part of the ModCloth Community.

• ModCloth’s “selfie” gallery on their App (featuring shoppers wearing the company’s clothes) has increased in terms of involvement by 60 percent since it was launched.

• The company announced that it has surpassed  $100 million in annual revenue last year—well over 40% growth year over year—and it largely attributes this success to a focus on the customer and its fostering of a highly involved customer community.

3 Key Takeaways from the strategies ModCloth uses to involve customers:

• Individualized product recommendations based on actual visits and viewed items.

• To strengthen the connections, when shoppers arrive on site from social networks, the retailer displays the product or promotion that prompted the click, while also introducing these visitors to its overall brand. 

• The company makes sure it presents customers with personalized, yet fresh, relevant products and shopping features on every visit to give them a reason to keep coming back.

Burberry's Multichannel Innovation; 3 Tips

The Challenge: What can we learn from a 157-year-old fashion company that’s being called “the world’s most digitally competent luxury brand”? That a multichannel and personalized customer experience is becoming the expected standard among consumers.

Just as high fashion brands have been trendsetters in clothing, they are now trendsetters in multichannel marketing. Global fashion icon, Burberry, launched a program recently that upped the ante on multichannel marketing. Burberry’s Millennial-targeted “Runway Made to Order” campaign allowed viewers from around the world to live stream their Fall fashion show, and purchase and personalize items directly from the runway via a state-of-the-art interactive e-commerce platform.

Key Takeaways for Marketers:

1. Offer a Seamless Multichannel Experience
Burberry’s innovation is truly remarkable. The brand has taken the 2013 Autumn runway show -- traditionally an exclusive event, accessible only in-person -- and spread it across every conceivable digital medium: the show, streamed on Burberry.com and other sites, was the first in history to be broadcast live on Twitter; purchases through Runway Made to Order are accompanied by Smartphone-compatible product videos upon delivery; the live stream was accompanied by an Instagram feed showing close-ups of the products as they hit the runway, and a dozen digital cameras photographed handbags and shoes to be turned into an ‘accessories-only’ Facebook photo album.

Burberry has long been on the forefront of digital; but now, as marketers struggle to create a valuable customer experience across many seemingly disparate channels, Burberry shows us just how seamless it can all be.

2. Make it Personal
The ability to order products the moment they’re debuted is impressive enough; but, Burberry has added to this ability a highly-personalized touch.

Upon adding an item to an online shopping bag, customers are immediately informed that their purchase can be “customized with a bespoke nameplate and smart personalisation technology.” Orders are placed with the promise that a Burberry rep will soon reach out to the purchaser personally to ‘confirm requirements.’

3. Adapt Proven Tactics to the New Integrated Multichannel Mix
In a modern twist on product placement, Burberry, according to the recent New York Times article, supplies A-list celebs with key items in order to capitalize on the many active fashion bloggers and social media followers. By not limiting its presence to digital alone, Burberry applies the ‘influencer’ tactic to traditional media, using print and video advertisements featuring British actress, Gabriella Wilde.

The lesson: for maximum brand building, impact, and revenue, deploy a seamlessly integrated multichannel mix.