How do customers come to form a sense of who they are?
Brands often focus on loyalty, but much of that loyalty was thrown out the window during the pandemic as customers reevaluated their priorities and tried new products and services.
But even with turmoil and change, some customers stayed loyal to their favorite brands. The difference in these levels of loyalty often comes back to identity loyalty.
Dr. Americus Reed II, best-selling author and marketing professor at The Wharton School, created the concept of identity loyalty to examine the psychological reasons behind why customers are loyal to certain brands or products.
Identity loyalty goes beyond just looking at the products a customer repeatedly buys to examine the reasons behind them and how those brands contribute to the customer’s overall sense of self.
As Reed says, a customer can buy the same product over and over and be seen as loyal by the company. But those repeat purchases could be out of habit, convenience or brand neutrality instead of actual loyalty.
Identity loyalty is born from psychological self-perception that somehow the brand is connected to who the customer wants to be. Loyalty comes from that need to self-express. When customers have identity loyalty, the brand and product makes a statement about who they are and who they want to be. Reed says that the stronger the relationship of identity and self-expression to the brand, the stronger the identity loyalty.
Brands should build customer identity loyalty by creating a deep connection between their products and the customers’ values. Identity loyalty isn’t created and strengthened by highlighting a product’s features—because at some point, the features are all the same—but by connecting to deeper values. Customers have identity loyalty to brands like Apple, Nike and Peloton because the products are great, but also largely because the brands showcase who customers are and who they want to become.
Identity loyalty creates strong bonds between customers and brands and is strengthened as brands showcase their values and build personalized relationships. Customers don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
Highlighting values and building emotional connections can help all brands strengthen their customer identity loyalty.
Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
Today’s customers expect brands to remember their likes and dislikes, which means personalization is table stakes, especially in e-commerce.
Delivering a solid personalization experience starts by leveraging customer data to understand their needs and preferences and adjust the experience in real-time.
Julie Penzotti, principal data scientist at Zulily, says the company collects more than 5 billion clickstream events of data every day. That data shows the company what items each customer is interested in, how long they spend shopping, and even what items they see but pass by. That treasure trove of data is used to create millions of versions of the website every day so that almost every Zulily customer has a unique version of the website that showcases products they are interested in.
Penzotti says that approach works because Zulily knows its customers appreciate the convenience of quickly seeing items they are looking for and the fun of discovering products they might not realize they need.
Penzotti says all companies can and should leverage data regardless of industry or size. Brands don’t have to jump into collecting billions of pieces of data every day. Penzotti recommends starting small with simple analytics. A deep exploratory data analysis can provide insights into customers' preferences and buying patterns and highlight simple solutions that can impact customer experience.
Zulily’s deep data analysis found that most of its customers are moms and often young moms with limited time. These customers only have short breaks in their days to shop, which means it takes multiple sessions for them to browse and make a purchase. Armed with that data and customer understanding, Zulily improved its experience to help shoppers browse over multiple sessions and adjust in real-time. Every time a customer comes back to continue shopping, their search results are more tailored and accurate.
More advanced companies can leverage new technologies like computer vision and natural language processing to automate the data analytics and personalization approach. Zulily is developing systems to attribute style to clothing and home décor pieces and combine its image and language searching to help customers find the right items.
No matter where a brand is right now, Penzotti says all brands can progressively get more sophisticated with data.
Personalization has never been more important to customers. But brands have also never had as much access to customer data. Leveraging data and new technologies can help brands deliver amazing experiences that meet and exceed customer expectations.
Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
Companies have two choices when it comes to customer pain: hide from it or embrace it. Nate Henderson, CEO of BILT, chooses to feel customer pain and use it as a driving force behind creating an amazing experience. That mindset and customer focus is a large reason BILT has seen consistent triple-digit growth in the last few years.
BILT was created to address a common customer pain point: assembly. Henderson wondered why companies relied on paper instruction manuals when technology had moved so far past that. BILT is a free app that partners with manufacturers of all types of products, including furniture, appliances, fitness equipment and home items to provide 3D interactive guided instructions for assembly and repair. As Henderson says, BILT turns everyone into an expert and eliminates a major source of friction in many brands’ customer experiences.
From the beginning, BILT hasn’t shied away from customer pain but has embraced it. In the early days of the app, BILT employees tested all types of products to put themselves in customers’ shoes and discover how they could improve the traditional assembly experience. Instead of avoiding a painful part of the experience, Henderson and his team embraced it and made it their focus.
The BILT team realized that the most pivotal moment for how a customer views a consumer durable goods brand is 3-12 hours after they finish assembly. A difficult assembly process significantly impacts how customers view a brand and dramatically affects NPS. By changing a typically frustrating assembly experience, BILT takes people who would be detractors in that moment and turn them into brand promoters.
Aside from NPS, BILT also pays close attention to Earned Growth Rate or the amount of growth that comes from people referring business instead of paying for marketing. Henderson says companies that create great experiences and turn their customers into promoters have the majority of new business come from customer referrals.
BILT is a great example of the power of Earned Growth Rate. When COVID hit, Henderson wanted to be incredibly lean on spending. Over 20 months, BILT spent less than $1,000 on marketing and grew triple digits. As Henderson says, you can’t sell your way out of a bad experience, but if you create a great experience, people will sell it for you.
BILT’s entire model is built around embracing customer pain and turning frustrating moments into positive brand interactions, backed by metrics to understand what customers are feeling and the greatest pain points. Empathy helps brands turn customers into promoters and drive long-term business growth.
Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
With its stylish and comfortable shoes and bags made out of recycled plastic water bottles, Rothy’s bridges the gap between fashion and sustainability. But it has also tapped into the holy grail of customer experience: word-of-mouth marketing.
Rothy’s shoes were originally designed for women on the go who needed comfortable shoes that were still stylish. Many Rothy’s customers share similar stories of trying different types of shoes before finding Rothy’s and jumping into a sustainable brand that helps them look and feel good.
Rothy’s customers are fiercely loyal to the brand and often become brand advocates as they share their excitement for the products and brand with family and friends.
Elie Donahue, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Rothy’s, says there are three elements to turning customers into brand advocates.
First is the product itself. Word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t happen unless there is a product people love and truly want to tell their friends about. Rothy’s innovative and sustainable manufacturing practices are matched with comfort and durability that resonates with customers.
Second is the customer-to-customer connection. Because Rothy’s customers love the product so much, they automatically feel a connection to other Rothy’s wearers. If a woman sees someone on the street or in an elevator also wearing Rothy’s, Donahue says those customers instantly feel a special bond. Loyal Rothy’s customers have organically created huge online communities, which have expanded to real-life meetups at Rothy’s stores. Customers want to advocate for Rothy’s because of their passion for the brand and what it stands for.
The last element of creating brand advocates is how the brand connects with its customers. Rothy’s aims to create brand moments people can connect with. That means regularly sharing its founding values via email and social media to create shareable content. Rothy’s also involves customers in many events, such as its Vote It Back program where customers vote to bring back a discontinued style. Donahue points to the recent launch of Rothy’s recycling program when the brand invited customers to bring their old Rothy’s shoes and bags to stores to be recycled into thread. Involving customers in the brand process and showing they are part of something bigger makes customers feel valued and gives them something to tell their family and friends.
By turning its customers into loyal brand advocates, Rothy’s has created a strong community that stands by the company’s values. Delivering a high-quality product and building relationships strengthens all aspects of the customer experience.
*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.
Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is one of the most widely used customer experience metrics across all industries. But according to its creator, Fred Reichheld, countless companies are doing it wrong and end up abusing the system.
The Net Promoter System involves asking a simple question to customers, typically after an interaction with a brand—how likely are you to recommend the brand or company to family and friends?
Best-selling author Reichheld says the core principle of NPS is love and the idea that you should treat others the way you would want a loved one to be treated. Reichheld created the Net Promoter System before cellphones were widely used, and the system has grown with new digital technologies. Even as the digital world grows, the core of NPS is timeless and is just as relevant today as ever.
The issue with using NPS in our modern world, Reichheld says, is that too many companies are sloppy about how they ask the question, including asking it at inopportune times, asking it too frequently or using it as a relationship question to grade employees. Many companies reach out to customers after a contact center interaction and ask the question with a strong implication that the service rep will get in trouble if they don’t receive a perfect score.
Instead of a way to discipline or grade employees, NPS is about tracking how well customers are treated and how loved they feel by the company.
Successfully using NPS starts with a company culture of loving and serving customers. Leaders set the example as they inspire their employees to make customers’ lives easier and better. Reichheld says the customer-first philosophy has to be at the center of every conversation and decision of leaders. When leaders set the example of running their companies as a way to show their love for customers, it comes through in how employees interact with and serve customers and leads to higher Net Promoter Scores.
With that mindset, companies can focus on asking the NPS question at the best times instead of throwing survey requests out left and right to get a mountain of abstract information. It can also lead to NPS innovation and reaching customers in convenient ways.
NPS is a powerful tool for all companies, but it has to be rooted in the right mindset: love and service. As leaders and employees aim to love their customers and treat them how they would friends and family, the NPS process is improved and scores will continue to rise.
*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.
Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
Every day, we text to communicate and quickly share news and questions with our family and friends.
Why can’t contacting a brand be that simple?
That’s the question that caused Mike Myer to create the digital CX company Quiq. As CEO, Myer has a unique view of the future of conversational AI and its power to transform customer experience.
Conversational AI allows customers to chat with human agents or bots through text on a variety of channels and quickly and conveniently get the information they need.
One channel Quiq’s customers have seen strong success is through Facebook Messenger. Most customers are already using the platform, which makes it convenient for them to also use it to connect with brands. Through Messenger, customers and agents or bots can send images, create a menu of choices and even provide a carousel of options for quick replies. Myer says Messenger provides rich interactions that can greatly improve a customer’s experience with a brand. It’s a huge improvement over calling a contact center on the phone, which has dominated the industry for decades.
Conversational AI can be tailored to meet the needs of nearly any type of customer and is helpful with reducing churn, increasing return on ad spend and greatly increasing efficiency. Instead of contact center agents talking to customers individually on the phone, companies can do twice the customer volume with only 25% more agents. Quiq customers have also seen a 40x return on ad spend through Facebook Messenger. In most cases, adopting conversational AI actually leads to a decrease in budget, but it requires the courage to reallocate funds away from traditional contact centers to new technology and bots.
Myer says conversational AI is still on the left side of the bell curve of adoption. But as more companies innovate with conversational AI through Messenger and texting and see the financial and service improvements, the practice will continue to grow.
Conversational AI is growing, and this is just the beginning. Myer predicts that in three to five years, the majority of customer interactions with large brands won’t be over the phone but will instead be through texting. Brands that take the leap of faith and get on the conversational AI train now are creating the next generation of customer engagement and shaping the future of CX.
*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.
Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
Customer expectations have changed over the past 18 months of a pandemic, leaving brands with the challenge of pivoting and adapting not only to a new way of living and working but also to a new way of interacting with and serving customers.
Scott Finlow, CMO of PepsiCo Foodservice, has noticed two major trends during the pandemic. First is that people are looking forward to re-entering the world and having meaningful connections. As they do so, they want to try new products and have new experiences. Second, people are looking for more purpose in their lives and in their brand choices. That manifests in a variety of ways, including being more aware of the impact of their decisions on the environment and their health and wellbeing.
But Finlow says understanding and recognizing those changes is only the first step. Companies need to understand where customer needs are heading so they can focus on re-inventing a better normal. It’s not about going back to how things were but instead moving forward and creating a better future.
Perhaps nowhere is that more important than in the B2B world, where many companies are adjusting to new ways of doing business. Throughout the pandemic, PepsiCo has focused on forming partnerships to help support its restaurant customers as they pivot. The company is also investing heavily in digital and building out services to help its customers along their own digital journeys.
As customer expectations change, innovation is crucial. B2B companies need to find new ways to meet customer needs and break out of how things have been done in the past. With an increased focus on health and safety, PepsiCo set out to create contactless fountain drink equipment. Finlow says it required the work of multiple departments to deliver on the new hygiene standard. But it doesn’t stop there—the company is also piloting a drink machine in Europe that allows customers to gesture and pour the drink of their choice. Continual innovation provides B2B customers with the tools they need to best serve their customers.
Customer experience has always required continual change and evolution, but especially in a post-COVID world. B2B companies that stay in touch with their customers to understand their new needs and expectations, find ways to support their journey and continually innovate will lead the way towards the future.
*This episode is sponsored by Quiq.
Quiq is a leading conversational AI platform that drives two-way conversations to deliver a better experience for people and brands. Quiq enables enterprises to connect and engage in two-way conversations with their customers across varied messaging channels — including Facebook Messenger — in more than 170 languages. Quiq is the future of business-to-consumer messaging; it’s the wingman every brand and CX’er needs.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
The last nearly two years have been dominated by short-term thinking. With the pandemic and world changing so rapidly, most companies had to abandon long-term plans to focus on what’s right ahead of them. In our personal lives, most of us are more focused on getting through the day than working towards our long-term plans.
Short-term thinking isn’t bad, but according to Dorie Clark, author of The Long Game, we can’t live our whole lives in emergency mode. When individuals and companies are too focused on short-term thinking, we miss the chance to proactively direct our strategy and outcomes. Long-term thinking helps us take back control and get us where we want to go.
As the pandemic slowly subsides in many places, long-term thinking is making a comeback. But the adjustment from focusing only on the here and now to the bigger picture can be jarring.
Clark suggests three steps to becoming a long-term thinker:
Thinking long term can get us out of the rut of monotony and searching for daily balance to instead see things from a different perspective. Clark calls it thinking in waves or the idea that we don’t need to have balance every day or every week as long as we have balance eventually. There are seasons and phases to life, and long-term thinking allows us to recognize those phases and shift so that we continually improve and work towards our goals.
The pandemic has changed how we think. But even as we adjust to new ways of doing things, the ability to embrace long-term thinking and proactively take control of our lives and careers can lead to tremendous growth.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the new Customer Experience Community here.
To say the real estate market in 2021 is a wild ride would be an understatement.
Anyone who has looked at buying or selling a home recently can understand the roller coaster of emotions in this crazy climate.
But the ups and downs of real estate, especially in the current fast-moving state, require a special focus on relationships and customer experience.
According to Deanna Haas, SVP of customer experience at SOLD.com, one of the biggest challenges for consumers navigating the real estate world is the abundance of options. Aside from the traditional ways of buying and selling homes, numerous alternatives are popping up that can also be great options. The challenge for people is to discover what option best meets their needs.
Haas says that above anything else, modern real estate customers are looking for education and an unbiased perspective. Real estate is emotional. And while the numbers are important, Haas says consumers need more than just the data—there must also be a human side to the transaction.
No matter how people choose to buy or sell their home, they want someone who is as invested in the experience as they are. With properties moving so quickly, it can be easy for sales to become routine for agents and companies. But each sale is unique for its buyers and sellers, who want their real estate professionals to take time to help them understand their options and be invested in the success of the transaction. Consumers want their feelings about real estate—both their fears and excitement—to be heard and acknowledged.
Personalization is crucial in customer experiences across all industries, and real estate is no different. Consumers want to have a personalized experience, especially as they make such a large and important purchase.
Ultimately, Haas says consumers are looking for individual and memorable real estate experiences where they are valued and understood. Real estate is emotional and should be treated as more than black and white.
And the need to deliver a strong experience will only increase--as the real estate industry continues to shift and evolve, understanding modern customers will become even more important.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
The future of marketing is artificial intelligence.
But marketers are often faced with technical jargon and code instead of tactical ways to improve their strategies. Author and marketing professor Raj Venkatesan says marketers don’t have to know how to code, but they do need to understand the concepts of AI to build smart strategies and deliver superior customer experiences.
In his new book, The AI Marketing Canvas, Venkatesan breaks it down to a five-stage road map of how to implement AI in marketing. Before embarking on that roadmap, marketers need to understand the goal of AI in marketing, which is to personalize customer engagement. With that mindset and understanding, marketers can embark on the five-stage AI journey:
As they go through these five stages, modern marketers need to be able to work with different functions in the organization and be the voice of the customer to bring together AI and marketing and deliver a great customer experience.
Venkatesan says the fundamentals of marketing and customer experience haven’t changed—what has changed is the ability to serve customers well at scale. AI is an opportunity to serve customers better. When marketers embark on these five steps, they can lead their organizations and their customers to better experiences through AI.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Like nearly everything else in the world, leadership has changed dramatically over the last 18 months. Leaders are now faced with a new set of priorities and challenges as they lead their organizations in a rapidly changing world and lead teams and customers who are facing struggles and changes of their own.
Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers and Impact Players, says that leaders who want to lead through uncertainty have to lead differently.
Too often, leaders who are trying to do the right thing slip into the role of having to have all the answers. But today’s leaders can’t possibly have all the answers, especially as they move through uncharted territory. Instead, leaders need everyone’s intelligence and have to use their knowledge and expertise in a way that allows everyone to contribute.
Wiseman compares it to running special forces—the leader doesn’t know everything or run the entire mission, but instead coordinates intel from their various employees and celebrates success. Often, that comes from asking questions and encouraging learning instead of always supplying an answer or opinion.
Wiseman also says that in these challenging times, leaders need to extend more grace and understanding to employees and customers than ever before. Many people are facing invisible challenges. That strain can be especially difficult on customer service and contact center employees who are working hard to help customers but can’t deliver what they’ve been able to deliver in the past. That exhaustion can lead to a feeling of languishing.
Wiseman’s research has shown that employees don’t burn out because of having a heavy workload—they burn out by not having an impact. Leaders can’t take their foot off the accelerator and have employees not do the hard stuff and expect it to fix the problem. Leaders need to give employees as much control as they can handle and soften the edges. The greatest challenge for leaders in the current climate is knowing where to put their foot on the accelerator and where to take it off.
Customer- and employee-focused leaders are multipliers who expect the best for their people, listen to their feedback and ideas and guide them through challenges. But they also extend grace and facilitate teamwork to help people contribute at their true capability.
Leadership is changing, but employees and customers will always be central to success.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Most people don’t associate bridal stores with loyalty programs.
Especially in the middle of a global pandemic when most weddings were postponed or downsized.
But the David’s Bridal loyalty program Diamond, launched in December 2020, is defying the odds and has already paid dividends with huge amounts of loyal and satisfied customers.
The program was created as part of David’s Bridal’s transformation to return customers to the center of the experience. CEO Jim Marcum said the company had lost its way by not focusing on what brides needed to make their wedding planning experiences amazing.
Because the wedding industry is centered around a singular event, the David’s Bridal loyalty program isn’t like most retailers’ loyalty programs. Marcum calls it a crowd-sourcing program that rewards brides for every David’s Bridal purchase for their wedding, not just the wedding dress. Anything anyone spends for the wedding, including bridesmaids’ dresses, accessories and the mother of the bride's dress, earns loyalty credit for the bride.
In the first nine months, the loyalty program brought in 700,000 members, an amazing 89% of whom have already transacted. KPIs across the board are staggering—loyalty program members spend more than non-members and have higher return rates.
Marcum said the amazing success is because the program is centered on brides and looks way beyond the singular purchase of a wedding dress. Brides are embracing the program because it is unique and meets their wedding planning needs. The rewards are also incredibly motivating for brides, with the top prize being a free honeymoon. So far, David’s Bridal has given away 41 free honeymoons to its most loyal customers.
The loyalty program also helps David’s Bridal improve its overall customer experience by helping the company serve and understand brides at every step of their journey. Employees can see where a bride is in the process, like if she has purchased a wedding dress and gotten alterations, and then can work with the rest of the bridal party to get them outfitted with everything they need. Marcum says the program has become an infectious part of the service journey and a significant portion of the business overnight because customers and employees see the value in it.
David’s Bridal’s loyalty program proves that there is always a market for a unique experience that meets customer needs. Even in the middle of a global pandemic, the loyalty program filled a gap and improved the entire experience, which has led to an outpouring of loyal customers.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Marcum started by looking for friction points and missed opportunities by meeting with teams throughout the company and paying close attention to customer feedback.
From there, David’s Bridal created a customer-first digital strategy that specifically addressed the friction points. The previous strategy had created different policies and experiences depending on if customers shopped online or in store, but the comprehensive new strategy created a seamless experience across all channels that put customers in the middle of every decision.
Changing how customers viewed the company also required personal service and a shift in the employee culture and mindset. Marcum and his team dove into thousands of online customer reviews to respond to every one- or two-star review across various platforms by reaching out to customers and listening to their feedback to get to the root of the problems. Constantly communicating with customers changed the company culture. Marcum believes that if you aren’t connecting to the customer, you are failing. The practice of quickly responding to low reviews permeates the company today as leaders and managers quickly remediate customer issues and concerns. Now, more than two years later, the company consistently averages 4.7 star reviews.
David’s Bridal’s digital transformation also changed how the company views its customer journey. By the time a customer enters David’s Bridal to try on and purchase her wedding dress, she has likely spent lots of time online looking for inspiration and planning her dream wedding. To become a larger part of the entire experience, David’s Bridal transitioned from being there when a bride wants to buy her dress to helping her see her wedding vision from the start. The company’s new array of digital wedding planning tools includes apps with checklists and digital vision boards brides can create and share with family and friends, as well as AI-enabled interactive chat and AR to bring wedding dresses to life at home.
Now, it’s not just about the dress, but the entire event. When a customer comes into the store to buy her dress, she has already been working with David’s Bridal, which helps consultants know what she is looking for and create a better and more personalized experience. Marcum says the new technology has been crucial as the company helps brides navigate wedding changes and delays due to COVID.
David’s Bridal shows how digital transformation can modernize a decades-old business and help find new ways to connect with and serve customers.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
But now, what customers look for in a bank and how they interact with their money is changing. Customers now bank more digitally and want convenient technology-driven solutions. According to Beth Johnson, CXO of Citizens Bank, delivering a strong banking experience is now about tapping into customer needs holistically by leveraging technology, data and in-person interactions.
The goal of modern financial institutions is to drive change while still keeping the customer front and center.
Johnson says the pandemic accelerated the digital path Citizens was already well on by three to five years. Banking was already evolving, but customer preferences have changed drastically over the last 18 months. Understanding those changes and adapting the experience strategy is crucial to banks’ success, especially in these three areas:
Going forward, banks won’t compete on products because products are too easy to copy. Instead, they will compete on their ability to tap into the rational and emotional sides of money to deliver innovative and convenient solutions to customers.
Banks must stay on top of changing customer preferences to deliver strong experiences in the ways that matter most.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
When it comes to marketing, word of mouth is considered the Holy Grail. There’s nothing better for companies than customers sharing experiences and talking with family and friends.
And that often comes from customer experience efforts, not traditional marketing campaigns. Dan Gingiss, author of The Experience Maker and Winning at Social Customer Care, says that CX and marketing are coming closer and closer. In many ways, CX is one of the most powerful tools for marketing. A great customer experience strategy is the best way to get people talking about a brand.
The key is to create remarkable experiences that customers want to share. Gingiss calls it the WISER method: Witty, immersive, shareable, extraordinary, responsive.
Great experiences don’t have to use all of the WISER elements, but the letters build on each other so that the best experiences use all of them. Including more elements of the WISER framework creates a stronger connection with customers that they will remember and want to share.
The first element of the WISER method is what all remarkable experiences have in common--they are witty. Gingiss clarifies that being witty doesn’t mean being hysterical, but rather being clever and creative. Customers will never share or talk about an experience they think is boring.
Being witty and creating remarkable experiences requires creativity. These days, everything is a potential experience--from a product’s packaging and online presence to its physical display in a store. Something as simple as a witty catchphrase on a package creates a memorable experience that customers want to talk about and share.
With so many competing voices, customers are most likely to trust people they know. Brands that can create memorable experiences and get customers talking and sharing build unique connections that can transform into loyal customers and growth opportunities.
To create remarkable experiences, think WISER and look for ways to turn everything into an experience.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
It’s been a long 18 months of pandemic life, and customers are feeling the stress and fatigue of constant uncertainty and chaos. They are yearning for a break and a chance to feel calm and normal.
But when they try to escape with a night out or a trip, they’re met with disappointing service.
Companies have to stop using COVID as an excuse for bad service. That’s especially true in industries like hospitality, air travel and restaurants. Yes, there are issues with staffing and turnover, but brands need to figure it out so they can deliver a strong experience.
Customers are tired and burnt out after 18 months of pandemic living. They are hungry to do things they haven’t done in more than a year, and experience matters now more than ever.
This is an incredible opportunity for brands to show up for their customers and provide an extra level of ease and personalization. But instead, too many companies let their service slip with COVID and haven’t made any effort to pivot and improve.
We’ve gotten lost during COVID—both as individuals and as brands. But now is the time to rediscover ourselves and create a sense of purpose. When brands are confident and have a strong culture, they hold themselves to a higher level and rise to the occasion. When everyone else is tired and only doing the bare minimum, it’s the people and brands who believe in themselves and their purpose that run the extra mile for the customers who are counting on them.
Brands that rise to the occasion now to meet their customers where they are and surpass their expectations will be remembered after the pandemic is over. They are the brands that will have loyal customers and an abundance of goodwill.
Now is the time to show up for your customers like never before. Put yourself in their shoes to imagine what it would look like to create an amazing experience in our uncertain world. It could be anything from shorter wait times to increased personalized or an easier return policy. And then go one step further to put those plans into action.
The world is busy and uncertain, but customers are depending on you. Now is the time to rise to the occasion and show up for them like never before.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
If you ask customers if they want to talk to a bot, most people would likely say no. For years, bots have gotten a bad rap for their nonsensical answers and inability to understand.
But if you ask customers if they want to get correct answers quickly, they would likely all say yes. Modern bots are one of the best and most scalable ways to offer faster, correct service. According to Ben Rigby, VP, Global Head of Product & Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Talkdesk, it’s all about reframing how customers think of bots and how companies use them in the contact center.
The key to a successful machine learning system in a contact center is adaptability. Rigby says most machine learning projects fail because companies can’t figure out how to retrain their bots to match their customers’ current needs. A bot created before COVID wouldn’t know how to answer questions about things like social distancing, safety measures or mask requirements, but those are crucial answers customers need during a pandemic.
Most companies turn to data scientists to retrain their bots, but Rigby says the best people to update the systems are the call center agents. Agents are familiar with what customers are asking and know how to tailor their answers to meet customers’ needs. They can take that experience and apply it to a bot to make sure the system has the most current and correct information. Rigby says putting contact center agents in the middle of machine learning is the best way to improve and continually update the system. After all, retraining a bot is a lot like talking to customers, something that contact center agents do every day.
Machine learning in the contact center isn’t one and done. It’s a continuous process that involves launching, observing, retraining, observing, retraining—indefinitely. Companies need to plan for the fact that the world is continually changing and their machine learning system and strategy also require regular updates.
Modern bots and machine learning systems are scalable, cost-effective and a great way to deliver a fast and accurate customer experience. The key to success is planning for updates and retraining and ensuring the right people complete the task.
*This episode is powered by Talkdesk. Talkdesk's mission is to help organizations around the world build brand love and loyalty by delivering exceptional customer experiences. But how ? Talkdesk is a cloud contact center solution for the customer-obsessed. With enterprise-class performance and consumer simplicity, Talkdesk CX Cloud empowers you to adapt your contact center to the evolving needs of your customers and teams. The results? Increased productivity, higher customer satisfaction, more cost savings, and great customer experience. If you'd like to know more, visit talkdesk.com.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
The past 18 months have brought unthinkable tragedies and uncertainty to the entire world and changed how most people live, work and interact with companies.
But according to Jon Picoult, author of From Impressed To Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans, out of every crisis comes opportunity. Even with the chaos and uncertainty, there are opportunities to strengthen relationships and improve customers’ lives.
Engaging with customers in an uncertain world starts by really understanding them, including their new and emerging needs and fears. What matters to customers and what they look for in a shopping experience is likely very different now than it was just a few years ago. By listening to customers, companies can capitalize on these changes to mitigate customers’ challenges and improve their experiences.
Picoult says that more than shaping experiences, companies are shaping memories. Truly engaging with customers involves stirring emotion. Experiences that are laced with emotion are far more memorable than those that aren’t. By connecting on an emotional level, companies can take customers from a place of vulnerability to a position of strength and create a strong, memorable experience.
Picoult gives the example of the Australian grocery chain Woolworths, which was one of the first companies to offer early morning hours dedicated to elderly and at-risk shoppers during the early days of the pandemic. Woolworths talked to its customers and realized at-risk people were scared to be shopping during busy times when the store was crowded. So it created dedicated early morning hours, and the practice spread to retailers around the world. Woolworths understood customers’ needs and went the extra mile to connect its solution to the emotions behind the challenge. In the process, it endeared itself to customers.
In these times of chaos and uncertainty, customers want something they can depend on. They want to interact with brands that will listen to them, understand their struggles and then go out of their way to fix them. Engaging with customers during these challenging times doesn’t mean completely changing the customer experience—it means tweaking your current offerings to match what matters most.
Although these times are challenging, it’s also a chance for brands to strengthen their relationships and turn their customers into lifelong fans.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Growing a business is all about gaining customers and getting sales. And far easier and less expensive than attracting new customers is turning existing customers into regular, returning customers.
CX expert Shep Hyken says the key to building return customers is to discover the typical pattern of return customers and then replicate that experience for new customers. All companies should get people into the cadence of doing business with them regularly, but the timeline of that regularity—be it weekly, monthly or annually—changes based on the industry and type of business.
In his new book, I’ll Be Back: How To Get Customers To Come Back Again and Again, Hyken lays out a six-step process for finding that pattern and building return customers and strong experiences:
Hyken recommends going through this process every six months to find little ways to improve. Taking these small steps can create amazing experiences that customers love and help distance you from the competition.
All companies, no matter their size or industry, can find ways to stand out from the competition. Playing to your strengths creates unique experiences that will make customers return. Hyken says even small companies can compete against e-commerce giants like Amazon by highlighting what makes them unique, such as by offering personalized human experiences and local events.
By continually improving and playing to your strengths, you can create a company where customers want to come back again and again.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
It’s no secret that modern customers crave personalization. Efforts to tailor experiences to customers’ needs are foundational to a strong CX strategy.
But the next step of personalization is here: hyper-personalization.
According to Raj Badarinath, CMO of Algonomy, hyper-personalization has three main characteristics:
Instead of simply providing a certain experience for a customer depending on their demographic or preference segment, hyper-personalization considers the context to choose the right offer and experience in real-time. Hyper-personalization uses technology to look at countless variables and know what a customer is looking for and what they need at that exact moment.
Badarinath gives the example of a customer shopping in a store, likely while also using the store’s mobile app to look up products and get information. The store knows the customer’s preferences and that they are close by and can use hyper-personalization to send an offer that considers the context and meets their exact needs at that moment, perhaps by recommending a product that is relevant to what they are already buying or a discount on a brand they have bought in the past.
At the heart of hyper-personalization is strong digital solutions, especially around AI and machine learning. Badarinath says companies have to consider the digital maturity of their systems when making decisions. Some AI solutions only have the maturity of a three-year-old, while others have the maturity of a 30-year-old. That maturity impacts the decisions the technology makes and how it learns and grows. The same hyper-personalization strategy won’t work on all levels of maturity.
Although AI and technology are important, hyper-personalization is most effective with a human touch. The best companies provide their human employees with tools to access customer data and preferences in real-time to deliver those hyper-personalized offers human-to-human.
In today’s connected world, companies are no longer just competing against other brands within their industry—they are competing against every company. Hyper-personalization sets the standard and drives a strong customer experience and long-term loyalty to fuel business growth.
*Sponsored by Algonomy
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
But that becomes even more important in a company serving customers with chronic health conditions.
Naama Stauber Breckler is CEO and co-founder of Better Health, a company focused on helping people with chronic conditions manage day-to-day life at home. Through innovative end-to-end solutions that bundle the delivery of medical supplies with education, peer support and telehealth services and an intense customer focus, Breckler and her team make it possible for customers to do hard things easily.
The need for at-home care and supplies delivery was only highlighted during COVID when most people suffering from chronic conditions were left at home to manage their care and treatment.
Before starting Better Health in late 2019, Breckler spent months talking to countless people to learn about the industry, current challenges and where she could have the biggest impact. She ultimately narrowed her focus to urology and ostomy products. Most of Better Health’s customers have chronic conditions, so although the company can’t reverse the conditions, it can make customers’ lives better.
Talking with customers highlighted two major issues: the selection of medical devices can be overwhelming, and online payments with insurance can be complicated. Both of these issues posed massive roadblocks to customers and made their lives incredibly difficult. Better Health prioritized addressing these issues and now offers personalized consulting and recommendations to find the right products and takes over payment issues from the customer.
Better Health operates in an inverted way to make sure everything the company releases truly solves problems people care about. Breckler and her team interact with customers online and go into their homes to understand the experience so they can then prioritize the biggest pain points to make the largest impact.
That customer focus continues with each new feature the company releases. Employees pore over data to see where customers are getting stuck and dropping from the process so they know how to improve it.
Every company, not just those in the medical field, can and should make customers’ lives easier. A central focus on customers that starts from leaders, as well as data and feedback, can help companies improve their products and work to best meet customers’ needs.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Instead of interacting in person and learning and growing together, we were forced to do things by ourselves or be separated by computer screens.
So much of how we learn in business and our personal lives happens in person. But that was lost during COVID as our opportunities to learn through in-person classes and events were eliminated.
Without a personal and professional community, the last 18 months have been extremely difficult for most people. We were stuck at home alone, and relationships were tested. In my own life, I had a baby and faced the difficulties of the newborn stage without my community of friends and mothers. We recently moved to be closer to family, and now I find myself having to rebuild my community and make new friends.
But through the challenges of the pandemic, the importance of community became even more clear. And it reinvigorated my desire to create a business community.
I have known some of my podcast listeners and CX professionals for longer than I’ve known my husband—some of you for more than 15 years. In that time, you’ve shared your personal and professional struggles with me.
As a CX advocate, my goal is to make you successful. And much of that comes from real communities where we can connect personally and privately.
To better meet your needs, I’m launching a brand-new customer experience community at customerexperiencecommunity.com. I know what it’s like to work in CX for a company and get no support or resources. The goal of the community is to give you the tools and resources you need to be supported and lead the best CX change possible.
By signing up now for early bird pricing, you’ll soon get access to a weekly livestream with me, the chance to interact with special guests and thought leaders, access to modern case studies and trends, a chance to get certified in my Customer of the Future course, meet other CX professionals, share information and more. Every aspect of this community is designed with you in mind to make you as successful as possible.
The global pandemic took community away from us. But now that we’ve seen how important it is, we can create a community to learn and grow together.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Join the waitlist now for the new Customer Experience Community here.
Women are powerful influencers and consumers, but they are often forgotten or overlooked by brands.
Even though women control the majority of household spending decisions and contribute to the economy at record levels, they are often stereotyped when it comes to marketing and customer experience.
Instead of pushing women to the back or creating superficial experiences, brands need to make women front and center in every product they design and experience they create, says Michelle Kennedy, CEO of Peanut, a social network for women.
Kennedy says the key to creating honest experiences for women is to be authentic and understand what matters in their lives. That comes from having direct conversations with female consumers to understand their priorities, needs and values. Too often, companies assume they know what women want and put all women into patronizing molds. But modern women don’t want to have to fit a mold. Instead, they want to celebrate and be recognized for all the many facets of womanhood and motherhood. The best experiences for women are personalized and tailored to meet their unique needs so that they feel valued and seen as individuals.
Now more than ever, a brand’s value set matters to women. Women want to understand the value sets of brands and know they fit with their own values and principles. Women want to support brands that stand for something and do good in the world, so companies that are transparent about their processes and share their values and impact can create strong connections with women.
Women crave connection and want to interact with their peers and with brands that are willing to ask difficult questions and be honest and authentic. Peanut tailors its honest experiences to women by creating a safe and trusting space to have hard conversations. By talking to women and being open about what they want and need, Peanut created a space where women can be uplifted and build connections while talking about important things they don’t discuss in most other places, including topics like pregnancy, menopause and infertility.
Women are powerful consumers, but more than just that, they are powerful people. Brands can’t overlook the impact of women. To create products and experiences that make a difference and improve the lives of women, brands need to be honest, authentic and bold.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
In many companies, the customer experience happens by accident without much strategic thought.
But a truly customer-centric culture and experience requires a thoughtful strategy and continual adjustments and improvements. And a large part of that is performing a CX audit.
Jamie Haenggi is Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at ADT, where she is focused on designing the CX journey across the entire company for its 6 million customers.
One of Haenggi’s recent projects is an in-depth look and audit of the entire customer experience journey. The goal of the CX audit was to have a deep understanding of the current state and then design a comprehensive plan for the future state.
ADT first performed in-depth research through focus groups, surveys and feedback from employees and customers to map out all the journeys. From there, they held ideation sessions to think about what a future state would look like and use design thinking to build continuity in the customer lifecycle.
Haenggi’s next step is to partner with IT to put the technology and data in place to bring the new vision to life. The goal is to first create a technical road map and then use that information to create an operational roadmap so that the entire company is using the same data and processes.
The research process has showcased the highs and lows of the existing customer experience by highlighting areas where ADT excels and gaps that have long been overlooked. Haenggi shared the example of when a customer relocates and has to change or update their service in multiple systems. The current process involves multiple pain points for customers and employees. But by evaluating the process in terms of the entire customer journey, ADT can create a more integrated experience.
The CX audit also brought to light new opportunities to innovate and enhance the customer experience. Because of the research, ADT started rolling out virtual service appointments that allow customers to get the troubleshooting help they need without having to wait for someone to physically come to their house. The virtual appointments were especially timely and well-received during the pandemic.
A CX audit involves doing a deep dive on every aspect of the current customer experience and creating a vision and plan for the future. It will likely bring up gaps that need to be improved, but it can also help locate huge opportunities for growth.
Especially in this post-pandemic world, companies need to be willing to adapt and evolve. That often involves being humble enough to realize what can be improved and bold enough to challenge the status quo.
Haenggi acknowledges that ADT is still evolving, but it has made huge strides in improving an already strong customer experience by staying close to customers and employees and being willing to reflect and improve. A CX audit is a requirement to create a future-ready and comprehensive customer experience.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
Over the last few years, more and more companies have created Chief Experience Officer positions, elevating the customer experience to the C-Suite. One person who stepped into this new role in 2019 was Julie Bowerman, Chief Global Digital Customer and Consumer Experience Officer of Kellogg's. The titles and responsibilities of Experience Officers vary depending on the company, but the growth of the role shows the importance of customers in successful organizations.
Although Bowerman has more than 20 years of experience building household name brands, this is her first role as a Chief Experience Officer. She is also the first person at Kellogg’s to hold the position. Bowerman believes more companies are creating CXO roles because the landscape is changing so quickly. The fast-paced and technology-driven environment is forcing big companies to break down their traditional silos with different areas for finance, marketing, IT and sales to bring people together and focus on the experience.
To deliver a relevant and personalized experience to modern customers, companies have to break down silos and build a cohesive approach that reaches the top of the company. There isn’t one correct title or structure--what matters most is that companies are thinking of ways to challenge the status quo and break down barriers.
In Bowerman’s day-to-day responsibilities, she leads four groups to help Kellogg’s regional teams around the world build their digital muscle. Working in e-commerce, digital marketing and media, B2B and DTC, Bowerman’s teams consult global teams to help them build unique digital strategies that resonate with their consumers and objectives. A team in Asia may have different objectives than a team in Europe, and Bowerman’s teams help them meet their unique needs while also delivering a consistent Kellogg experience. Bowerman reports to the Chief Growth Officer, who reports to the CEO.
Bowerman recommends CX professionals try different things and build capabilities so that as they become more senior in their careers, they can tap into their breadth of experience. Instead of being specialized and boxed in, leaders with a variety of experience can focus on general management. Don’t chase titles, but instead aim to grow your skills and make an impact wherever you are.
The increase in CXOs shows the value of experience and the importance of a companywide experience strategy. As the roles continue to grow, their impact will be felt in organizations around the world.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.