Experience Managers

The eyes of the aisles are on you

2011-06-26T19:32:00.002+10:00

A few weeks back I was at a retail,technology show checking out the latest in shopper/store technology. On Monday this week I was at my usual training session where I keep up with the latest in what's happening in the business world. It's always great and led by my friend, the Futurist, Craig Rispin. www.futuretrendsgroup.com

He introduced us to the latest innovations in shopper monitoring technology. Some of which I had seen at the show. Systems that watch what your eyes are doing and what you look like and change the ads in response. On Tuesday I visited a vendor of a technology that looks at how people - customers and staff - operate in a retail and banking space. This is fascinating and can provide some excellent insights.

In our business as customer experience consultants we see these as valuable tools. They help us see what type of people the business is attracting and also what takes their attention. They told me about a store that wanted to know about the behaviour of people who chose a particular brand of sweets. They learnt that people who bought the particular sweets also bought two other items over 48% of the time. But they had to go across the store to get the extra items. So the store ran a test to see if they placed all the items close together would more people buy all the items more often. They did!

This is hardly new. There used to be a biscuit aisle in the supermarket. It was the place you went to get all the types of biscuits that they stocked. using the same principle as above you will now find the cracker biscuits at the cheese section and chocolate biscuits placed strategically near the coffee. Using this new technology as you approach the coffee the system will scan you, make decisions about our age and sex and then alter the ads on the digital display accordingly based on some pre-determined persona's.

Here is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald which looks at this new area.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/look-customers-in-the-eyes-to-lock-them-in-the-aisles-20110625-1gkwo.html

There is a trap here! Its all to easy to be seduced by the technology that tells you how people behaved. What it won't tell you is how people are feeling.

In simple terms it will tell you the metrics of the customers and react accordingly, it won't tell you the mood of the customers.

Consider this. A large US retailer (industry withheld to be polite) set up the fastest checkouts in their industry. They thought that this would give them an advantage. This new technology may also have made them extra sales. They surveyed their customers to find that their satisfaction scores had not gone up despite a substantial investment is systems and speed at the checkout. Their competitor also did surveys and exit interviews of their customers and found the major drivers of satisfaction and heightened experience.

The second store chain sold more product. Why? The customer feedback from both stores showed the major drivers of a Magnetic experience were - being able to find a sales person withing 90 seconds, someone who knew what they were taking about or who found someone who did, and someone who knew where things were in the store. The first store did not have all these attributes so their CSI score was way down. People could get out fast but they were not very happy when they got to the super speed checkout.

As a result of the research the first store put on many extra staff and did much more product training.

Whey the long story. Mood is just as important as metrics. Store one with only metrics may have missed what the questioning of the customer mood turned up.

A great example of this is the brand new Bunnings store in Chatswood, NSW. When it opened it was just full of staff. All armed with little maps that they gave customers so they could find their way round the unfamiliar store. As a frequent offender at hardware stores I met a fellow I knew from the Artarmon store. I asked if he had been transferred. No he said. He had been put on secondment while the customers became familiar with the new store and the layout. He was then told he would go back from whence he came. Over time he explained the staff number could be reduced to a normal level as regulars would need less help. at the new store no one was a regular!

Great customer experience thinking. Manage the mood by getting the experience drivers right!

Call me on 0414 55 33 33 if you want to look at the latest metrics and mood solutions for your business.

Googles Wonder Wheel can boost your business - literally

2011-02-22T11:30:00.001+11:00

Peter Thorpe is an internet expert.

Here is a very interesting and potentially profitable piece he wrote on making sure that your website is the best it can be - when it comes to being found.

GOOGLE'S WONDERFUL WONDER WHEEL

Have you ever used Google's Wonder Wheel? Chances are you've never even heard of it - let alone used it. It's a well kept secret!
Well, i f this is the case, you are missing out on a fantastic free tool that can not only help you improve your search results - it can actually help you get more traffic to your website!
I'll tell you how in a minute but first - let me tell you where to find it and how it works.
Where to find it
Actually it's right there under your nose, whenever you do a search on Google. Been there since May 2009! Down in the left hand column, after you do a search for anything on Google, you will see simple little text link Wonder Wheel. (see diagram below) Note: You may need to click on the heading More Search Tools.

How it works
Do a search on Google for a popular search term and after you get the results, click on the Wonder Wheel link. This creates a sun shaped graphic, featuring keywords, all related to your original search. Your original search term is in the centre of the sun and the ‘beams’ show other popular related keywords to this search. To the right of the graphic you will see the normal results listed. (see diagram below)

Pretty clever huh? But hang on - you ain't seen nothing yet!
Click on any of the related search terms (on the beams) and this will create another 'sun' and drill down into these keywords for more related keywords and so on. (see diagram below)

How can this help you?
The Wonder Wheel might look like a pretty cool toy to play with but it's actually a powerful tool to help you find relevant and related keywords for your website.
How?
The most important thing on your website (to Google) is the text on the pages. Having the right keywords in the text of your pages, headlines, links, articles, etc., is vital to getting a good position in Google’s search results. Sounds obvious enough however, it's often very difficult to sort out which keywords are the most important and relevant to your potential audience. And once you work out what these keywords and phrases are, its even more difficult to get these in some sort of order of importance.
This is where the Wonder Wheel can help. It basically does this for you. And because it's a Google tool, it “thinks” like Google, so it's fairly easy to work out how people generally search for related words and topics.
It's also a fantastic tool to help you find Keywords and niche markets for your Google Adwords campaign.
This is not a replacement in any way for keyword research and there are several other tools you can use for this. However, it can be very useful to find new areas of interest to write about on your website, in articles, blogs, Adwords campaigns, etc.
So if you haven't used it before - give the Wonder Wheel a try. You’ll soon get the idea of how it works. It's just another great free tool form the wonderful folks at Google!
And by the way, if you need assistance to make your website work better or you need help with your search engine marketing or a Google Adwords campaign – give us a call. We’d be happy to help.

A sound experience can be addictive

2010-02-23T21:18:00.003+11:00

We have all experienced a time when we small something and it takes us back to an earlier event or time in our lives. Yesterday was a very hot day so we went to my wife's parents house for a swim to cool off. When she got in the pool she told me and our son that the smell really reminded her of coming home after school and being in the pool with her three sisters.

particular sound can create the same emotional links. Many of us have a favourite song with our partners that take us back to a special time in our relationship. Or a song on the radio reminds us of an event that was meaningful.

This article is interesting because it chronicles the Top 10 most addictive sounds in the world. In this case, as with many things, the world is classed as America. Hence the TMobile ringtone being featured.

Here's the point: Does your business have a recognisable, memorable and if possible, emotionally meaningful brand tag. Think the Nike or Apple logos. As listed the McDonalds or Intel sound tag. Not always branded but still enticing - the smell of hot bread shop or the aroma of ground coffee beans. Whatever it is does your business have something memorable and easily recognisable? It's an often overlooked part of your marketing.

Here is the article from Fast Company:

The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the World

By: Martin LindstromFebruary 22, 2010

You're probably among the millions who have experienced it: driving in a car, listening to the radio, and suddenly this song comes on. It is not just any song--this was your favorite song when you were a teenager. As the first few notes strike up, you're transported back in time. Everything is so vivid, and your mind wanders to parties, first kisses and sweaty palms. It's as if time stands still and you suddenly realize that for the entire duration of the song, you haven't seen a single thing on the road.

There's no doubt about it, sound is immensely powerful. And yet 83% of all the advertising communication we're exposed to daily (bearing in mind that we will see two million TV commercials in a single lifetime) focuses, almost exclusively, on the sense of sight. That leaves just 17% for the remaining four senses. Think about how much we rely on sound. It confirms a connection when dialing or texting on cell phones and alerts us to emergencies. When the sound was removed from slot machines in Las Vegas, revenue fell by 24%. Experiments undertaken in restaurants show that when slow music (slower than the rhythm of a heartbeat) is played, we eat slower--and we eat more!

Is this just coincidence, or does sound make us buy more, want more, dream more and eat more? Any 50-year-old American can sing a whole range of television jingles from the 1970s--they are all well stored in the recesses of our brain. Yet if you were to ask the same of those who have come of age recently, you will find them stumped. Has the magic of a television tune disappeared, or has the advertising world lost sight of the fact that people do indeed have speakers at home? I decided to put these questions to the test.

Buyology Inc. and Elias Arts, a sound identity company in New York, wired up 50 volunteers and measured their galvanic, pupil and brainwave responses to sounds using the latest neuroscience-based research methods. We learned that sound has remarkable power. This may not be surprising for many, but it was certainly surprising to realize just how many commercial brands over the past 20 years have made their way into the world's 10 most powerful and addictive sounds--beating some of the most familiar and comforting sounds of nature.

Quiz: Can You Guess The World's Most Addictive Sounds?

Forget the sound of the waves or the songs of birds, they didn't even make the top 10. But the jingle advertising a computer chip, and object which most of us have never even seen, took the prominent second spot in our brains in terms of addiction. We strongly respond to the sound of Intel! This tells us that repetition is the key, since most of us can't even sing it. What this tells us is that there's no limit to this phenomenon, because a computer chip doesn't really have a sound.

The third most powerful sound is just over 10 years old, and yet it had such a profound effect on our volunteers that as soon as they hear it, they remove their headsets and check their bags for their vibrating cell phone. When we switch our phone into silent mode, we think it cannot be heard. But the vibration has its own sound, and almost immediately the test subjects stopped whatever they were doing to attend to their phones. It's hardly surprising that the Blackberry has been dubbed a CrackBerry--even President Obama is hooked.

Psychologically speaking, this is not a happy discovery. Recent studies show that the first thing we do when we wake is check our BlackBerry. Going to the bathroom, brushing our teeth and eating breakfast takes a back seat. Increasingly people sleep beside their phones--that message that arrives at 4.00am, is now a priority! Even though the sound of a vibrating phone has taken second place to a baby's giggles, it seems that in just over a decade technology now provides the predominant sounds of daily life.

As marketers become more aware of the power of sound, it will be used to increase brand recognition in increasingly sophisticated ways. It's just a matter of time before our brains hear sizzling steaks, newly lit cigarettes and sparkling sodas, and immediately register them as Outback, Marlboro and Dr. Pepper.

THE MOST ADDICTIVE SOUNDS IN THE WORLD

Non-branded and branded sounds:
1. Baby giggle
2. Intel
3. Vibrating phone
4. ATM / cash register
5. National Geographic
6. MTV
7. T-Mobile Ringtone
8. McDonald's
9. 'Star Spangled Banner'
10. State Farm

Top 10 Branded sounds:
1. Intel
2. National Geographic
3. MTV
4. T-Mobile
5. McDonald's
7. State Farm
8. AT&T Ringtone
9. Home Depot
10 Palm Treo Ringtone

Top 10 Non-branded sounds:
1. Baby giggle
2. Vibrating phone
3. ATM / cash register
4. "Star Spangled Banner"
5. Sizzling steak
6. 'Hail to the Chief'
7. Cigarette light and inhale
8. "Wedding March"
9. "Wish Upon a Star"
10. Late Night with David Letterman Theme

MARTIN LINDSTROM is a 2009 recipient of TIME Magazine's "World's 100 Most Influential People" and author of Buyology--Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (Doubleday, New York), which appeared on both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Lindstrom is an adviser to executives of McDonald's Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Microsoft Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, and GlaxoSmithKline, amongst others. His personal global audience is estimated at over a million people. His book, Brand Sense, was hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "...one of the five best marketing books ever published." Lindstrom's latest books, Buyology and Brand Sense have been translated into more than 40 languages, and are now out in paperback.

No wonder American Airlines rates higher than United

2010-02-22T15:09:00.005+11:00

While United has been dropping CX standards American Airlines has been raising them. This article looks at how.

The lesson here is not new. It's not complicated and it's easy to do - providing you are not a control freak.

The lesson is this. Give the power to fix or at least address the customer's to the people who are in on the frontline. It can reduce or stop escalation, create on the spot outcomes (that we all love) and give the staff the knowledge that they can make a real contribution, using their own good judgment.

A special note for the control freaks who may not trust that anyone else can do it right, other than them.

Consider the option. How do you feel when you ask for help with a problem, want to get an issue addressed or feel there is something that needs to be done to help you and the service person gives you that blank look and says, with often sincere regret "I will have to (choose one) talk to my manager, send an email to head office, see a supervisor, put you in touch with the customer service manager, or my all time favourite, 'There's nothing I can do 'it's out of my hands".

If you feel frustrated hearing those responses, so do your customers. Did American solve all their problems? No, but I'm willing to bet their passengers felt way better than at United.

Let me know what you think.

American Airlines hands out $10.3 million in customer-service bonuses

American Airlines Inc., one of seven carriers at Piedmont Triad International, said Thursday the company will be paying out a $10.3 million customer service award to 70,000 front line employees for meeting fourth-quarter goals.

The payout is part of the airline's Customer Experience Rewards program, which gives employees up to $100 per month for exceeding customer satisfaction goals.

In 2009, the company paid out $45 million through its annual incentive plans.

The goals are based on customer service standards -- measured by on-time departures and customer satisfaction at the airport and on board the aircraft.

United Airlines drops out of the Customer Experience Sky

2009-06-15T09:40:00.003+10:00

United Airlines have taken the unusual step of turning off their Customer Service feedback line.

They say their research says that they get a better quality interaction when people write to them and are clearer about what has happened and the details because they are writing it down and hence considering what they say.

That may be the case. It's still dumb. Two things they need to do:

give people a way to vent when they want to. Even if they write to you it will mean many have stewed on it and told many by the time they write to you - if they bother to. The vast majority will just whinge to anyone who will listen.
if cost is an issue (of course it is in this market) then find a more cost effective way to capture the feedback when people are angry. There is certainly a backlash with outsourced and obviously overseas call centres. There are simple, cost effective ways to get the feedback live. Set up a virtual feedback system. Ask (quantitative) questions and at the end ask if they want someone to contact them(quallitative feedback). I can show you how for your business and spend a few cents to do it easily and quickly.
when you set up a virtual feedback system you can also get pats on the back for a job well done.

I don't care how much research they have done. We want to complain and give feedback when we want to. Not on the suppliers timeframe.

It is possible to turn every customer into a mystery shopper. Get great feedback and improve the service and operations of your business.

You can do this without commiting customer experience suicide!

Experiencing the new Cloud

2009-06-14T17:13:00.002+10:00

This is a great article on how we will be effected by the 'Cloud'. The Cloud is that virtual computer platform that is causing the death of software as we know it - insert the death of Microsoft's ability to charge for a disc in a box.

No longer will we need to buy a hard copy of software. The program will always be up to date and should be much less expensive. Of course the flip side is you will need to be able to access the cloud by being constantly online. That works for some and not for others.

It may mean that you have to invest in one of the new smart phones - iPhone, Black Berry or Palm Pre.

I would love your comments on how this will effect you.

Iven

Apple product designs are 40 year old rip offs?

2009-06-10T08:22:00.012+10:00

Apple is recognised as a leader in industrial design and also the way they design their retail experience.

Did they rip off the designs from Dieter Rams?

Who? Rams designed the highly innovative products for Braun in the 50's and 60's. There is a striking similarity between some of his designs and those churned out by Apple's chief designer Jonathan Ive. Ive has just been voted number one on the worlds 100 most innovative people list by Fast Company (yes I obviously read their stuff as you can see from my posts. They have great info you can get online. Go to Fast Company and get the daily newsletter.

Go here to see the Braun products designed by Rams and the ones Ive came up with. Also have a look at his 10 rules of design. They apply to any business (with some modification for your industry). I have adapted them here for customer experience. I have inserted CX for Customer Xperience (Yes I thought that would be great branding, registered it and then worked out that no one who could spell in English would Google experience without the 'e'. Life lessons!) and modified them a touch with thanks to Rams.

Good CX design is innovative.
Good CX design makes a product, service and customer interaction memorable.
Good CX design is aesthetic.
Good CX design helps us to understand a product and what the brand stands for.
Good CX design is unobtrusive.
Good CX design is honestly communicating what the brand stands for.
Good CX design is durable.
Good CX design is consequent to the last detail from the customers view.
Good CX design is concerned with the customer's environment.
Good CX design is as little design as possible.

So the big question is this. Is Apple ripping off or updating? My view is the latter with inspiration from the former.

What if I asked the question with a different perspective?

If you saw an innovation or a great idea that was outside your own company, or business, would you consider adapting it for your self? Of course you would - proving it was legal and also that morally you were OK that you were not just ripping something off. This is all part of the Makers and breakers in your business.

Some examples.

Air travel. Breaker. Square plates scream in-flight even if you are in business and first class with a better meal. Maker. Airlines using round plates to make it feel like a restaurant for the bigger bucks. Ansett International (God rest their corporate soul) had in-flight chefs to make it a true a la carte restaurant at 30,000 feet.
Car Wash Cafes. Breaker. We love having someone else wash the car but hate waiting. Maker. Import and combine that with the coffee culture and you relax with a latte and waiting time is not an issue.
Westfield Bondi Junction. Breaker. Carrying all the shopping and parcels around the centre. Maker. 'Hands Free Shopping'. If you use valet parking (a major maker) you get the service of having all your parcels waiting for you when you collect your car. Fee $5 - not per shop - for the service. Just notify the shop you are a hands free shopper. How much more would you buy if you didn't have to carry it all?

What can you see from any industry that would help what you do?
What experiences have you had, in any business, that you felt were outstanding that you could import to your business?
What experiences have you been told about, that someone else felt was good enough to spread, that you could incorporate into what you do?

Keep your experience sensors on and active. Other people and businesses can give you ideas and practices that you can incorporate to drive more business to your business.

American Airlines website sucks - till someone fixed it

2009-06-02T23:01:00.003+10:00

This is a great story from Fast Company of how simple wins. By trying to make everyone happy with their site AA messed up. Apple has a simple site, so does Google. The both manage to sell heaps from them so simple can, and does work.

The new and old sites are shown in the article. Love the difference. Send this to businesses that have sites that could do with learning this lesson.

Experience is everything.

Iven

Disasters can be great customer experiences

2009-05-21T08:59:00.004+10:00

US Airways have shown a great sense of understanding customers by making a huge effort to return the belongings of passengers on their flight that ditched into the Hudson River.

Read the story here
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/hudson-crash-passengers-start-getting-luggage-back-20090520-bffq.html

Two things are very important:

They didn't have to. The law says belongings only have to be returned when there fatalities. As we know thankfully there were none.
They gave each passenger $5,000 immediately. Normally this is done by a passenger fund.

US Airways got great maedia for the Pilot 'Sully'. The saving of the passengers and the way they handled the incident at the time. They could have left it there. That would have been easy. Engaging a specialist company to retun the personal items is outstanding.

Well done US Airways.

What can we take from this?

Every business needs a disaster recovery plan. Naturally airlines have procedures. Do you?
Disasters can be recovered and made into CX winners.
Thinking form the customers perspective always pays off.
The staff will get the same warm, happy feeling as the customers when the company does the extra stuff. It also teaches new staff "That's the way we do it round here"
Recovery opportunity happen at any point the customers trust is potentially damaged.

In summary; Good experiences are, most often, not an accident.

Your customers are changing - are you?

2008-05-23T10:07:00.001+10:00

As some of you know for a time I was the marketing Communications manager for the authors of this report the Peppers + Rogers group. They are the recognised thought leaders in the 1 to 1 marketing field.

For the last 18 months I have been talking to audiences about the challenges facing businesses when putting their offers out to the market.

Three of those challenges are reflected here in this study.

1 The authority shift from manufacturer to customer

2 The customer xperience will drive the customer's decision to stay with you or go

3 Trust is the glue that binds you to your customers.

OK so I am now over the ego boost that Peppers + Rogers agree with me. That's nice but more importantly it means that a number of people observing the market are observing the same things happening, even though we all have different perspectives.

It sn interesting read and you can get the full report, if you want it, at the bottom of their post.

1to1 marketing to change radically by 2020


Monday May 12, 2008

1to1 Media - the publishing arm of Peppers & Rogers Group - has taken a look ahead at what marketing will be like 12 years from now, having fielded research among 150 marketing executives for their insights into the future. The conclusion, of course, is that the process of marketing will be 'radically different' from today.

The research broadly determined that in all four components of the 1-to-1 Marketing Framework (Identify, Differentiate, Interact, and Customise - as developed by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.), the degree of 'radical change' will be high, with this degree of change being cited by more than half of the survey's respondents. ifrangi This article is copyright 2008 TheWiseMarketer.com).

Positive change
Most respondents (at least 80%) agreed that there will be moderate to high levels of positive change occurring within the capabilities that enable 1-to-1 marketing.

This may well be true, the study concluded, despite the increasing appearance of "marketing fog" on the horizon (such as government-backed privacy regulations, a deluge of messaging from multiple channels, and the increasingly scarce resource of consumer attention).

What's in the marketer's future?
The research also highlighted several noteworthy perceptions about 1-to-1 marketing in the year 2020:

Challenges remain and opportunities still abound
Relevant customer dialogue is expected to be the area with the lowest level of positive change, but it will at least be driven by moderate to high levels of change in understanding, in terms of both customer value and customer needs. Capturing and sharing customer information will see high levels of positive change, and using and coordinating these insights will improve the overall customer experience.
Marketers out of control while customers take control
82% of respondents agreed that control will shift from marketers to customers and, as a result, customer collaboration will take on much greater importance by 2020.
Relationships beat products
78% agreed that the future of marketing will be based on building authentic relationships more than the development of new and exciting products. As one respondent said: "A product can be duplicated, but a relationship can't."
Trust is still paramount
84% agreed that "building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective". Historically, the main objective of marketing has been promoting sales, and this shift in attitude suggests that marketers are more fully recognising that a message can't influence customer behaviour if the messenger isn't trusted. Consequently, marketers will play a greater role in creating and nurturing customer trust.

Early-mover advantage
According to Jack Sundstrom, director of research for Carlson Marketing, the 1-to-1 concept will become more significant in the years to come: "Organisations that plan on the groundwork of 1-to-1 will have the 'early mover advantage', possibly building a sustainable competitive advantage."

Based on this research and other market trends, Sundstrom predicted that 1-to-1 capabilities will change greatly in the coming years, and that those companies that are behind now will fall even further behind if they don't take corrective action soon: "Keeping up will require constant diligence and attention to new developments within each individual organisation".

The full report has been made available for free download from 1to1 Media's web site - click here (198Kb PDF document, no registration needed).

Director, Customer Experience

2007-06-10T16:10:00.000+10:00

This is the copy for the ad that I talked about in my newsletter 'Other Side Up"

It makes interesting reading. The skills required are broad and yet quite specific at the same time.

So as you read ask yourself these questions "Do I have anyone in my business doing this? If others are gearing up this way what's stopping me?"

Let me know your thoughts.

Iven

SunLife - Director, Customer Experience

Toronto, ON

Overview

The Director, Customer Experience is a newly created leadership position, working with business and IT partners to deliver an industry leading e-business experience. This role is key in Customer Solutions’ vision to provide value-added, innovative, and easy to use integrated e-business offerings. The Director leads a virtual team of e-business professionals within Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, and Individual focused on customer experience, ensuring alignment of our brands, standards, education, training, tools, templates, and managing key partnerships with our business and IT partners, external entities, and other key stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities/Job Functions

Work with the business areas (Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, Individual, Customer Solutions, Public & Corporate Affairs), IT teams (Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, Individual, Shared Application Services), and external organizations (customers, alliance partners/vendors) to ensure the development, delivery and integration of a high quality customer experience that will enhance value for users and enable the business units to meet their business objectives. This consulting role provides the expert advice and guidance to all areas involved in e-business design and publishing on all external Canadian sites.
Provides program management services for usability aspects of projects that are single business unit projects or those that cross business units. Projects tend to be large, complex, inter-related and span the organization.
Consulting with senior management, steering committees and working teams, this position will integrate user centric methodology into the product and services development process and take the overall customer experience to the next level. This incorporates user interface design, layout and harmonization, wire-frames, site-maps, information architecture, personas expertise, usability testing with report findings, prototypes, content templates and style guide interpretation.
Participate in the development of the e-business strategy as it pertains to customer experience, ensuring alignment with business initiatives.
Develops holistic usability solutions that integrate products/services, processes and technologies.
Facilitate effective partnerships and alliances with business units, external providers, vendors, etc.
Provide education and training on customer experience, usability and user centric design methodology through training sessions, workshops or lunch and learns.
Promote a learning environment that ensures continued development of a skilled and expert team to enable delivery of quality results.
Adopts a broad business approach to address stakeholder needs and priorities, in terms of defining and executing customer experience initiatives. This may include requests for enhancements of existing web functions or services.
Ensures standards and best practices are appropriately communicated and documented into the Style Guide.
Set up an internal community of web best practices, while maintaining linkage with a similar external community.

Qualifications

Knowledge/Skills/Experience/Competencies:

Minimum of 7 years experience in advanced customer experience design, ranging from vision and strategy to the creation of the information architecture, navigation and screen design.
Strategic thinker, strong hands-on leadership skills with the ability to influence and persuade others, especially across organizational boundaries. Well respected by management, peers and direct reports.
Excellent planning skills. A team player with the ability to manage a portfolio of programs/projects of significant scope and complexity in a fast-paced environment that includes numerous internal and external stakeholders and partners.
Ability to influence, facilitate, negotiate and manage stakeholders with a variety of sometimes conflicting interests to achieve a cohesive and quality web presence that meets enterprise and individual business area objectives. Includes ability to manage stakeholder expectations to achieve common goals.
Excellent analytical and problem solving skills, and demonstrated creativity with respect to idea generation and solution implementation. Creative, yet meticulously detail oriented with a sense of craftsmanship.
Strong interpersonal, presentation, communication and written skills. Will be expected to present to senior management, customers and partners as well as conduct usability testing with customers.
Collaborator with strong listening, facilitation and persuasion skills.
High tolerance for change and ambiguity.
Solid understanding of all facets of e-business development, including related methodologies and object-oriented practices. Proven ability to work with both business and technically oriented e-business teams.
Good understanding of Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, Customer Solutions and Individual (products, services, distribution, organization, systems, processes), and a proven track record in partnering across business boundaries would be assets

Face to face in a digital age

2007-02-04T01:22:00.000+11:00

Jack Morton is a world wide event company.

I posted this because the point they make about events still being the way to create buzz in a digital age is important to remember.

Naturally they see everything through event glasses. That's fine. Just take it into account when reading.

They have set out some excellent rules for when you are running your own event. Simple and direct. Well worth it for the next time you run a function, event, training day or any other business focussed gathering.

Just click on the link to see the article.

Iven

Articles

Here is the article to go with the last comment

2006-11-27T10:11:00.000+11:00

5 steps to effective Customer Loyalty Programs

By Adam Ramshaw (Director)

Increasingly organizations are becoming dissatisfied with their customer satisfaction surveys and turning instead to designing and implementing customer loyalty programs. The reason is simple, after 10 years of running national customer satisfaction surveys the American Customer Satisfaction Index has, basically, not moved at all. This is despite industry reportedly investing USD800,000,000 each year on improving customer satisfaction.

So what to do? Organizations are beginning to understand that itÂs not just about satisfaction. In order to improve their businesses they have to implement customer loyalty programs. Customer loyalty programs are different to normal customer satisfaction surveys because the later use outcome as an indicator of past success. The real goal is to understand and improve the areas of the business that drive customer loyalty.

In my experience there are five key steps to implementing good customer loyalty programs.
Step 1: Link customer loyalty to business outcomes

Before you make any investment you need to understand what the potential returns are going to be. The heart of Step 1 is linking your business goals (revenue, profit, market share, growth, whatever) to changes in customer loyalty.

That way you demonstrate the benefits as well as the costs of your customer loyalty programs when you present them to your management.

Start by taking your key business measurements and link them to changes in customer loyalty. If customer loyalty were to increase by 10% how much would profit rise?
Step 2 Find a loyalty indicator

While customer satisfaction surveys are measuring satisfaction at finer and finer levels it is becoming clear that, as a metric, customer satisfaction is not a very reliable measure of loyalty. Customer satisfaction surveys were always intended to be customer loyalty marketing surveys but they are in fact no such thing.

Research is now showing that, depending on your industry, unless your customer scores you in the "top box" in your customer satisfaction surveys, i.e. 5 out of 5 they have little real loyalty to your organization. Lets face it good customer satisfaction is now table stakes -Âyou have to do better to keep them loyal.

However, recent research (1) has shown that there is one question, the answer to which is a good indicator of customer loyalty. That question is "How likely would you be to recommend us to a friend or colleague".

ItÂs simple, straight forward and easy for your customers to understand. But most importantly the answer is closely correlated to customer loyalty and business profits. This question should be in all of your customer loyalty marketing surveys as a key outcome indicator.
Step 3: Identify the drivers of customer loyalty

Every business has a range of attributes that might impact on customer loyalty. If youÂre in financial services it could be areas like service fees, line lengths in branches, product features, etc. If your business is a physical product they might be delivery times, stock holdings, and order quantities.

Starting with the one question above, add questions about these different potential drivers of customer loyalty to your customer loyalty marketing surveys. DonÂt add too many. Maybe 10 or 15 and make sure that you use a rating scale to collect the customer perception of your performance.

Now comes the most important part: find someone to do some reasonably straightforward statistical analysis on your results to determine which of the drivers are most significant in terms of customer loyalty. There are a few different techniques but correlation and regression analysis are the most common.
Step 4: Implement your customer loyalty programs

Now you have the vital information that you need: you understand the state of customer loyalty and you understand which of your business attributes are most important to that loyalty.

Start by focusing on just a few of the most important drivers that you also believe that you can change. Then simply start making changes in your business.

Perhaps you have found that line lengths in your branches are a key driver of customer loyalty. Work with your staff to identify ways to change you business processes and reduce line lengths. Make sure that you align staff compensation plans and bonuses so that the changes you make will be permanent.

Once youÂve improved the most important areas move on to those that are less important.
Step 5: Re-survey your customers

Remember that the goal is to improve customer loyalty. Marketing surveys repeated at regular intervals will let you know how youÂre customer loyalty programs are doing on both customer loyalty and the important drivers of customer loyalty that you have identified.

(1) "The one number you need to grow", Frederick Reicheld, Harvard Business Review December 2004.

Loyalty versus Satisfaction. There is an even better way.

2006-11-27T10:02:00.000+11:00

This is an interesting article that lays out some very useful information about about customer loyalty versus customer satisfaction.

The reason I posted it is that I was recently briefed by a business that has 92% satisfaction. Now that is extremely high.

And their problem is that they are going broke!

I fully support the move to loyalty, and it's not enough. The critical move is to create advocates for your business. People who will brag about what you do. That is a combination of a number of things.

Designing customer experiences that engender loyalty and then as well as measuring loyalty, also measuring advocacy.

After all that here is the article.

The top priorities of a CEO

2006-11-17T13:20:00.000+11:00

This information came from a US business that works with CEO's.

Life in Business » Blog Archive » CEO’s Top Priorities

CEO’s Top Priorities

1. Speed, flexibility, adaptability to change

2. Sustained and steady top-line growth

3. Customer loyalty/retention
4. Stimulating innovation/creativity/enabling entrepreneurship

5. Tight cost control

6. Availability of talented managers/executives

7. Cost/ability to innovate

8. Employee loyalty/commitment/job satisfaction

9. Transferring knowledge/ideas practices within the company

10. Succession planning

11. Making investment/capital allocation decisions

12. Aligning IT with business goals

13. Regulatory compliance

14. Making best/highest use of available data

15. Management/board succession

16. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance

Original writing date: June 21, 2005

The top priorities of a CEO

2006-11-17T13:19:00.000+11:00

This information came from a US business that works with CEO's.

Life in Business » Blog Archive » CEO’s Top Priorities

CEO’s Top Priorities

1. Speed, flexibility, adaptability to change

2. Sustained and steady top-line growth

3. Customer loyalty/retention
4. Stimulating innovation/creativity/enabling entrepreneurship

5. Tight cost control

6. Availability of talented managers/executives

7. Cost/ability to innovate

8. Employee loyalty/commitment/job satisfaction

9. Transferring knowledge/ideas practices within the company

10. Succession planning

11. Making investment/capital allocation decisions

12. Aligning IT with business goals

13. Regulatory compliance

14. Making best/highest use of available data

15. Management/board succession

16. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance

Original writing date: June 21, 2005

Stamford Hotels get saucy!

2006-07-10T16:32:00.000+10:00

Stamford Hotels in Australia have started to use viralmarketing by creating cameo videos that peole will pass around. My wife sent me this link. There are a couple of different videos on the website. they are fun and fall into the category of infectious from a viral standpoint.

Here is the link to the page with two clips.

http://www.stamford.com.au/page.asp?3653=406115&e_page=406005

Let me know if there are any other examples of hotels seeking to differentiate themselves.

Iven

Back on and active

2006-07-10T16:26:00.000+10:00

For some time this blog has been inactive. My apologies if you have been visiting in search of the latest information. As usual the technical problem was really simple and basically more about me than the machine.

So now it's on with the show.

Thanks for your patience or welcome if it's your first time.

Iven

Bezos does an about turn

2005-07-16T08:29:00.000+10:00

2300% growth can’t be ignored. That’s what Jeff Bezos decided when he started looking at the opportunities available on the web. He analysed all the possible products that could be marketed and decided that the one that had the greatest need for upgrading was books. It was a head not a heart decision. Clearly calculated and thought out.

“This was my criteria: picking a category where you could substantially improve the customer experience along a dimension that could only be done on the web.” said Bezos.

To read more about how he built Amazon and why he is going in a completely different direction here is the link.

http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=10754_0_3_1_C

Bezos also sets out what’s next and how the business he built with Amazon will not be the one he builds next.

As always let me know your thoughts and give me any feedback you have on this customer experience example.

Iven

68% of Customer Feel Ignored - A great opportunity

2005-07-11T11:24:00.000+10:00

That's what a study quoted by the Dean of the Kellogg School of Management, Dipak Jain stated about how American customers feel. I'm sure the numbers in other markets would be similiar.

He talked about how people are feeling like commodities when purchasing and what you can do about it. Here is a link to the full article. He has other interesting points.

http://www.agencyfaqs.com/news/stories/2005/07/06/11951.html

What a great opportunity. It means that at least 68% of the market are available to you and your business if you create an outstanding and memorable customer experience.

Let me know if you agree or disagree with what he has to say.

More soon.

Iven
CEO. Cheif Experience Officer

Over 50% of CRM fails. Want to know why.

2005-07-01T14:39:00.000+10:00

You are being judged. By everyone who interacts with your business. Everytime they do.

You can't avoid it. You can't stop it. You can't fight it. But you can manage it!

Every customer or prospective customer gets an experience of your business and how it operates every time they 'touch' it anwhere on your touch map.

The main touch points are: face to face, email, web, phone, fax and mail.

At each point they get an experience. The simple question is this."Is it the experience you want them to have?"

Rik and Janel Villegas in the Saipan tribune put it this way "The experience that customers have with your organization should be a central consideration in the short-term growth and long-term health of your business. The simple fact is that your customers cannot not have an experience. The question, then, is how do you manage that take-away impression formed by their encounters with your products, services, and overall operations; and do it so that your customers have an experience that is consistent with the experience you would like them to have?"

OK so manage the experience. But manage what exactly?

There are three factors that go to making up the customer experience. Your customers could experience them individually or together.

People, Operations and Technology.

Change one and you impact them all! That's why over 50% of CRM installations fail. In most cases the technology is upgraded - a major CRM vendor is usually pushing this - and it's expected that by osmosis the operations and people will adapt as well.

Managing the Customer Experience is about managing all the touch points and their relationship with the people , processes and technology so that they are coreographed to achieve the same outcome.

The keys for 100% success?

Prepare the people for the changes. Train, explian and refrain - refrain from cristisism when it's all new.
Design the operational systems for the new environment so they don't sabotage the new iniatives and ...
Impliment the technology upgrades as the first two are done.

That's it for now. Feel free to comment or ask for topics you want answers on.

Iven

Can't get no respect! 65% fail the test.

2005-07-01T11:53:00.000+10:00

The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield had as his catch phrase "I can't get no respect".

The survey says..

According to the latest survey of the top 100 US firms when it comes to online experience neither can they. The Customer Respect Group - yes that really is their name - condcuted their 4th annual Customer Respect Study and found when it comes to respect only 6% rate Excellent; 29% Get a Good Rating and, in these days of privacy paranoia 30% Continue to Share User Information Without Permission.

An the winners are... HP, Medco Health Solutions, Sprint, Intel, American Express and UPS.

How did they arrive at this conclusion? Here is an excerpt from the article.

"By interviewing a representative sample of the adult Internet population, and by analyzing and categorizing more than 2000 corporate Web sites across a spectrum of industries in detail over the past four years, The Customer Respect Group has determined the attributes that combine to create the entire online customer experience. These attributes have been grouped together and measured as indicators of Simplicity (ease of navigation), Responsiveness (quick and helpful responses to inquiries), Privacy (respect for the privacy of the customer), Attitude (customer-focus of site), Transparency (open and honest policies) and Principles (values and respects customer data). Combined they measure a company's overall Customer Respect."

So there you have it. The attributes for your own online experience evaluation. I like this list because it goes to the heart of Experience Management. Anyhing is managable if it's measurable.

Simplicity
Responsivness
Privacy
Attitude
Transparency
Principles

If you need help to evaluate your online experience give me a call. At 'The Experience Managers' we have the expetise you halp you evaluate your situation and more importantly help you create an excellent online experience for your clients.

You can read the whole article by clicking on this link.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050627005850&newsLang=en

Good Experience Engineering

Iven

The start of managing the Customer Experience

2005-06-22T05:39:00.000+10:00

The idea of this blog is simple - to bring you the latest and most interesting ideas and information about how to create consistent, stable and strong experiences for your customers. That's it!

The philosophy is simple and its the phrase that drives what I do. "If you give people an experience they can't get anywhere else - they wont go anywhere else"

So stay tuned for information, insights and advice on how to create Incredible Customer Experiences.

Be part of creating an experience!

Makers and Breakers

An Experience is either Made or Broken by what happens to us when we interact with a business. Tell me about what a business you have shopped in, bought from or have a long term relationship does that makes it or breaks it for you.

Every month the best Maker or Breaker story will win a prize from our gift shop. (There has to be an old birthday present I can recycle somewhere here)

Keep coming back to check on what's going on in the Customer Experience world. I promise to keep it interesting, informative and fun. In short a great experience.

Iven