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Category: Analytics

Microservices on Amazon Web Services – Event Agenda

Posted on by Neosperience Team

Microservices on Amazon Web Services: this is the main topic of the first workshop on microservices architectures based on AWS services, organized by Neosperience in partnership with Amazon Web Services and Zero12.

The event is co-organized and hosted by the Politecnico di Milano, as part of the European project PEGASO - Fit 4 Future. It is not just a technical meeting, but also an important opportunity for experts and managers to discuss and analyze a critical topic in the age of digital disruption. The event is scheduled for Thursday, May 14th 2015.

The workshop aims at examining in depth the microservices architectures, with regard to the role of database as decoupling factor. This specific topic will be analyzed depicting scenarios that include Amazon DynamoDb (NOSQL), RDS (Relational) and MongoDb (NOSQL).

Dario Melpignano, CEO of Neosperience, will open the conference presenting the agenda and summing up the topics that will be discussed during the day. Ian Meyers will represent Amazon Web Services as Principal Solutions Architect, specialized in Big Data and High Performance Computing.

The workshop will report real use-cases including PEGASO – Fit 4 Future, the European research project that aims at promoting a sustainable change towards healthy lifestyles for teenagers, along with the technical elements and best practices to offer both a business and technical context that will describe integrations and designs, to explore different approaches to software architectures and Big Data analysis.

Here's the detailed schedule of the day:

09.30 – 10.00 Registration

10.00 – 10.15 Welcome message and presentation of the agenda (Dario Melpignano, CEO of Neosperience)

10.15 – 10.30 POLIMI and AWS

10.30 – 11.00 Introduction to Microservices on AWS

11.00 – 11.30 Break

11.30 – 12.30 Microservices with Amazon RDS (Neosperience)

12:30 – 13:30 Break (lunch)

13:30 – 14:30 DynamoDb: in-depth analysis

14:30 – 15:30 Integration between MongoDB and AWS (Zero12)

15:30 – 16:00 Break

16:00 – 16:30 Big Data architectures on AWS

16.30 – 17.00 Q&A

Participation to the event is open and free, but subject to registration. 

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The 7 Deadly Sins of a Bad Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

unhappy

Easter is near. It’s time to review all you have done in the past months, to understand if you're close to your goals and what went wrong during the journey. We all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We’re talking about digital customer experience, of course. Let’s get spiritual, then, and see the 7 deadly sins of a bad customer experience. Have you committed an unpardonable sin?

Deadly sins are not just like all other errors. Commit them and it will be dramatically hard to recover. Metaphors aside, customer experience management is a science governed by laws that you can only ignore at your peril. Do it and you will soon pay the price. One number says it all: 89% of customers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing a poor experience (Salesforce).

This is even more true in the so-called Age of the Customer, where your brand image is shaped not just by the quality of what you produce or sell, but also - and above all - by the ability to build a compelling experience for your customers. Your digital marketing efforts, therefore, should aim at involving your clients across all channels of the journey map, taking advantage of new technologies to create a profitable connection between you and them.

While the sins of a bad customer experience may not be as detrimental as the original deadly sins, they could be likewise costly. They can make you the first choice in customer’s mind and decide if you can still keep the pace with digital transformation. Engagement, loyalty and repeat sales: they all depend on whether you can avoid - or fix - the following deadly sins.

NO CUSTOMER-CENTRIC VISION

The digital disruption has caused an evolution from passive consumers to demanding and informed customers. In the Age of the Customer, the experience is considered at least as important as the product or the brand itself. “Everything starts with the customer”, to say it with the alleged words of Louis XIV.

The secret of a real customer-centric company lies in the ability to adopt a proactive approach and predict how clients' needs and desires will change as a result of technological innovation. Success only comes when customers become the core of your strategy.

NO OMNI-CHANNEL STRATEGY

Customers, involved in a mobile ecosystem, experience brands and products across different touch points, online and offline. In their purchase process they value the word-of-mouth but look for information on their devices (smartphone, tablet and soon smartwatch).

As a result, they don't live into one channel alone, and expect that you are able to engage them wherever they are, whenever they need it, whatever point of contact they are using. Thus, customer journey mapping becomes critical to understand in which ways people interact with brands and how to connect with them efficiently.

NO MOBILE-FIRST PRESENCE

Long gone are the days when mobile was 'just' a new way of communication, with no marketing purpose. The mobile disruption is rebooting the purchase process and - consequently - marketing and sales funnels. The smartphone is now the first reference for product and service information: if your brand is not mobile-savvy, more than likely it won't be considered among their top choices.

Not being mobile is like not being at all. Still, too many companies fail to evolve with the times, while costumers run towards the future to become more and more empowered. The digital transformation requires that a mobile-first (if not mobile-only) attitude is the standard: a modus operandi, not a goal.

NO EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

According to recent studies, today companies spend over 720 million dollars each year on employee engagement programs. This figure is destined to rise to over $1.5 billion in the next few years (Bersin & Associates), yet actual engagement falls down to a mere 13% (Gallup).

Digital leaders understand the importance of involving employees into their strategies because “the entire service-profit chain begins with, and absolutely depends on, engaged employees” (Brian Solis). The real 'inner sin' occurs when: there are no shared vision and objectives; you still rely on a top down execution; you fail to deliver core values into an amazing customer experience.

NO PROACTIVE APPROACH

The emergence of powerful devices (virtual reality and iBeacon, to name two) forces all businesses to adopt different approaches to overcome the challenge of innovation. At the same time, brands can profit from the astonishing amount of data produced by technology and behaviors. Data about markets, competitors and - most of all - customers. A shapeless mass that they must learn to scan and transform into useful insights.

Once you know how to deal with the big data phenomenon, you will unlock the huge opportunities of a proactive approach to customer experience. Being proactive, you will be able to control the situation - acting rather than reacting -, to understand customers' needs, and to anticipate their questions and doubts before they even happen.

NO LOYALTY STRATEGY

Single sales by new clients or repeat sales by devoted customers: What do you value the most? Far from saying that acquisition is not important, statistics prove that customer retention is way more crucial to succeed in the long term. One for all: the probability of selling to an existing client lies between 60 and 70%, but the probability of selling to a new customer is no more than 20%.

If the acquisition costs on average 6 times more than retention, it's easy to see why more and more brands are investing time and budgets in loyalty-focused programs and gamification mechanics. When customers can choose from thousands suppliers from all over the world, you must conquer their heart and mind to an enduring success.

NO LISTENING METHOD

Last but not least, a method sin: too many companies still assume that their relationship with customers is a top-down one-way communication. They think that customer service is separated from all other business functions and that they are in charge of the brand image. This may have been true in the pre-Internet era, but today things are completely different.

Your top priority, on the contrary, should be to listen and understand what customers think and want. Remember: they know you better than you do. Social media and real-time messaging make the perfect tool to foster the necessary two-ways communication and inside-out dynamics.

And yes, probably there are more than just 7 deadly sins for digital customer experience, but we think these are the most harmful for your marketing strategy health. It’s not too late, though, to regret and make amend: abandon the wrong way and you will finally offer a better experience.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: 10 Reasons Why You Offer A Faulty Experience To Mobile Customers

The improvement of customer experience management is the reason why we crafted the DCX 7-Steps Checklist, a useful guide with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation. You can download the free paper here:

Get the DCX 7-Steps Checklist
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4 Email Marketing Trends That Will Affect Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

email-marketing

In the mobile era, you may think that Emails have lost their marketing appeal, but that is far from being true. Email Marketing is still considered one of the most important digital marketing techniques available, and competes with paid search for the highest ROI and budget volumes.

Traditional Email tactics, however, today don't work like they used to, and that’s a huge problem since they are meant to build customer loyalty and trust. There are few trends, though, that will soon change how you do plan your Emails and the digital customer experience.

Email marketing as we know it is - to all intents and purposes - the digital son of direct mail marketing. But the difference is evident: while direct mail was a world on its own, often separated from all other marketing tools, the Email must be considered as part of a more complex digital customer journey. And mobile devices only make it more urgent to find the point of convergence between the physical and digital engagement.

FROM OUTBOUND TO INBOUND

The Email is the essence of outbound activities: subscribe, download, contact us, sign up, don’t lose your change, exclusive offer; these are common call to actions delivered daily to your inbox, whether you are an unknown user or a potential lead. This may still work for the law of large numbers, but inbound marketing in the Age of the Customer needs a sharper attitude.

As smartphones and tablets increasingly replace desktop computers as the primary channel customers use to search for information about products and services, Emails are forced to move to a responsive design that works across all devices. This evolution has encouraged the focus on context and great visuals, the same rules that preside over the success of push notifications.

THE RELEVANCE OF EMAIL

In the mobile era, customers are less willing to waste their time reading worthless advertising and generic messages, not tailored to answer to their specific needs and desires. Years and years of massive untargeted campaigns have brought to an overcrowding that forces brands into a struggle to draw customer attention and make their voice stand out.

As a result of this flow of irrelevant marketing messages, the opening rates are steadily decreasing, and marketers need to rethink the whole concept of Email marketing, embracing the mobile world and taking advantage of disruptive technologies. A plain call to action, magnificently written it may be, is not enough to attract prospects and engage with customers, particularly those in the first stages of the conversion path.

transactionalemail

INTERACTION & TRANSACTION

In the last few years, we have witnessed the emergence of an advanced type of online mail communication, called transactional Email. Deeply rooted in permission and inbound marketing, they already are one of the most powerful tools in the hands of digital marketers. One statistic says it all: they have an average of 50% open rate, compared with the scarce 30% of traditional newsletter and cold Emails.

Higher conversion rates originate from the very nature of transactionals, triggered based on a previous customer’s action with a brand. Their aim is "to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transactions that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender" (Wikipedia). They are perfect to improve engagement and enhance the connection with customers, enabling the company to anticipate needs and wants - raising sales in the process.

4 EMAIL MARKETING TRENDS

The customer experience management is direct consequence of the technological innovation: tools and devices change the way clients and brand communicate and relate to each other. Being the Email crucial part of the customer journey map, the following trends will have a great impact on how you build your digital customer experience.

  • iBeacon - proximity marketing is the answer to the prayers of those looking for a tool to connect the digital and physical experience. The iBeacon is considered one of the top inventions that will revolutionize retail customer experience, and - with geolocalization - can also drive new approaches for Email marketing.
  • Wearables - the next step of mobile marketing will bring to a full integration of the wearable technology and Email engagement. Google is already planning a wearable-ready Gmail design for Android devices, and the Apple Watch already allows users to have basic interactions within the message.
  • Personalization - customized contents motivate the customer to take up the call to action you have defined. It’s a fact that we are moving towards an hyper-personalized marketing, where messages are not only context-aware but also - and above all - build to meet the expectation of the single recipient.
  • Predictive analysis - the spread of new mobile devices and the ability to track and locate will enable companies to gather information about their customers, in ways that we could only imagine before. Transactional Emails are just one example of how a previous customer behavior can trigger targeted and relevant messages across all devices.

In the digital era, Email marketing only makes sense when considered in the broader picture of the inbound methodology, a non-interruption process where customers take center stage and we say - finally - goodbye to old push and spam tactics.

As practical advice: if you want to connect with your customers 
in a whole new way discover Neosperience Engage, the end-to-end mobile marketing solution to turn on smartphones like magic and deliver personalized experiences to customers close to, or inside the store.

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5 Laws of Inbound Marketing To Improve Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

inboundmarketing

We all know that the inner workings of the world is ruled by widely accepted laws. A scientific law is the description of an observed phenomenon, supported by a large amount of empirical data. The same with the laws of customer experience, deeply rooted in numbers and statistics.

To understand clients, build your inbound marketing strategy and improve customer experience for the digital era, you have to consider this set of fundamental truths about how the Age of the Customer works.

The rise of new economies and markets, coupled with the spread of the Internet and mobile technologies, has caused an unexpected twisting in the global scenario. Customers have changed their skin, evolving into a 3.0 upgraded version, more demanding and extremely hard to please; brands, as a consequence, have been forced to reassess their vision and adapt their strategy for the new leading character.

The main difference between pre-Internet and post-Internet marketing lies in the focus of the overall strategy: where we could find the product - until few years ago - now we see the customer. In order to attract potential customers and engage with those that already know your brand, you need to switch from a push strategy to an attraction strategy. From outbound to inbound marketing, from interruption to experience.

The inbound methodology is well described by Hubspot as the process of empowering customers and becoming the best resource they can find in the purchase decision. A 4 steps journey that brings users from strangers to promoters, in a looping circle:

ATTRACT ---> CONVERT ---> CLOSE ---> DELIGHT

A project plan, though, is not enough to ensure a real change. Like any other science, digital customer experience management derives from data analysis, that should be inherent to every single step of the customer journey map. Give the premise, the inbound strategy creation starts from few simple - yet sometimes overlooked - laws of customer experience.

LISTEN, LEARN & UNDERSTAND

The times of a non-stopping sequence of commercials pushed from above are now over. If you spread your message without knowing who you're talking to, you will have to face a higher margin of error and a total lack of emotional engagement. Your experience needs to be designed for individuals, and the voice of your customer becomes crucial. Listen before talking, understand needs and desires and shape your content accordingly.

SHIFT TO CUSTOMER CENTRALITY

After decades of 'Ego marketing', all companies must face the naked truth: your customers know you better than you do. It means that your old brand-centric marketing strategy will not work efficiently with instinctively self-centered people. The fight for the balance of power has reached an unsuspected plot twist: customers now look for compelling experiences, and if you 'just' offer a useful product you won't gain any competitive advantage in business.

DON'T LOSE YOUR EMPLOYEES

The rule is: unengaged employees jeopardize customer engagement. As the Starbucks loyalty case study teaches, the first step to create an amazing experience for clients is to involve your employees. Their dissatisfaction will ultimately impact on the service you deliver: “the entire service-profit chain begins with, and absolutely depends on, engaged employees” (cit. Brian Solis). Three keywords for employee engagement: share, communicate, involve.

STAY HUNGRY, STAY PROACTIVE

The fourth law of inbound marketing could be summed up in one plain sentence: never ever settle for what you have already accomplished. In an fast-changing scenario, where customers set the rules of engagement, the worst thing you could do is to think that you don't need to evolve and move with the times. To quote the well-known motto by Steve Jobs, "stay hungry, stay foolish". Don't be scared to try new solutions and technologies, and opt for a proactive approach.

DON'T DROP ANY CHANNEL

For customers born and grown-up in a mobile ecosystem, life is a sequence of online moments built across different touch points. The customer journey map becomes mandatory to understand how clients connect with your brand and product. The last - but not least - law of inbound attraction is to think and act omni-channel, to offer consistent, personalized and seamless experiences online and in-store. Drop a channel, forget a device and customers will say goodbye!.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: 5 Reasons Why Customer Experience Is More Critical Than Your Brand

As practical advice: if you want to connect with your customers 
in a whole new way discover Neosperience Engage, the end-to-end mobile marketing solution to turn on smartphones like magic and deliver personalized experiences to customers close to, or inside the store.

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How Industrial Internet of Things Will Transform Business & Customers

Posted on by Neosperience Team

industrialinternetofthings

There is no doubt that the Internet of Things has become the cornerstone of all research turmoils these days. The intercommunication of smart objects and machines is meant to change the way companies deliver products and build experiences for their customers.

But it will also arguably become the biggest driver of growth in the next decade, reinventing industry sectors in the name of automation and efficiency. Are you ready for the Industrial Internet of Things?

Accenture recently sent out a report dedicated to this new trend in technology, explaining that the Industrial Internet of Things is the force that could help companies and governments to overcome this time of economic uncertainty. This is the starting point for a journey map centered around the customer and extended to embrace the future of production and distribution in advanced economies.

Customer Experience and the Internet of Things

The major consequence of the Internet of Things evolution involves the relationship between brands and customers, and that’s why the majority of analysts have focused on retail customer experience. It’s not by coincidence that we have recently included the I-o-T in the top 10 disruptive technology trends that will shape the digital customer experience evolution. Gartner has also considered it in the list of top 10 technology trends that companies will have face from 2015 on.

Of all the multiple touch points made possible by the mobile disruption, those related to the communication between objects (without human intervention) are - without any doubt - the most promising for your proximity marketing and engagement strategy. The implementation of processes run by the Internet of Things, in fact, will allow brands to reinvent loyalty through:

  • Personalized content - i.e. iBeacon;

  • Real-time promotions - i.e. push notifications;

  • Location based offers - discounts and advertising;

  • Tailor-made products - i.e. mass personalization;

  • Innovative payment methods - i.e. Apple Pay;

  • Gamification mechanics - i.e. wearables.

What is the Industrial Internet of Things?

The Internet of Things, then, has draw attention for its consequences on retail customer experience and its deep impact on your customer experience management. If we move our focus from end users to production and sales management, there we will find the so-called Industrial Internet of Things. We can consider it the ‘zero level’ of this transformation, that involves the way companies imagine, design, produce and sell their products.

It can be defined as a "fast-growing network of intelligent connected devices, machines and objects". Devices that, according to Forbes:

  1. Have local intelligence;

  2. Have a shared API so they can speak with each other in a useful way;

  3. Push and pull status and command information from the networked world.

Accenture explains that the automation will boost the gross domestic product of 20 of the world’s largest economies to 14.2 trillion dollars by 2030. The real question, then, is: are entrepreneurs and governments ready to take all actions needed? Would they accept and adopt the Internet of Things while still struggling to fully embrace mobile-first & mobile-only plans and digital technologies?

The answer is open to further discussion. All entrepreneurs and marketers are well-aware of the importance of the I-o-T as a key factor for success but many - too many - still trail behind the technology pace: 73% say they are still thinking about whether or not they should invest in the Internet of Things and how they could adopt it. Just 7% of companies have already developed a complete strategy with specific investments. The main cause of this delay lies in the lack of adequate digital knowledge and the fear of radical change in how they do business.

Get ready for the Industrial Internet of Things

 

Accenture has identified three areas that companies need to address to scale the adoption of automation:
  • Re-imagine industry models: companies will have to redesign their organizations and operating models, to get closer to customers, improve efficiency and create amazing journeys.
  • Capitalize on the value of data: companies will need to generate insights from information collected by physical objects, converting big data into marketing actions.
  • Prepare for the future of work: will the adoption of automation mean the end of workforce? Not yet! Employee engagement will become crucial and new organizational structures will allow workers to collaborate more creatively.

The main takeaway here is: the Industrial I-o-T will accelerate the reinvention of industry sectors that account for almost two-thirds of world output. Are you prepared to take full advantage of this opportunity? Are you striving to capture all benefits and avoid pitfalls? To redesign your organization is to redesign your digital customer experience, and the Internet of Things will have deep effects on both, whether you like it or not.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: How To Use Big Data To Enhance Your Digital Customer Experience

To help you ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, learn about the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation.

 

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Retail Marketing Strategy: 5 Steps To Renew Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

customers_everywhere

If you are running a retail company - whether bricks and mortar or online - you are probably already dealing with the digital transformation, a transition that involves business models, technology and - ultimately - the way you think and act. Your client is the most important person in your business: this is the undeniable fact that drives this change and forces you to rethink your retail marketing strategy.

A truly customer-oriented retailer is the one that has all the resources - not just the budget - to build a solid connection with customers, empowered by new technologies and mobile devices. How many companies are ready to embrace this challenge? A recent study from SDL and Econsultancy noticed that:

“retailers are overwhelmed by the complexity of data, technology and understanding of the customer journey, (...) acutely aware of their technological shortfalls when it comes to creating a seamless, personalized customer experience across multiple channels.”

We are way beyond the stage where retailers still debate the importance of customer experience management. The evolution of markets, competitors and - above all - customers has forced brands to revolutionize their strategies, rebuild the overall idea of store and rewrite the customer experience map.

What does this mean for your strategy? In a few words, that any action you plan and execute must start and end with the customer. This path is swiftly becoming mandatory but, between saying and doing, there lies an ocean full of doubts and questions. We come to the aid of all retailers, tracing the 5 steps to adapt retail marketing strategy and the approach to digital customer experience.

  • Start with the customer - given the premise, the first step to renew your strategy can only be the focus on customers. We have entered the Age of the Customer, where clients are not just the primary source of your revenues; they are the ultimate source of your meaning. Identify your buyer persona and be sure that everything you do revolves around them. Product and service customization is a rising trend in markets made flat by the homogenization.

  • Retail is detail - this is one of the most famous principles in retailing. 'Oldie but a goldie', it tells an indelible truth: success lies in how much detailed is your knowledge of customers. The emergence of big data platforms and proximity marketing tools (iBeacon, Geo-Fencing, Internet of Things) help you personalize the shopping experience and improve the buyer's journey across all touch points and devices.

  • The journey above the 4 P’s - for decades, retailers have built their strategies on the certainty that the 4 P's were the foundations of business: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In the era of mobile-mind shift, we now know that there is one key factor that traditional funnels guiltily ignore: the experience. The journey has become the main brand differentiator, because today people demand compelling experience, not just functional products.

  • From brick to byte: the Internet is already the primary source of product information. The purchase decision is influenced by your online presence ... if you have one. Today, 'store' doesn't mean just brick-and-mortar, and retailers need to grow both in the digital and the physical world. Omni-channel commerce, mobile service and social media connections are just few examples of the importance of the passage from brick to bytes.

  • Big data drive big sales: new technologies mean new opportunities to gather information about competitors and customers. Smartphones, wearables, push notifications, and geolocation generate an indistinct stack of data, that could help you guide the customer along the purchase path. To make better strategic decisions and increase sales, you must convert numbers into reliable insights: big data mining and web analytics work better together and thus become necessary tools.

Retailers are well-aware that they must work to improve service to stay in business. The debate between customer acquisition and customer retention in blurring: social media, smartphones, wearables, proximity marketing are pushing the boundaries of retail forward. At the end, the difference between retail and e-retail is destined to disappear, and the key to success will be the ability to rebuild customer experience for the digital era.

If you want to know more about the wind of change driving retail to the new era, check the following articles:

5 Online Retail Marketing Tips To Improve Customer Experience

Why Mobile Will Help Improve Retail Customer Experience

Top 5 Technologies That Will Change Retail Customer Experience

As practical advice: if you want to connect with your customers 
in a whole new way discover Neosperience Engage, the end-to-end mobile marketing solution to turn on smartphones like magic and deliver personalized experiences to customers close to, or inside the store.
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5 Reasons Why You Need To Improve Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

improve_customer_experience

Face the truth: your customers know you and your product/service better than you do. So, if you still rely just on price or big budgets to earn their trust, you will always leave out one key factor: the customer experience. And this trend will only accelerate. If you try to swim against the tide, you will find out - probably too late - that the world around you has evolved and you’ve been left behind. Ready for a change? There are at least 5 reasons why you need to improve customer experience.

In our world, shaped by mobile technologies, customers ... they don’t necessarily need 'you'. When they search for a specific product, they can now choose from a potentially infinite set of suppliers from all over the world. Why should they pick you out? Product quality standards are higher than ever, and price is not the main brand differentiator anymore. Plus, they could probably find a better deal somewhere else. So what's the essence of success in a landscape so uncertain? Experience is the keyword you're looking for.

Technology disruption has empowered people, with the result that the market balance has tilted in favor of the customer. A customer-centric strategy becomes mandatory, provided that it does not translates just into discounts/coupons but an overall renovation of the way you think and act. There are multiple steps that guide this process and enable the outcomes your customers demand. While by no means an all-inclusive list, here are 5 reasons why you should improve customer experience, starting right now.

  1. Your competitor is already doing it: the fact that you’re not investing in customer experience doesn’t mean that your competitor is not either. A recent research by consulting firm MarketsAndMarkets states that ‘customers experience management' will be worth 8.39 billion dollars by 2019. Odd if you think that, no later than 10 years ago, this Google keyword search string didn’t even existed.

  1. Physical and digital blend in: today, brands are well-aware that client life cycle can’t be reduced just to the physical environment they’re submerged in. The emergence of game-changing devices - from smartphones to wearables to virtual reality headsets - is merging digital and physical, shaping a new reality where the customer is able to experience both at the same time.

  1. Experience is the real deal: since experience replaces price as the key factor to stay top of mind, strategic focus will increasingly be on the design of that bridge that connects clients and brands. The customer journey map becomes a necessary tool to understand how people interact with your product, in-store and online. This will function as a qualitative and quantitative filter for your decisioning process, guiding you to make better decisions in a proactive approach to customer engagement.

  1. Customers want personalization: when dealing with smart, connected customers, personalization is not just an option. It is the very future of the shopping experience. Combining the knowledge supplied by big data mining with proximity marketing technologies (iBeacon, push notifications, geo-fencing), companies are now able to truly know their customers, and tailor-make contents and offers to better meet their individual needs and wants.

  1. Emotions become critical: in an age shaped by technologies, where objects communicate without human intervention (Internet of Things), customers ask for a deeper and meaningful relationship with brands. Neuromarketing studies confirm the emotional connection you build with your client and employee is the key driver of engagement and loyalty. This is true for any industry, but most of all for luxury & fashion firms investing in their sense of exclusivity.

Empowered customers demand a compelling connection with your brand, a seamless journey across all channels and touch points, an easy and fast conversion path: in one word, an amazing digital customer experience. This is the answer to understand why customer experience managament has become so critical to head out on the long path of digital transformation.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: 7 Powerful Stats That'll Make You Better At Customer Experience

To help you ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, learn about the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation.

Get the DCX 7-Steps Checklist
Receive updates from Neosperience:

Why Proactive Approach is Key to Improve Digital Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

proactive_approach

“Every day we are saying ‘How can we keep this customer happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this?’ … Because if we don’t, somebody else will”. This is one of the most popular customer experience quotes. In few words Bill Gates is able to sum up the deepest essence of digital transformation in hyper-competitive markets: a proactive approach is necessary to understand people’s needs and improve digital customer experience using innovation.

Being proactive means controlling the situation by causing action rather than waiting to just respond to what happens. Proactivity is not proof through conjectures. It is not a guessing game, at least not today. Thanks to big data and analytics platforms, digital customer experience planning is a balanced prediction. You have now lots of metrics to measure engagement and satisfaction, and lots of data to map the customer journey and localize areas for improvement.

In business, being proactive provides you with the ability to assume your customers’ point of view to understand how they live the relationship with your brand, across all physical and digital touch points. When dealing with clients of the Age of the Customer, this outward perspective is the only way to realize that the journey is at least as important as the result - product or service delivered. And sometimes even more important.

It’s not just what you do, but also how fast and easily you do it: customers now expect that you are able to respond to their needs everywhere they are, whenever they need it and whichever device they are using. Once you know how customers use technology to connect with you - online and offline - and what they think about your service, brand and products, you will be finally able to develop the right action plan to heal or rethink the overall experience in a comprehensive omni-channel strategy.

In an article published on Forbes website, Salesforce recently pointed out that a proactive approach grounded in data enables you to:

  • Act on what you know is about to happen to the customer;

  • Predict what will probably happen and consequently take action;

  • Predict what might happen to the customer, based on previous experience.

The benefits of proactivity for your business are self-evident: you will be identified as a truly customer-centric company and you will spend less - time and money - to reach better results in terms of engagement and loyalty. This will result in a compelling experience for your clients, seamless across all devices and touch points, yet fast and easy.

What should you do to adopt a proactive approach? What are the main steps to build such a perspective for your brand?

  • Map the customer journey - build a map to identify all points of contact and to know your client;

  • Talk to your customers - and let them talk to you easily, to understand their needs and wants;

  • Analyze customer data - identify areas and touch points you should improve and choose the right partner to develop your experience;

  • Share purpose internally - your employee is your first customer. Share your purpose and plan resources to foster employee engagement;

  • Think and act digital - disruptive technologies (smartphone, smartwatch, wearables, VR headsets) are perfect to meet customers’ expectations;

  • Be personal - customers love technology but, in an age of automated things, also demand a more human relation;

  • Beware time and space - enrich your offer with real time notifications and localized content (time and space are more and more crucial for retail customer experience);

  • Measure and adapt - enforce your strategy with an analytics dashboard, to measure KPI and adapt actions and budget in a looping circle.

Innovation is driven by technology, but if you can’t change your overall approach to digital customer experience, you won’t be able to stay top of mind and take advantage of all opportunities that disruptive devices give you. Proactivity allows you to build a sturdy bridge between you and your customer and avoid pitfalls and damages along the path.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: How To Better Customer Experience Management For The Digital Era

To help you ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, learn about the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation.

 

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Why Employee Engagement is Crucial For a Better Customer Experience

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Is your employee crucial to deliver a better customer experience? Many companies still think that client satisfaction is a mere result of their outward-facing strategy. Sure, engaged and loyal customers are essential to ensure profitability, but if you forget inner areas of improvement, then you miss a piece of the puzzle. That piece is employee engagement, a key element to enhance the overall performance of your company, customer experience included.

In a recent article, Brian Solis proclaimed that you should stop focusing on the customer only, if you really want to deliver great customer experiences. Of course the customer is still the core of every marketing strategy, even more so in the Age of the Customer. That is a provocative statement, to point out that successful digital transformation is multifaceted and requires a deep change in all aspects of your organization. Back to the opening question: how much is employee engagement relevant to improve digital customer experience?

To say it with Solis, “the entire service-profit chain begins with, and absolutely depends on, engaged employees”. If employees aren’t truly engaged, that dissatisfaction impacts on the outcome, namely the customer experience. When that happens, no matter how much effort you put into your client engagement campaign and customer journey improvement, the whole experience is likely to be unsatisfying and inadequate.

One figure gives us an idea of how much this topic is considered crucial by managers and entrepreneurs. According to a report by Bersin & Associates, today companies spend over 720 million dollars each year on employee engagement programs, a total that’s projected to rise to over $1.5 billion in the next few years.

And yet, according to a second research by Gallup, actual engagement is now at record lows, falling down to a mere 13%. How is this mismatch possible? Even though digital leaders know that engaged employees would benefit their organizations, often than not they simply don’t know how to get their workforce to buy in and take part in the change. So, probably, they’re putting their money in the wrong places.

Truth is, sometimes there is no even agreement on what ‘employee engagement’ really means. We can define it as the approach designed to ensure that employees are fully committed to their company’s core values, and motivated to contribute to organizational success. In the digital era, your employee is your first customer: loyalty and engagement become priority for an holistic marketing strategy.

How to reach this goal, that’s the question. It’s clear that relying just on a traditional surveys is not the answer. Here are few suggestions on how to build an integrated approach, capable to measure real-time and give you insights to drive high levels of commitment.

  • Share brand purpose - a recent survey found out that only 40% of workforce knows their company's goals, tactics and strategies. Employees will never be engaged if they don’t know what they’re working for. Start by discovering your true why, find your archetype, include people into your brand identity and narrate your company storytelling internally.
  • Empower your people - 75% of people voluntarily leaving jobs don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. Traditional engagement must be replaced with a new approach, aimed at empowering employees. Be sure that you are always able to inspire and support them, enable them to learn and constantly grow, and offer the opportunity to develop their strengths.
  • Adopt new tools: a new approach means new tools to support your strategy. Surveys are not going away anytime soon, but they are being slowly replaced by techniques that measure commitment and satisfaction in real time. An analytics dashboard can guide you through this amount of data to shape a powerful daily engagement routine.
  • Use Gamification: 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies already use gamification to boost engagement, retention and revenues. The importance of games to improve customer loyalty is now undeniable, but game dynamics can be also used internally to motivate employees, inspire right behaviors and reward success. B2B gamification, of course, must be tailored to your specific business and supported by a platform to analyze all information gathered.

Involvement, commitment, productivity: these are the key takeaways of a well-designed employee engagement approach. Ultimately you must understand that employees are the essence of the products and services you sell, and they develop and deliver your customer experience every day.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: All Play And No Work Makes Jack a Zippy Boy

To help you ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, learn about the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation.

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How to Better Customer Experience Management For the Digital Era

Posted on by Neosperience Team

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Digital leaders know that the experience delivered to customers is - at least - as important as the product or service they produce or sell. Stats say that customers are willing to spend more if they get a better experience in return, so customer experience management becomes an undeniable priority for every business. In order to have a long-term success, you need to define and understand how to better all dimensions of your clients’ journey.

Gartner defines customer experience management (CEM) as “the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations and, thus, increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy”. You can easily see how this process involves a deep improvement in your vision, and the ability to adapt digital customer experience to technology innovations.

Markets evolve, but companies? In a 2005 research by James Allen et al., 80% of businesses stated that they we able to offer a ‘great customer experience’, while just the 8% of customers felt the same way. This stark gap is not filled yet, because brands sometimes fail to keep pace with disruptive technology trends and to engage with the empowered people of the Age of the Customers.

Planning and executing incomplete strategies means that companies always move one step behind customers. Too many brands are still loyal to traditional marketing funnels, an outline that depicts the customer journey as a linear sequence from awareness to conversion. This simplistic framework doesn’t work for the digital era, defined by innovative devices and constant connectivity.

The journey now looks non-linear, a map blown-up into multiple touch points that - more often than not - slip away from your control. As a result, before even planning your new marketing strategy, you must change your approach to customers and their needs. How? Here are 5 steps you can follow to gain full control of your experience management.

  1. Fix problems before they happen - when you create your customer experience, one of the best ways to drive clients and prospects through the conversion path is to recognize in advance all needs related to every touch point. Stay one step ahead, use the proper framework to prioritize decisions and give them what they want, everywhere they are.
  2. Personalize the user experience - to understand the needs and preferences is just the first step to stay top of mind. In addition, you need to offer a seamless, consistent and - most of all - personalized experience, online and offline. Whether you are a retailer, an E-Commerce firm or a service company, try to translate the wants into an amazing journey shaped for your customers.
  3. Use automation with human touch - you might be hesitant to use automation due to its impersonal nature

    but, when done well, it can be both helpful and personal. The future of machine learning and the Internet of Things lies in the mass personalization: behavior tracking, push notifications, follow up and customer service.

  4. Set up customer analytics - the best thing you can do for your customers is to get to know them through what they do across all touch points. Set up an analytics platform, collect behavior-based data through online profiles, social sharing and proximity marketing activities, and use this information to improve your strategy.
  5. Constantly measure and follow-up - data analysis is not the final step of the process: data is useless if you can't pull out insights to improve your customer journey map and optimize touch points.
    Customer experience management for the digital era starts and ends with defining and understanding all dimensions of the multifaceted connection between brands and clients.

The ultimate goal is to optimize interactions from the clients' perspective and, as a result, foster engagement and loyalty. Design the correct framework, develop customer-centric strategies, and ultimately deliver amazing experiences: that's the key to success in a world shaped by disruptive devices.

To help you ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, learn about the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation.

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