First, let’s start with, “What is a customer experience?” A customer experience is the culmination of all the emotional and physical interactions a customer has with a company or their product or service. Customer experience mapping aims to help companies understand the customer experience they are currently delivering across various channels and touch points and identify opportunities to improve those touch points for greater brand loyalty and sales success.

There are several different methods of customer experience mapping that exist in the market today. Some methods try to capture the experience across the entire customer life cycle—or the journey a customer takes as they engage in a service with a company over time. This is sometimes called “customer journey mapping“. Others look at the tangible and quantitative measures of a customer’s experience across the touch points, such as number of contacts made and the time taken to access a service. These methods tend to only look at the experience from a service or goal achievement perspective. They often overlook how the brand impacts a customer’s decisions, mindsets and behaviors. Read the rest of this entry »

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So, I recently went on vacation. I was staying at what appeared to be a fairly nice hotel/timeshare. The website was professional, the pictures were beautiful, the listed attractions and activities were titillating and the overall reviews were quite good. I couldn’t wait to get there.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the experience wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. And it definitely wasn’t an experience that wowed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Consumers these days are clearly favoring experiences over messages. Think Apple’s interface. Think warm chocolate chips cookies from Double Tree.  Think of the scent of a Singapore Airlines airplane.  These are what we’d call brand defining experiences. They’re memorable, unique and emotionally resonant. And they demonstrate the promise of the brand without having to actually say it. This is where brand and marketing are heading and for good reason. Saturated marketing channels are making us deaf. Instead, give us a test drive of what we can expect from you and then we’ll decide if it’s something we want or not. Read the rest of this entry »

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Frito-Lay made a big splash the other week when they suspended a replica of their “Flavor Kitchen” over Times Square. The “Flavor Kitchen” is Frito-Lay’s newest tactic in its “naturally delicious” campaign.  They used the kitchen as a place to demonstrate their promise around, “all natural ingredients,” showing the Executive Chef chopping fresh veggies for the next batch of chips.  Why did they choose to do this versus the more traditional method of telling customers about their commitment? First, it’s more transparent and therefore more believable. There’s a big difference between a company like Frito-Lay saying they’re all natural versus showing it.

But what’s also genius about this is that it’s become a brand-defining experience. They’re not just the company who pays lip service to all natural, they’re doing it, and they doing it big. The old saying “actions speak louder than words” couldn’t be more true in today’s over-saturated consumer market. If you saw this on the news or if you were a lucky passer-by, chances are you won’t forget it. If you were going to create a brand defining experience for your business, what would it be?

- Evelyn Jones

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I read a great blog from Maz Iqbal today about customer-centricity vs. product-centricity and want to expand on his thoughts a bit in the context of brand.

‘Product-centricity’ is when the company’s primary focus is on the product—making it better, producing it more efficiently and selling more of it. ‘Customer-centricity,’ on the other hand, is when the company’s primary focus is on the customer’s experience—creating the best experience at whatever cost, with the goal of creating a customer relationship that lasts.

While you may say these aren’t mutually exclusive, it turns out…they may be. What I mean is, they each require a different leadership mindset (and, frankly, it’s rare to possess both). Customer-centric leaders consistently use the brand promise as a guide to ensure that it is kept at every customer touch point, making compromises in profits where necessary to uphold that promise. These are leaders that choose to:

a) Invest in customer service over
b) Outsourcing it

a) Invest in customer experience design over
b) Product design

a) Invest in building up and supporting their employees over
b) Status quo management

Unfortunately, there are relatively few brands out there doing this today. But, the movement is afoot. Because, in this digital age where customers define how products are used and what brands mean for them, the experience is king. So why not make it a brand-defining experience? Brand-defining experiences are experiences that demonstrates your brand promise in a way that emphasizes your distinct value, or values, as the case may be…

–Jen Travis

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We all know that the result of a strong brand are loyal customers who tell others about that brand. But, do you know HOW those strong brands get those loyal customers? How do they win a role in their customer’s lives, such that those customers WANT to tell others about them? It’s not because they told customers to think they’re great and they just believed them. It’s not even because they ‘liked’ them on Facebook or followed them on Twitter. In a nutshell, it’s because they have designed a great experience for their customers that was relevant, useful and compelling–whether it be through a product, a service, a customer service call or a retail experience.

We call these brand-defining experiences: experiences that clearly and compellingly demonstrate the meaning behind the brand. In very strong brands, those experiences go on to serve as an expression of the customer’s personal identity. (e.g. I have an iPad because it says that I am hip, smart and I like to be connected to anything and everything around me).

A lot of the time these brand-defining moments are supported by some kind of digital experience or technology (think Apple, Amazon, Facebook etc.), but they can also be seemingly simple gestures that showcase human sentiment and fulfill deeper emotional needs. We think this example is particularly great because it illustrates just that:

In this new year, we challenge all brands to think about how they can win a role in their customers’ lives and what their brand-defining experiences might be. And, as consumers, think about those brands that have won a role in your life. What experiences did they provide that sealed the deal for you?

–Jen Travis

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Just caught wind of kulula.co via this snopes.com article. What a hoot! This regional airline out of South Africa makes a bold promise and a big splash with their visual brand. From airplanes with engaging designs to their on-time performance website page (5 years worth of stats) to their coordinated travel options that get you from your door to your destination spot and back again, this company sets clear expectations for its customers (known as “jetsetters,” if you join their loyalty program).

Kulula’s mission is around “safety first,” ease of planning and travelling at “the easiest price,” “no bullshit” (their own term – really!) and having fun. They seem to be pulling all of this off nicely. Their challenge will be to keep it up and not let the brand slip into boring. Can they create new designs when they buy new planes? Will they meet their on-schedule goals? Will employees continue to provide a fun experience even as people get accustomed to their approach?

What does it for me is that this company has tapped into the way we consumers want to be treated and engaged, with honesty and a sense of humor—and as long as they stay on top of that, they’ll be in great shape.

Any other examples out there of companies taking a more down-to-earth approach to meet customers where they are? Please share!

Beth Woolley

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I was catching up with some industry blogs and found one on user experience design for the entire customer experience–not just the ones that happen on a website or on the phone, but all experiences a customer WANTS to have with you no matter what form they take. This caught my eye because this is something we’ve been talking about for years–the concept of integrated branding. The only difference is, today we are dealing with more devices and more ways for people to experience an organization (their people, their products, their stores, etc).

By looking at customers’ experiences through the lens of a device-less world that is technology agnostic, then, and only then, will we see the world through our customers’ eyes. People don’t shop at Target because they have a mobile app, they shop at Target because they want something they have and will use whatever device or mode is most convenient for them at the time to get it. We, as brands, just need to make sure we allow them to get it they way they want to.

This requires you dive into your customers’ shoes and figure out all the ways you can help them achieve their goals (which first assumes you know your customers and their goals). So, rather than first jumping on a specific device or platform’s bandwagon (iPad, iPhone, Facebook, Twitter…), start by asking yourself, “what is my customer trying to achieve and what are all the ways I can help them achieve it?”. It is both an eye opening and liberating exercise that helps you get beyond the technology of the moment to the technology solutions yet to come.

–Jen Travis

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