Key Consumer Trends That Are Changing the CX Landscape

Today's consumers are increasingly empowered in the brand-customer relationship with high expectations. Trends such as peer armies, honest flexibility, personalization, customized experiences, dynamic pricing, and transparency are changing the CX landscape. 

What do these trends mean for you and your customer experience program? Is your CX Strategy able to accommodate this shift? Join Keynote Maxwell Luthy, Director of Trends & Insights, trendwatching.com as he showcases cutting edge customer experiences at the Total CX Leaders Conference. Check out our interview with Maxwell on our blog: http://bit.ly/1NB8A0T

Total CX Leaders Conference

June 3-4, 2015

Trump National Doral

Miami, Florida

Key Consumer Trends to Kick Ass With... Now!

This session will be packed with examples of cutting edge customer experiences from leading brands (and innovative startups) from Boston to Beijing. Attendees will get all the inspiration and insights needed to tap into - and profit from - the hottest consumer trends, today. Your takeaways:

·         A fast, exciting download of key current consumer trends

Inspirational examples of businesses and brands already applying those trends to enhance the customer experience

·         A conceptual framework that can turn any business professional into not only a trendwatcher, but an instigator of winning new business innovations, too!

2015 Speakers Joining Maxwell on stage, include:

·         Darryl Speach, Chief Customer Officer, Greystone & Co, Inc.

·         Michael Lenz, Global Director of Brand Experience, Cisco

·         Diane Magers, Office of the Customer Mobility and Business Solutions, AT&T

·         And, many more!

Download brochure for full conference details: http://bit.ly/1C25lLj

To establish a compelling customer experience practice brands must ensure their 2015 customer experience is personal, effortless and contextualized across all channels. Join your peers this June in Miami, as we explore the trends, techniques, and tools to implement a successful CX Strategy.

Use code TCXL15BL for $100 off the current rate. Register today: http://bit.ly/1C25lLj

Best,
The Total CX Leaders Team

@TotalCustomer

#TCXL15

Customers1stblog.iirusa.com

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Optimizing the Customer Experience through Multi-Social Marketing

In the life sciences industry, multi-social marketing is new to most people. Many assume multi-social marketing is only about applying core creative elements across all communication channels — print, digital, online, and social media. But, it actually interlaces siloed channels and creates immersive experiences that align with the customer journey.

According to PharmaVoice Multi-social marketing begins with storytelling - a powerful tool to connect and inspire action that goes beyond facts and data. Effective storytelling engages the emotions of customers and inspires them. The best multi-social marketing initiatives integrate campaigns and leverage best practices from all channels, including print, digital, and social media. The most successful initiatives focus on the needs of different customer segments at each point in their journeys through the channels they prefer. And, the final critical element is the creation of value for customers beyond the prescribed treatment - value beyond the treatment is what keeps customers engaged with a brand.

To develop a successful multi-social marketing campaign, you have to understand the customer experience. Dive deep to understand the interactions between physicians, patients, caregivers, nurses, pharmacists, and information sources. Once the customer experience is understood, the multi-social marketing experience strategy can be created. The process for developing a multi-social strategy includes:

• Discovery—Ask questions and gather data to understand current and future customer needs.
• Assessment— Understand and predict customer needs now and in the future.
• Market research— Confirm assumptions about unmet needs and predict behavior across all channels.
• Insights—Transform data through analysis into business intelligence.
• Short-term optimization—Develop plans to interact with customers that deliver what they need, when they need it, and how they want it.
• Long-term solutions—Apply the right resources (staff, processes, technology, content) to the work.

This piece was contributed by @AmandaCicc.

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Customer Experience Conversations: Keith Ferrazzi

In this next post in our Customer Experience Conversations series, we sat down with Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit’s keynote speaker Keith Ferrazzi, who is also CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight and Author of Never Eat Alone. Ferrazzi discussed how customer experienced has evolved in the digital age and the importance of customer experience leadership.

This year, TCEL will explore the new realities of building brands and relationships in today’s socially driven and data abundant world. The event will shine an important lens on the power of insights and the critical need for marketers to focus on factoring emotion into the bigger equation to get a return on customer relationships.

Here is what Ferrazzi had to say:

IIR: Why are empathy and emotion so important in when it comes to customer experience?

Ferrazzi: Technology's pretty much leveled the field with regard to quality, making customers more likely to develop relationships with the companies they choose to work with. That's put the customer in the position of looking for a more personal experience. They want to work with people they trust. Empathy, vulnerability, emotion are ways to develop that trust. 

IIR: What are the key traits of a great customer experience leader?

Ferrazzi:  Obviously, accountability is critical. You're responsible for your customer's experience, good or bad. But trust, creativity and adaptability are also pretty high. You have to trust your team to constantly look for new ways to improve the customer experience. You need the creativity to see the bigger, longer picture. And you need to be lean enough to change courses when necessary.

IIR: If your customers have a bad customer experience, how do you reconnect with them moving forward?

Ferrazzi: Before anything else, admit your mistake, if it was your mistake, and apologize directly. So many difficult situations can be neutralized with two simple, but sincere, words: "I'm sorry." Customers are angry after a bad experience because they feel like they were treated poorly. By apologizing, you've already changed the dynamic and make resolving the situation more collaborative. From there you can turn a bad customer experience into a loyal customer just by being open to their feelings.

IIR: How has the digital revolution changed the overall customer experience?

Ferrazzi: It's certainly had an equalizing effect. Neither customer nor company is limited by the old, pre-digital marketplace. Small start-ups can compete against big brands by serving a specific niche and can reach customers all over the world, just by being where their customers are online. And with so much market segmentation targeting your specific customers is more cost effective. You'll reach fewer eyes but the ones you do reach are more likely to be interested in your product.

IIR: How has social media affected customer experience?

Ferrazzi: It's made feedback instantaneous. You know immediately whether your customer's had a good or bad experience. The customer is far more empowered and a dissatisfied customer is always more likely to voice his or her opinion. One bad meal, one rude CSR, and Twitter, Facebook, Reddit knows immediately. You can see that as a problem, or you can use that same medium to show how much you value your customers.

IIR: How do you make the connections between experience, brand and loyalty, which together create customer expectations?

Ferrazzi: Understanding what your brand brings to your customers, not just in the specific goods or services, but in the visceral experience, is critical. Even if you are your brand, is your audience one who is looking for something posh or homey? Luxurious or utilitarian? Intellectually rigorous or practical? Know what emotional need your fulfilling in addition the good or service you're providing, and you'll turn a generic transaction into an "experience" which will trigger loyalty. 

Want to hear more from Keith on customer experience in person? Join him at Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit 2014 in Miami in April. To learn more about the event and register, click here:  http://bit.ly/1ces31p

About the Author: Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist of the Marketing Division at IIR USA, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. Amanda is the Editor at Large for several of IIR’s blogs including Next Big Design, Customers 1st, and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts, and a regular contributor to Front End of Innovation and The Market Research Event,. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the technology industry. She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc.

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