Creating a Millennial-Friendly Customer Experience

Retailers today are striving to make sure that their companies provide a millennial-friendly customer experience. As a millennial myself, I have been fortunate enough to have grown up in a more advanced technological world where I, like many others in a similar age bracket, will have been more tech savvy than their parents by their early teens. Customer experience for millennials has been molded by the increasing number of platforms available for retail and this creates opportunities and challenges for retailers.

Monitoring online social experiences are seen as a must for retail companies; consumers are often flocking to the web to look for answers to issues as well as contacting a call center or an online chat for information. The web has a huge number of forums and communities where consumers go to discuss products and are in my eyes a great resource for gaining first hand insights into exactly what customers want or think about products. Often, companies only monitor comments from customers on their own sites and may miss people’s comments from sites such as TripAdvisor or other discussion rooms.

Social media sites such as twitter are now becoming a popular resource for companies to talk to customers. According to Forbes, millennials take up 29 percent of the twitter-sphere and use the platform for commenting on purchases; leveraging the resource to monitor posts and often responding via twitter can give the customer a sense of being personally looked after rather than having to wait on hold whilst a customer representative at a call center keeps you on hold for three hours.

Giving the customer a more personalized feel is deemed another priority in giving a better customer experience. Repeating personal information that could have been retained by companies I find very irritating. Fundamental information such as contact information and home addresses I expect to be able to be seen across different platforms and having to re-input information could put customers off returning. Being able to access personal information and interests is key to giving a customer a comfortable and easy experience. Online retailers such as Amazon and ASOS retain previous purchase information or what has been searched for in order to give suggestions. I believe the next step would be to take that technique in store.

The world is becoming far more interconnected; so I believe creating systems that register a smartphone when a person has entered a store can bring up information of again past purchases so that a shop assistant would be able to give the customer a more personal experience.

Catering to the desires of the millennial generation could be a great opportunity to boost customer satisfaction. Other strategies could be being more engaged in price comparison or giving more of a story behind a product rather than just it being made for profit. TOMS shoes is a prime example, it helps the consumer appreciate the company for doing something to help rather than just making money. Millennials have grown up in a world where global issues such as poverty and climate change are often at the forefront of discussions; so creating a retail platform that goes beyond wanting to make an easy buck, for me and I’m sure many others, would be the difference in choosing between two retailers.

About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

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• Is Market Research Slowly Getting Out of Our Control?
• Customer Service and Social Media: Is the "Like" Button a Disruptive Game Changer?
• Social Changes the Rules of Customer Service
• Millennials 'Most Afraid' of the Internet Compared to Anyone Else: Study

Combining Digital Data with Traditional CRM to Enhance Customer Experience

Putting the customer at the heart of your business strategy has been the key to success. It seems obvious, however, data & CRM specialists agree it is still an aspiration for many. CRM systems that combined digital, mobile and social data alongside traditional touch-points are outstripping those that don’t.  In fact, brands like Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks have cracked the customer service game thanks to their combined approach.

“The art of CRM doesn’t change, but the channel has. It’s all about talking to customer in relevant way, at the right time, on the right channel and adding value to the customer’s life. Combining the digital alongside offline data has enabled companies such as Pizza Hut and Domino’s, to identify individuals rather than just households,” said Celerity’s Managing Director Jason Lark.

According to Econsultancy.com, the benefits of joining up digital, mobile, social and offline CRM data include:

No Duplication

Businesses that have integrated all touch points into a single view CRM system are outperforming those that aren’t because they don’t duplicate messages.

1-2-1 Conversations

Data drawn from Facebook, email and other social media channels means large multinationals have an opportunity to have a 1-2-1 conversation with customers.

Real-time Relevance

Using mobile as a channel to collect and harness data has allowed companies to create targeted, personalized offerings.

Agile Customer Service

Companies that have embraced social media, now respond to conversations with customers instantly, demonstrating agile customer service.

Personalization

By tracking offline and online activity organizations can personalize content to reward to the customer.

Tracking Former Customers  

Data created from the digital wallet allows you to track the consumer once they’ve left your site. 

Related articles

• Presenting Social CRM Data For Customer Service
• Is Big Data Going To Be The Secret Weapon For CRM?
• Shameful Ways Your CRM Software is Wasting Your Time

Social Media Creates a Connected Customer Experience

If you think your business is not “doing” social media, you’re wrong. Your company may not be active, but I guarantee your fans and your non-supporters are there. It is the brand's responsibility to create a social media experience that can turn a dissatisfied customer into a fan. These days, social media has become the equalizer between companies and customers, but utilizing social channels to their full potential can be complex if social media is not incorporated into a customer engagement strategy. In fact, this year social CRM could witness a significant shift away from the use of social media as pure marketing, and instead collaborating for customer support interactions, according to Jenny Sussin, principal research analyst at Gartner . By 2015, the development of social media teams will accelerate, and by 2017, social media could achieve enterprise-wide clout. It is estimated that three percent of social media interactions that companies have with customers today may grow to 20 percent by 2016. More and more businesses are experiencing the value of social media as a tool to improve the customer experience. It is being used as more than a communications platform, and is actually transforming into a means to ensure product quality and services. Positive social media interactions can contribute to customer satisfaction as well, but companies need to consider accessibility to ensure customers have the same experience whenever they interact with a brand on social media. According to Sussin, developing a social media plan to improve the customer experience begins with assessing the organization’s social media maturity. Executives should then identify one aspect of customer engagement that would be improved through social media. After engaging stakeholders to bring social media into the customer engagement strategy, the values for success should be agreed upon. Lastly, a company should deploy a test and then iterate the strategy across the business.

That being said, here are seven ways for your company to create a memorable customer experience on social media:

Give Your Customers a Place to Talk

Companies are afraid to set up Facebook pages because they allow customers to comment, which means someone might write something negative. You should actually want customers to complain on your company's Facebook page - when customers complain on your brand's Facebook page, you can resolve their issues. And if you do it right, unhappy customers will turn their opinions around and recommend you to friends.

Integrate Social Media into Your Customer Service

Neglecting your social media properties when they're full of customer complaints is brand suicide. Don't open up the floor for complaints without a plan to handle them. Predict the complaints you may get and construct policies for replying to them. You should also plan on responding to fans who compliment you.

Activate Your Customer Base

Most brands have more customers than they do Facebook fans and Twitter followers. So, start building your social media fan base by reaching out to your current customers. Think about how you contact your customer base and how you can use those channels to draw customers to your social media properties.

Be Proactive

Don't just wait for someone to post on your wall or tweet your account. Set your brand apart by proactively interacting with customers who are talking about your brand, whether you're thanking them for a compliment or helping them solve a problem.

Reward Influencers

Find the social media influencers for your audience and give them extras. This could be as simple as giving them advance notice of a special promotion, or complex as giving them a free tour of your facilities. Reward your brand ambassadors when they least expect it and you’ll see great results.

Create Compelling Content

Give your fans something of value on your social media pages. Every brand can create quality content. Social media can be a channel to make customers or followers feel special, like they’re in an exclusive club with your brand because they follow you.

Stand Out From the Crowd

Some of the most memorable social media experiences are created by going beyond text. The more interactive and engaging your social media presence, the better.  By giving your fans a voice on social media, or encouraging participation through photos and videos, you humanize the experience.

Related articles

• The 10 Commandments of a Social Media Strategy
• Social CRM Transformation And The Path Ahead
• Can Social Media Save Lives?

How to ask for ideas from your customers. The Top 20 Customer Experience Management (CEM) Software Technologies

It’s all well and good to work on ideas and innovation by collaborating internally.  But if we want ideas from our customers we have to deliver that message, along with all the other important messages we communicate outside of the company.  Even if the message is that “we’re an innovative company”.  

Customer Feedback Wanted.  Here’s a fact, in case you didn’t notice…Large companies are trying to figure out how to engage with their customers.  They are asking the public what they’re thinking by using Customer Feedback Management (I wrote about that a few weeks ago here).  And they’re carefully managing how they communicate with their customers.  Customers must be reached where they dwell and they live for the most part in social networks.

Marketing automation used to be simple.  The channels were email, direct mail and phone.  Companies used these simple channels to reach out to customers (and potential customers).  You would pick the most likely prospects, and the best way to reach them and fire away.  Fingers crossed for 1 to 3% response. 

Social networks, where people tend to dwell now, and can be reached, is not just another channel.  It’s a whole new ballgame, requiring an interactive, sometimes real time, conversation between the people who work at your company and your customers.  If you’re lucky you’ll get those customers to be loyal and advocate for you.  

Why is Customer Experience Management important to the innovation inclined?  Two main reasons: 

     1.      You want to find out what your customers are thinking.

     2.     You want to periodically challenge them to provide their ideas.

There are too many social network channels, too many customers and not enough time to communicate effectively (and track the results) without good software.

Customer Experience Management is a class of software on offer from big companies like IBM and Oracle as well as a slew of smaller companies.  Remarkably it’s somewhat of a level playing field.  No company owns the market and the slew of software options are difficult to compare.  It’s not that they’re virtually equal in competencies. It is just that so many have taken different steps to get there.

Some of these come from the email space, recently adding on software to communicate via the mobile channel, then tools to push out messages via Twitter and Facebook.  Other software vendors focus initially on the social channels and add on dashboards to give the bigger picture.  Still others take novel approaches, like providing technology to track contests or setup a social network.   With this blog post I’m endeavoring to take a look at what the choices are.

A List of the Top 20 Customer Experience Management Software Offerings.  Let’s take a look at the most well known, and widely installed Customer Experience Management (CEM) software offerings that can be used to manage the messages and calls to action you put out to your customers and the public. There's actually way more than 20 but that looked better in the headline :).   In all cases, I’m adding the company’s own description.

    1.     Empathica                  empowers employees and customers of leading brands to create places they love; turning transactions into great experiences, employees into owners and customers into advocates.

     2.     Satmetrix                    the leading provider of cloud-based customer experience software for companies worldwide.

     3.     Eloqua  (Oracle)         highly personalized and unified experience across channels 

     4.     Totango          combines big data analytics with powerful segmentation and engagement tools to allow online services to take the right actions with each customer, in realtime.

     5.     Shoutlet                      a social marketing platform.

     6.     SDL                              solutions for managing the global customer experience

     7.     Silverpop                    marketing technology provider with expertise in email marketing and marketing automation

     8.     ExactTarget                 a provider of on-demand email marketing software solutions.

     9.     Hootsuite                   social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks

     10.     Hearsay                       bolster brands across all the major social networks

     11.     Wildfire/ Google         social media marketing software

     12.  Vitrue/Oracle                social marketing solution

     13.  Involver/ Oracle            social marketing platform

     14.  Sailthru                        helping brands deliver individual experiences to millions of unique users in real time.  

     15.  Hubspot                       All-In-One Marketing Software

     16.  Lyris                             data-driven interactive marketing campaigns that facilitate superior engagement, increase conversions, and deliver measurable business value.

     17.  Thismoment                 powers dynamic brand experiences - online social marketing campaigns comprising multimedia-rich content, creative design and social conversations

     18.  Brickfish                      engagement based social media programs through contests

     19.  Dynamic Signal           provides a white-label platform for brands to run high-reach word of mouth marketing campaigns in collaboration with a trusted circle of brand advocates.

     20.  Moxie                            the most complete and intuitive social networking software for the enterprise for employee and customer engagement

     21.  Tongal a social content development platform that helps global businesses connect with global creativity

     22.  Expion                           a social software company with a centralized platform that empowers global brands, agencies, and retailers to localize and manage their social marketing efforts. 

These are more CRM systems, than Customer Experience Management, although CEM is typically a subset of the offering:

21.  Neolane                      provides the only conversational marketing technology that empowers organizations to build and sustain one-to-one lifetime dialogues

22.  IBM (via Unica or their EMM offering) enterprise marketing management software

23.  Aprimo                        delivers technology and insight that accelerates marketing productivity and the ability of marketing to document performance.

24.  Loopfuse                     a sales and marketing automation software

25.  eTrigue                          easy-to-use marketing automation, demand generation and sales acceleration Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications

26.  TreeHouse Interactrive  a leading SaaS provider of marketing automation and partner relationship management (PRM) software for companies that sell B2B, B2C or through partners.

27.  Act-on                         allows business users to integrate their customer relationship management efforts across a variety of popular tools in one easy-to-use interface.

Summary:  Idea Management Solutions are perfect for internal collaboration focused on innovation.  Compelling portals with easily administered security can be configured using existing internal idea management software solutions.  Specialized software exists designed to Challenge customers (and the public) to provide solicited feedback including ideas.  And these software products are perfect to communicate both brand messages and the message that your company embraces innovation.

 
About the Author

Ron Shulkin blogs researches and writes about enterprise technology focused on social media, innovation, voice of the customer, marketing automation and enterprise feedback management.  Ron Shulkin is Vice President of the Americas for CogniStreamer®, an innovation ecosystem.  CogniStreamer serves as a Knowledge Management System, Idea Management System and Social Network for Innovation.  You can learn more about CogniStreamer here http://bit.ly/ac3x60 .  Ron manages The Idea Management Group on LinkedIn (Join Here) . You can follow him Twitter. You can follow his blogs at this Facebook group.  You can connect with Ron on LinkedIn.

Republished by Permission from The Front End of Innovation Blog.

Connecting VOC Data Back to Your Customer Strategy

Building a sound strategic customer plan calls for making some really tough decisions. You know that providing unique and authentic experiences to your customer is an integral part of the plan - but balancing that alongside meeting your short-term business goals, requires true organizational alignment in order to achieve real success.

Deliver the experiences your customers have come to expect from your brand means knowing your customer, what they value and translating that value into what matters most.

How well do you know your most valuable customers and are you connecting your VOC data back to the customer strategy?

The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit is uniting cross-industry, customer-focused leaders to share best practices in linking data-driven behavior to business results, designing next generation customer experiences and measuring the impact of customer programs. Download the brochure for full details here.

Keynote Spotlight: 

 

How Can Customer Centricity Be Profitable?

- Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

 

Many experts are touting the virtues of "Customer Centricity" as a valuable emerging business model, but there is a lot of confusion about what this concept means - and uncertainty about whether and how it actually leads to greater profitability. The purpose of this session is to bring clarity to both of these issues. 

We begin with a brief review of Professor Fader's recent book but then dive deep into the profitability questions. We examine the main tactical "building blocks" underlying customer centricity and point out some subtle but important insights to help managers make the most effective and efficient use of each of them.

 

Joining Peter at the event is an impressive keynote roster, including:

• Jasmine Green, Vice President, Chief Customer Advocate, Nationwide 

• Dan Hill, Ph.D., President, Sensory Logic

• Sean Bruich, Head of Measurement Platforms & Standards, Facebook

• Christopher Frank, Vice President, American Express, Author, Drinking from the Firehose

• Thomas Feeney, President & CEO, Safelite AutoGlass

And more, download the brochure for the full speaker list and session descriptions.

Register today and lock in the early bird rate for Total Customer Experience Leaders 2013 - save $300 off the standard rate.

Related articles

• 13 Customer Experience Trends to Watch in 2013 (experiencematters.wordpress.com)
• Increasing Customer-Focus in Voice of the Customer for Business Results (customerthink.com)
• The Top CRM Trends For 2013 (customerthink.com)

Nationwide, Safelite & Facebook Integrate VOC & Market Insights into Customer Strategy

Image via CrunchBase

Are you keeping the customer at the center of every business decision?

Are you using the data captured across the ENTIRE customer journey to create a strategic business plan?

Join us at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit as we unite a diverse group of customer-focused change makers to share best practices on integrating VOC and market insights into your customer strategy. Gain the knowledge and skills you need to confidently uncover, manage, link and act on customer data NOW.  

Featured keynotes include:

POWER OF LISTENING:
Valuing Customer Input and Feedback
 - Jasmine Green, Vice President, Chief Customer Advocate, Nationwide

CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY:
How Can Customer Centricity be Profitable
 - Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

LEADERSHIP:
Driving Good Profits by Building a Customer-Centric Culture
 - Thomas Feeney, President & CEO, Safelite AutoGlass

SOCIAL MEDIA:
The New Collision of Measurement and Customer Insights
 - Sean Bruich, Head of Measurement Platforms & Standards, Facebook

And much more. Download the brochure to view the comprehensive agenda covering customer experience design, measurement & feedback, strategy and alignment. The Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit covers everything you need to know to create a customer-centric culture.

Register today to secure your spot at the Total Customer Experience Leaders Summit and save $300 off the standard rate.


Registration Information: 
Please mention your blog reader VIP code to save 15% off the standard and onsite rate.
http://bit.ly/UxYinD 
Email: register@iirusa.com
Phone: 888.670.8200

NACCM 2009: I Want To Tweet You Up

I Want To Tweet You Up: What Emerging Customer Trends Mean for Your Business
Michael Tchong, Trend Analyst & Founder, Ubercool

We should begin by discriminating trends from fads. Trends are consumer value changes. The best way to predict consumer behavior

Ubertrend – major movement, pattern or wave, emerging in the consumer lifestyle

Digital lifestyle – marriage between man and machine
The Compression – the acceleration of life
Unwired – The unhooked generation

Captin Sully’s situation reporting coverage was changed by Twitter. The first image was from Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida from an iPhone. Comedians are the ones who best observe trends. The youths are on the front of this trend. The majority of Twitter users are abroad. Twendz lets you see Twitter trends as they are cascading down. Michael Tchong said Twitter will make or break swine flu.

Multitasking too much makes it harder for humans to remember things. The Wii now responds people to rehabilitate faster. Have you gone to “Wii”hab yet?

Tchong looks to microwaves for introducing Americans to instant gratification. Our state of mind has become a state of time. Culture has created a fast society, because we have a fear of being left behind.

Everyone is looking for innovation. In 1999, 95% of people stated that they wanted to be a leader. This is up from 37% in 1991.



We’re all facing the GPS Generation. We can get anywhere like a native, and leaving maps behind. Same can be said for speed dial and remembering phone numbers. Sit or Squat to find the restroom.

Time Compression. Food, photos, instant energy, etc. We are all trigger happy. Epic fail – Frequently used term in the video game community that means you really messed up and/or something/someone is an utter failure. This is video game culture seeping into life.

Digital lifestyle: We’ve gotten an unknown president into office. Twilight and New Moon made a mom from Phoenix a multimillionaire.

Download free Uberternds map at ubercool.com.

Facebook and it's customer service

We've heard many great thing about how online communities can strengthen and increase the value of customer service, but what happens with the online communities themselves have poor customer service? According to Caroline McCarty, many Facebook profiles have suffered from a recent outage. They've contacted both her and Facebook for a response, but little has come from Facebook in terms of customer support. After contacting Facebook, users only got back minimal responses that stated that their information was in no way compromised.

Is this acceptable? As one of the most highly trafficked web pages, should they work to support their customers better? I think so. Because to stay on top of the social networking world, they must continue to connect and listen to their customers, instead of leaving their questions about their accounts to go unanswered for days.

Customer Service and Cloud Computing Make Service Cloud

According to ZDnet.com, Salesforce.com has unveiled its Service Cloud, a customer service application that’s designed for cloud computing and plugged into conversations that occur on Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Customers can use the Service Cloud as a community on these websites and social networking sites to talk about specific products--a more 2.0 version of the message board. The goal of the Service Cloud is to "absorb information into a corporate knowledge base," i.e., find out when and what people are talking about and use that to enhance their customer service and understanding of consumers.

Also, Salesforce.com promises that Service Cloud results will be ranked near the top of Google results and multi-channel–phone, email and chat–support hosted in the cloud.

It seems that these online retailers are looking to be a "friend" with the consumers online and will try to engage the consumer about products on a candid level.

Post your thoughts on Service Cloud here or on our LinkedIn group.

5 Crucial Steps in Reaching the Teen Customer

I came across an interesting post on Ypulse that highlights Gary Rudman’s 5 tips on what marketers should consider when they are trying to reach teens. Here they are:

1. Teens are so used to getting everything with a touch of a button, so the message must also be clear and simple. If the message is too hard to understand, then teens will not be able to digest the information and you might lose them altogether.
2. We live in a technology based world, and so new products must excite and dazzle the youth. You can count the number of teens who do not own an iPod on one hand. Items like jeans, skateboards, and other non-technology based items do not excite teens anymore.
3. Not only is technology important, but the appearance of the item is important as well. Gary mentions that a sixteen year old boy in a focus group once said, “You don't want a girl to see you using a lame, old, ugly-ass cell phone."
4. Customization is a must-have in reaching teens. MySpace, Facebook, Xbox360 all provide a platform for teens to customize features and skins personally tailored to their individual style.
5. Portability is king for these tech-crazy teens. Teens want to be able to call, text, listen to music, watch videos, take pictures, and surf the web in all in product. This is the exact reason why the iPhone is a hit amongst teens, not to mention it also is extremely fashionable and appealing.

Hope you enjoy this info!