Big Data Archives - Page 2 of 4

How Customer Obsession Will Drive Your Digital Transformation

Posted on 5 May 2015 by Neosperience Team

customer_obsession

Amazon, Starbucks, Nike, Apple, Google: they sell different products; they have peculiar storytelling, identity and archetypes; they are true to distinctive business principles and company mantra.

But one thing they have in common. One single element, more and more critical in this era of technology disruption: they all put their customer at the core of their strategy. They are customer-obsessed brands.

Are you positively obsessed with customers?

Too many brands pay lip service to the importance of a customer-centric approach to marketing, but do they really understand its true implication and impact? Digital transformation for the Age of the Customer requires that you are ready to step in and turn your organization upside down.

“We decided that we wanted our brand to not be about shoes, but about delivering the very best customer experience.” With these few words Tony Hsieh, CEO of online shoes and clothing shop Zappos, has summed up the very nature of customer obsession in competitive market environments.

It’s not just the acknowledgement that clients are crucial for success in the short term; it’s a full-time commitment to create genuine engagement in the long term and, ultimately, impact the bottom line by delivering the most amazing customer experience possible. And you can only achieve this goal if you - and your employees - are fully convinced that the customer 'is' your business.

A recent research by Bain & Company reveals the positive effects of customer obsession: a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. That's why the most loved brands prioritize customer experience: according to Forrester’s Customer Index, 39% of outperforming companies have developed a fully integrated omni-channel strategy, connecting the physical and digital experience.

There is a reason Amazon, Google and Apple lead their industries: they don’t just listen to their customers; they give them a seat at the boardroom table and engage them in a two-way communication, as true partners in the development process.

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.” (Jeff Bezos)

We live in a new era where the decision power has shifted back from brands to the people; an era where one single sale means nothing while loyalty delivers all the value. And numbers tell the whole story. Empowered customers love to be involved:

70% of buying experiences are based on how clients feel they are being treated;
86% of customers say they are willing to pay more for a product/service if they get a better customer experience;
60-70% is the probability of selling to an existing client; just 5-20% is the probability of selling to a new customer;
64% of clients think that customer experience is more critical than price when they need to choose between two or more brands.

So, what do customer-obsessed brands do differently than all others?

ALIGN IDENTITY WITH CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

They don’t just talk, they walk. Customer-obsessed companies know that customer experience management and brand strategy are not responsibility of different departments. They live across the entire organization and contribute to shape consistent identity, storytelling and engagement.

INNOVATE TO IMPROVE THE EXPERIENCE

They always listen before they talk. Customer-obsessed companies are well-aware that clients know them more than they know themselves; so they constantly work to innovate and find new ways, new channels and new devices - did you say Apple Watch? - to improve engagement and retain their loyalty. They are never afraid to try.

ADD A HUMAN TOUCH TO THE CONNECTION

They share love. Brands and customers are both absorbed in an increasingly automated ecosystem. Technology sets the schedule of our daily life and the customer journey becomes a melting of digital and analog moments. We are facing the dawn of a human algorithm, where people demand a human connection in their digital customer experience.

ALWAYS PREFER INBOUND TO OUTBOUND

They offer value. Customer-obsessed companies understand that traditional marketing funnels are not efficient anymore. The top-down push strategy may have been perfect with passive consumers; it surely does not work with customers hard to please. Top brands, thereby, are embracing the power of inbound marketing, replacing interruption with attraction.

USE DATA TO GAIN CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

They analyze. Wherever you look, you find a potential source of data, information about competitors, markets and customers. The spread of mobile devices and the Internet of Things will only accelerate the process. Customer-obsessed companies take advantage of Big Data to gain useful insights and improve their output, day after day.

In one sentence (courtesy of Forrester, again): by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. And you will be judged not just by the quality of what you sell, but also - and even more - by the quality of the experience you offer across all touch points and devices.

Start with the customer and work backwards.

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

Customer Engagement: 10 Stats and Facts to Improve Your Strategy

Posted on 16 April 2015 by Neosperience Team

customer_engagement

You don’t need a crystal ball to envision the future of customer engagement: since digital and mobile have taken a major place in our daily life, one of the key elements when it comes to running a successful business is to engage your customers.

Easier said than done. To improve your loyalty strategy, you will need to think beyond old-fashioned CRM and embrace technology to speak the same language your customers speak.

Thanks to the Internet, the smartphone and all sorts of disruptive devices (smartwatch and virtual reality headsets, to name two), the world of business is rapidly shifting from brand-centric outbound marketing to customer-centric inbound marketing. While market logic and engagement dynamics evolve, too many companies still plan and execute their marketing strategies the old way. Missing the real point of digital transformation.

In the Age of the Customer, technology surely can support your efforts to understand your clients (collecting their data) and to connect with them across all touch points of the digital customer journey; this is just one step of the process, though. The only way to reach real engagement is to turn your organization upside down, assume the risk of digital evolution, and account the customer as the main reason you do business in the first place.

WHY WOULD YOU?

To overcome the challenge of evolution is never easy or immediate. It requires a deep change not just in the organizational philosophy but also in the business structure and the human capital (and we all know the importance of employee engagement to determine long term success). It can take time and can be difficult to accomplish.

Why would you do it, then? Pure and simple, because you have no choice. As costly it may be to take this long road, it will always cost you more to be stuck while all others are running. With 6 billions mobile subscribers in the world and 1.2 people accessing the web from their mobile devices, the creation of a strong lasting brand starts with the ability to attract empowered customers and engage them in innovative customer experiences.

In this mobile environment, a good customer engagement strategy will make it easier to:

Attract new visitors and prospects;
Convert them into leads;
Close the path to conversion;
Change customers into promoters;
Communicate and connect at a personal level;
Collect feedback and understand needs and behaviors;
Decrease churn and increase customer retention;
Create a sense of belonging (brand based on emotions);
Ultimately generate more revenues from repeat sales.

STATS AND FACTS

If you don’t believe in the power of loyalty, or maybe you still think that acquisition is more important than retention, here we share - and comment - 10 enlightening stats and facts about customer engagement that will make you think again. Whether you are a retailer, an E-Commerce firm, a financial institution or a fashion & luxury brand, the following numbers will help you shape your future marketing vision.

Customers who are fully engaged represent 23% premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth compared with the average customer (Gallup): sales pass, loyalty stays - potentially - forever.
Only 14% of marketers say customer centricity is ranked high within their organization; only 11% percent say that their customers would say customer centricity is ranked high within their organization (CMO Council): clients know you more than you do. Deal with it!
70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated (McKinsey): the experience is the key factor to differentiate yourself from competitors.
A 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10% (Emmet Murphy): loyalty is not just a fancy name, it is a matter of business.
The revenue impact from a 10% improvement in a company’s customer experience score can translate into more than $1 billion (Forrester): customer experience is what will help you stay top of mind and be the first choice in the purchase moment.
86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, but only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations (Forbes): a major rule to engage clients and reach satisfaction is to anticipate their needs and constantly exceed their expectations.
In the retail banking industry, customers who are fully engaged bring 37% more annual revenue to their primary bank than do customers who are actively disengaged (Gallup): the experience has become critical for retail banking to attract new prospects and avoid capital outflow.
52% of companies say Facebook is the most effective social channel for customer engagement, service and support (Social Media Today): social media have a great impact in how you can manage customer relations and deliver personalized contents, mobile-first.
45% of buyers require person-to-person contact in the buying process (ITSMA/CFO): where technology touches all moments of our life, there comes the importance of increasing the human factor in business.
Customer retention is 14% higher among companies applying big data and analytics to deal velocity (Aberdeen Customer Engagement Report 2014): the spread of mobile devices enables you to gather all sorts of data about customers. Use these numbers to improve customer experience.

Let's close up with a quote by Forbes, that sums up engagement in the mobile era: "Customers are in the driver’s seat now and many businesses that don’t have the technology and systems in place to support an omni-channel customer experience will be forced to take the backseat".

Want to learn how to improve the connection with empowered customers?

Learn The Rules of Engagement For the Mobile Era

If you want to ensure a strategic advantage to your organization, discover Neosperience Engage, the end-to-end mobile marketing solution to help brands engage with customers by delivering personalized experiences to customers close to, or inside the store.

Facebook Messenger + Customer Experience: The Human Algorithm of DCX

Posted on 7 April 2015 by Neosperience Team

mark-zuckerberg

"I don't know anyone who likes calling businesses. It's not fast or convenient, and it definitely doesn't feel like the future". These words opened the F8 Developer Conference, where we have witnessed the evolution of Facebook from social network to conversation platform between brands and customers.

The quote by Mark Zuckerberg is also a good starting point to understand the value of the human algorithm in the digital era, and how the new idea of Facebook Messenger will impact digital customer experience (DCX).

The opening keynote by the founder and CEO of the largest social media site in the world carried very good news to all those customers constantly facing bad customer experiences, online and offline. The evolution of Facebook, in fact, will bring to a seamless streamline of the purchase process, from awareness to post-purchase customer service. All centered around Facebook Messenger, so that you won't need to ever leave the big platform.

MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN

The heart of the matter: we have now entered the new era for customers, where physical and digital converge into an omni-channel customer journey, shaped by mobile devices. In such a flowering of disruptive technologies, you might think that the ‘human factor’ is not as critical as it was in the pre-Internet era.

This is far from being true, and the F8 conference proved that Facebook is well-aware of the importance of human beings in the digital transformation. It's not a coincidence that Zuckerberg has called the new identity of Facebook a ‘family of apps’ rather than a single social network. A growing platform - with Messenger at the core - to best serve an ever growing audience of users and customers.

The centrality of the messaging outlets - with the launch of Messenger Business and the integration of WhatsApp in the Facebook newsfeed - is the perfect exemplification of how markets have become conversations, forcing brands to evolve into publishers. Despite the fact that we live in an increasingly automated ecosystem - or maybe precisely for this very reason - customers demand a more human connection during all moments-of-truth of the purchase process.

THE SECOND FACEBOOK REVOLUTION

Social media have had a major role in the revolution of society and human relations, but now they need to take a further step to increase the human factor in 'business relations'. Facebook is guiding the second social revolution, transitioning from a single network into a complete service platform - a family of apps dedicated to people and companies:

Content sharing (branded and user generated stories);
Instant messaging (and real-time customer service);
People focused analytics (for tailor-cut contents and solutions);
Targeted advertising (banner versus in-app contents);
Internet of Things (with the acquisition of Parse);
Social shopping (search, pay and buy without leaving Facebook);
Virtual reality (with the Oculus Rift headset).

All elements will combine to offer a complete - people and mobile first - customer journey, to deliver personalized experiences and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. That’s where Facebook is headed for: with 890 million daily active users (as of February 2015), the goal is to become the most important communication tool in the world. A tool that people will use not just for personal purposes but also to deal with brands and make business.

The business side of the website is already critical but in the near future Facebook will offer a more integrated platform where companies can build their identity and image (we all know the value of social world-of-mouth), but also manage the connection with every single customer (in terms of engagement, loyalty, support and gamification).

THE DAWN OF THE HUMAN BRAND

Facebook is paving the way for all other brands, to create a new paradigm focused on "discovery, engagement, expression". We are rapidly moving towards markets where impersonal organizations will transform into human brands, and people - not products - will become the center of every digital marketing strategy. This is the human algorithm, part technology and part communication.

For decades companies have created their strategies relying on the power of top-down communication and advertising, regardless of the different need and desires of real clients. In the new era, the so-called Age of the Customer, this would never work. Empowered customers demand a new two-ways approach, in the name of active involvement and engagement.

In this perspective, Facebook is focusing on the centrality of human connection, where all relations are mediated by objects/devices and machines don’t even need human intervention to communicate. Many companies already use social media as part of the customer care service, but Messenger Business will add the ability to engage users in a one-to-one communication in real-time. To give them help whenever they need it, wherever they are and whatever device they are using.

This evolution will affect - more than all other industries - retail and e-retail. The reason is simple: in the digital years an E-Commerce firm can’t be reduced to a website, the same way a brick and mortar is not just a plain store. They both need to ‘evolve to involve’ people into a complete stream that includes showcase, purchase, new means of payment, and customer service.

Facebook Messenger for business is the key to understand the (r)evolution of digital customer experience: the inefficient flow of pre-formatted Emails will be replaced by a consistent communication, to share ideas and accompany the client across all steps of the purchase. Engaging him with a proficient and open conversation about the product you sell and he wants to buy.

The Human algorithm, rooted in data but nourished with mutual understanding, will always be critical to improve customer retention: if one sale can be the result of a good push advertising, there's no doubt that repeat sales only come from a compelling and satisfying experiences.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Top 5 Steps To Improve Customer Experience For Millennials

Social media trends are crucial for a better customer experience management. That's why why we have included social relations in the DCX 7-Steps Checklist, a useful guide crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation. You can download the free paper here:

Get the DCX 7-Steps Checklist

The 7 Deadly Sins of a Bad Customer Experience

Posted on 31 March 2015 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

4 Email Marketing Trends That Will Affect Customer Experience

Posted on 24 March 2015 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.

4 Ways Customer Journey Mapping Will Boost Customer Experience

Posted on 22 March 2015 by Neosperience Team

customerjourney

Try to remember the last time you have given up on a product or service because of a bad overall experience. As a customer, there is nothing worse than those situations where you expect one thing, just to receive a totally different result, as if you were dealing with two different companies. Customer journey mapping is essential for brands to avoid these pitfalls and boost customer experience.

To show how markets have changed in the last five years, let’s start with two insightful statistics:

92% of companies that reported a decline in customer satisfaction said that clients were most disappointed by inconsistent experience (Salesforce)
Customers are 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related rather than price or product related (Bain&Co.)

Even when your customers find everything they need in your products, even when you solve their problems and answer to their wants and requests, they will inevitably feel the bitter taste of dissatisfaction if forced into a bad customer experience. One missing link in their journey is more than enough to compromise an entire marketing strategy.

The battle for customer loyalty is more intense than ever before, and takes place on a different level: not products or prices but experiences - the key to differentiate from the competition.

As Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail”. Translated in business terms: to stay top of mind and retain clients’ attention, never underestimate the value of all different touch points, always maintaining the overall vision of your customer experience management, online and offline.

Easier said than done, and that’s where customer journey map becomes the perfect tool to accomplish this hard task.

WHAT

In digital markets, made more complex by mobile devices and innovative technologies, the connection between brands and customers is not a flat line, a straight one-way communication. The conversion process might start with a search on a desktop computer, then continue on a smartphone - let’s say a branded app - and end up in a physical retail store - thanks to iBeacon and push notifications.

The customer journey map is a complete framework that illustrates all the stages customers go through when they interact with a brand: from initial contact, through purchasing, post conversion support, remarketing and - hopefully - repeat sales. It maps not just the experience that you want to provide to the customer, but also the one that clients would like to receive. Once you have identified the essential requirements of your map, you are ready to go to step two.

WHY

Why would you use a digital customer experience map? The ultimate aim of customer journey mapping is to identify areas for improvement and establish the appropriate technology to effectively enhance the experience across all stages of the customer life cycle. When you believe you truly know yourself and your clients, that is the moment you need it the most.

The map is the only tool that enables you to understand - and eventually fill - the gap that separates the experience that you think you are offering from the journey you actually offer. Any inconsistency between the two increases the percentage of people that will stop doing business with you and become someone else’s customer

If we were to pinpoint the 4 key advantages of customer journey mapping, we would definitely say:

Personalize the experience;
Communicate and act proactively;
Identify and remove bottlenecks;
Improve efficiency and remove inconsistencies;

HOW

Despite being one of the three basic elements of an omni-channel customer experience, journey mapping is not an easy task. It requires deep involvement, the implementation of big data and analytics platforms and - most of all - the ability to look at yourself without filters and the willingness to take that further step from words to action.

It takes time and dedication, but the results are worth the effort. Here are 4 ways customer journey map is essential to design a seamless customer experience and remove inefficient silos and practices:

Understand customer’s POV - the great thing about mapping is that you can understand exactly how customers experience your brand across all touch points - digital, physical and mobile. Once you have reached such an incredible knowledge, you will be able to tailor-cut your content marketing and engagement actions to better reach them at all stages of the inbound conversion path.

Recognize Moments of Truth - a framework includes all sorts of touch points, channels and media. Of course not all interactions have the same importance, so how can you recognize the ones truly impacting on your business results? One reason why you should create your own map is exactly to highlight meaningful moments of truth and separate them from those with a lesser relevance.

Connect with emotions - human desires and needs change over and over again, following the evolution of society and technology. The main reason behind this change is not rational; it's emotional. The weight of emotions in the purchase decision is now higher than ever. Why would customers choose you? A proper map helps you in setting appropriate emotional goals and objectives for every single step of the customer journey.

Make sense of data - numbers have always been the root of every customer journey map (a tool not so young as you may think); innovative devices plus the Internet plus proximity marketing plus big data make it possible to develop a knowledge inconceivable just few years ago. A well designed map helps you set metrics and time lines to measure the real-time impact of your strategy. To offer the best experience, whenever your clients need it and wherever they are.

You will never have a real process of improvement if you don’t accept the fact that you must dig down deep - putting your identity into play - to understand how your customer experience works, from your client’s perspective. A true and efficient digital transformation always starts from the bottom, the customer.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Map Your Digital Customer Journey, Mobile First

The creation of a proper customer journey map is one of the blocks of the DCX 7-Steps Checklist crafted by Neosperience, with requirements and insights for a successful digital transformation. You can download the free paper here:

10 Inventions That Will Revolutionize Retail Customer Experience

Posted on 15 March 2015 by Neosperience Team

retaildcx

“The future is already here. It is just not evenly distributed.” This quote by the cyberspace guru writer William Gibson introduced one of the most intriguing panels of the 2015 SXSW - South by Southwest - schedule.

‘10 inventions that will revolutionize retail’ - behind this title lies the question so many entrepreneurs are afraid to ask: What does the future of retail hold? Technology disruption changes the rules of production and distribution, and brands need to evolve accordingly, if they want to survive the retail revolution.

The speech by David Roth, CEO of WPP The Store, and Jon Bird, Global Director at Y&R LabStore, is just the starting point for a wider consideration about the evolution of retail customer experience (a crucial topic that we have covered many times). If you look back at the past 50 years, what you see is that brick-and-mortars retail companies have basically followed the same rules over and over, with only slow and gradual changes.

For decades, advertising, product improvement, price and production efficiency have represented the core of all marketing strategies. Push communications and ‘powerless’ consumers were the two sides of the same business coin, and clients were called ‘target’ and clustered into generic and undefined categories. Today, the balance of forces has already changed, putting the customer on center stage and giving birth to the so-called Age of the Customer.

This trend is only destined to accelerate in the current era of rapid technological advancement, where Internet and mobile devices act as catalysts for a massive change in the retail industry. As the SXSW conference made evident, over the next 10 years there is going to be more change than in the last 50 years. Price and products are not enough to differentiate yourself from competitors in the new world that is taking shape, where objects will have the greatest impact on our shopping experience.

SXSWpicture

Shown below are the 10 tech inventions highlighted by the SXSW panel, and their main consequences on digital customer experience:

VIRTUAL AUGMENTED STORES

The idea of traditional store is meaningless in an world where physical and digital merge into a new level of experience influenced by virtual reality. The enduring success of the Oculus Rift and the launch of Microsoft HoloLens will open new possibilities for retailers: holostores, augmented reality, digital purchases. Neosperience Showroom is the perfect example of how to make your brand and products come alive in immersive 3D reality environments, to deliver powerful experiences.

SHOP & SERVE ANYWHERE

One number says it all: mobile commerce is destined to rise to $62 billion dollars in the next five years. The Internet is already the primary source of information for customers in the decision process. It is also slowly becoming the first reference for purchases. 'Store' doesn't mean just brick-and-mortars anymore. Your online presence is crucial to offer personalized shopping experiences in an omni-channel retail view (mobile first, of course).

DIGITAL SMART STORE

E-Commerce is putting traditional retail on a critical threshold: evolve or die. How can they answer back? Changing the very concept of location and updating the four concrete walls of a shop to the digital needs of empowered customers. The Internet of Things is the final frontier in connecting customers and brands, building engagement through personalization. Here's how to say goodbye to the old layout:

Smart Vending - connected and built to communicate with customers and other machines. A good case study is the Nespresso boutique in Barcelona, a big vending machine store.
Sentient Stores - the iBeacon technology is rapidly becoming the standard in traditional stores. Beacons enable you to engage customers with context-aware contents and personalized offers and notifications.
Intelligent Shelves - shelves won't be just places to display products. They will ultimately recognize the customer, connect and interact with mobile devices to understand his/her needs and wants in that exact moment.
Artificial Intelligence - the interconnection of objects, made smart by the Internet, brings the concept of 'artificial intelligence' back to attention. Futuristic designers see the advanced store as a sentient entity with a beating heart of chips, wires and bytes.

ON-DEMAND MERCHANDISE

Since the globalization became the major force in Western economies, many insisted that the world has become flat. Actually, the only things going flat are products price and quality. In the Age of the Customer, needs and desires are all but flat: now that they can have whatever they want whenever they want it, customers look for personalized contents and products. Online and offline. That's why we are facing the era of Me-Commerce (even more true when we talk about millennials).

OFF THE GRID RETAIL

If your strategy can't be just centered around the traditional 4 P's of marketing, you need something different to build a distinct brand image and remain the focus of customer's attention. Success will shine out for entrepreneurs that will take a distinctly ‘outside the box’ path to innovation. Again, there is another 'P' you should always include in your strategy: personalization. A tailored shopping experience is the real brand differentiator, when customers demand compelling experience not just useful products.

MOBILE PAYMENTS

All analysts agree that the use of Internet and mobile devices will change the way we buy things, and - even more important - the way we pay for products or services. Credit and debit cards will still be the standard in the coming years, but new technologies are at work to offer a more easy, fast and secure access to payments. The last stage of the customer journey is undergoing a fast development thanks to the NFC and the Apple Pay system, that will finally make the wearable revolution the real deal for investors.

VIBRANT DATA

Smart machines can communicate without human intervention. An ecosystem of smartphones, smartwatches, activity trackers, iBeacons, geo-fencing tools, virtual reality headsets (and so on) that creates data, gathered and ready to be used. Big data is the name of this amount of information about customers, production and sales: numbers that you must learn to scan and analyze to make better strategic decisions, improve the customer experience, reduce inefficiency and - ultimately - increase sales.

As a result of all innovation forces, the retail world is increasingly globalized, digitized, polarized and personalized. Too many retailers instinctively react to these challenges using the old easy way out to close under-performing stores, but the resolution is somewhere else: in the reinvention of the physical store and the adoption of those disruptive inventions that drive digital innovation and revolutionize retail as we know it.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Retail Marketing Strategy - 5 Steps To Renew 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.

5 Reasons Why Customer Experience Is More Critical Than Your Brand

Posted on 22 February 2015 by Neosperience Team

Brand Vs. Customers, which one should be the main focus of your strategy? Is there a real difference between brand-centric and client-centric companies? Truth is, there are many misconceptions about what each means and the role they play in business success. Brand and customer experience are rarely considered equals in the same strategic plan. Even when that happens, the brand usually takes the center stage. It’s time for radical change in perspective.

2014 was the year digital customer experience became a major issue in the agenda of all entrepreneurs and marketing specialists. We have witnessed a thrive of articles, webinars and reports focusing on the key value of customers. They depict the dawn of a new era, called the Age of the Customer, shaped by disruptive technologies and mobile devices, where the customer, not the brand, becomes the real mean of your business.

There is a takeaway they all have in common: they insist that “you need to engage with clients, nurture their loyalty and retain their trust and love”. Easier said than done: watch companies in action, and you’ll see that many - too many - are still all about the brand. Wasting time and money on old marketing tactics and thinking in terms of acquisition rather than customer retention.

We’re not saying that the brand is not important, that you should forget about it or disregard its value. Your brand is - and will always be - the beginning of any marketing journey, but it’s slowly being replaced by the empowered customer as the main purpose of business. You can consider the brand as the framework of your strategy, and the customer the reason why you build it in the first place.

Brand, customer and marketing should all flow into an omni-channel strategy, and you need to learn how to make them work together to deliver the best customer experience possible. The journey map should be based on an integrated view of the various business operations that support the experience across all touch points, physical and digital (even more so if you are a retail firm).

If you can’t see the bigger picture, you miss the many factors that may support your efforts to improve customer experience. We are facing a convergence that will bring us to a new entity called ‘customer-centric brand management’. Marketers are finally agreed upon the concept that all actions they plan and execute should aim at growing the journey lifetime value.

To enhance engagement, build loyalty and improve customer retention, you need to align the organization around the bridge that connects your brand with customers and prospects. In one word, the ‘experience’. According to a recent report by Forrester, there are three actions to align your architecture to the new demand:

Ground customer-facing decisions in the brand strategy;
Define a strategy for the experience that supports the brand strategy;
Have marketing execute based on customer expectations.

To step from a brand-centric to customer-centric point of view, you need the ability listen, learn, and ultimately look at yourself from your client's perspective. It is surely harder than focusing just on your brand identity but, in the long term, this is the only way to win the race to digital transformation. You should always prefer the experience over the brand, because it enables you to:

Deliver with human touch - in an era of deep changes driven by technology, where objects don't even need people intervention to communicate, customers search not only for products but for human relationships.
Think and act omni-channel - if you focus just on the brand, you miss the wider picture of the omni-channel experience clients have with you across all points of contact. Digital first and mobile only become the rule.
Engage in a two-way relation - social media have a great lessons for all marketers: customers of the Internet era don't act as passive consumer of contents created by third parties. They want to be active participants in a two-way communication with brands.
Personalize content and context - globalization of markets have brought us to do refuse the homogenization of tastes and culture. The 'glocal' and micro-local trends have effects on marketing and E-Commerce strategies, with the birth of Me-Commerce and personalization of the experience.
Integrate Big Story and Big Journey - a big story is one of the foundational elements of a great digital strategy. Your brand is the core of your big story, but it's not enough to engage with customers of the new era; you also need big data and, most of all, a big journey. Amazing and innovative.

To become a real customer-centric company, you have to move yourself away from the center of the message and use technology to adjust your journey for the specific customer's wants and needs. Merging brands, clients and marketing will not only give a whole new meaning to the story you narrate, but will actually help you connect with people in a compelling, innovative and relevant ways.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Master Storytelling To Make Your Digital Customer Experience Stand Out

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.

Design Your Digital Transformation

Attract New Customers

Engage Customers

Nurture Your Customer Community

Increase Revenue and Margins

Create Digital Products

Improve Operational Margins

Government

Healthcare

Design Your Digital Transformation

Create Digital Products

Comprehend Customers

Attract New Customers

Engage Customers

Increase Revenue and Margins

Digitize Operational Processes

Government

Healthcare

User Insight

NeosVoc

Lead Champion

People Analytics

Rubin Red

Reality Plus

Nudging Gamification

User Insight

NeosVoc

Lead Champion

People Analytics

Rubin Red

Reality Plus

Nudging Gamification