Remember the automat? Walls of vending machines stocked with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks; cafeteria-style dining. Popular in the early 1900s, they began to fade in the 1950s. When Horn & Hardart closed its last automat (on 42nd Street in Manhattan) in 1991, it seemed that gone were the days of getting any food but chips, crackers, and Pop Tarts from a vending machine. But in what seems to be a move to address the snacking needs of today's impatient, on-the-go
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Customer experience, as we all know, is a hot topic. In the rush to embrace and improve it, some business leaders mold its definition to suit their needs. In many cases this means equating customer experience with customer service. They are not the same, and it causes confusion within organizations, as well as in the marketplace, to use them interchangeably.
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Customer strategists today face an ever-increasing plethora of challenges across every aspect of the customer experience. While attending the Gartner Customer 360 Summit in Orlando, I asked a number of industry insiders to share their opinions and advice on four of the many hot topics facing customer experience professionals right now. Find out what they had to say:
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Gaining and retaining customer loyalty is no easy feat. Customers are often "loyal" based more on convenience than emotion, which means given a better option their loyalties will change as quickly the weather on a Florida afternoon. Loyalty programs help bolster retention, but they're not a magic bullet for fostering attitudinal loyalty. Earlier this week at Loyalty 360's Loyalty Expo 2012 several speakers shared research findings that reveal just how fickle consumers can be. They also shared challenges and opportunities
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Wyndham Hotels is among the brands that have embraced social commerce and put reviews right on its site. According to Senior Vice President of Loyalty Marketing Robin Korman, the company is the first hotel brand to have done so.
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How do you make a company that sells a commodity like energy stand out? How do you get customers to recognize you, select you, and stay with you? TXU Energy focuses on four basic brand builders: be trustworthy and transparent, customer centric, innovative, and dependable.
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Only 25 percent of customers feel "very loyal" to their preferred brands, according to Tim Suther, chief customer and strategy officer at Acxiom. Worse, 25 percent feel no loyalty at all. How can companies build customer loyalty in this time of customer promiscuity? During his presentation at Loyalty 360's Loyalty Expo 2012 this morning, Suther offered these five tips:
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We all know that social is the shiny object in business today. Why are organizations so focused on social? According to Gartner the top reasons are to strengthen relationship with customers, enhance brand awareness/preference, share information and ideas with customers, supplies, and partners, establish an interactive relationship with customers, and increase revenue. These are all valuable goals, but they must tie to specific, measurable outcomes. According to Gartner Research Director Adam Sarner, "businesses must connect the dots of social CRM
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All too often sales teams rely on outdated, unreliable, incomplete information. This makes for poor decision making, Gartner Research Vice President Tiffani Bova said during her presentation at Gartner Customer 360 this morning. Sales organizations need to improve data quality, validity, and quantity to improve their performance. Having the information and acting on it also means being consistent with how and why you use it, she said.
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CRM is in the spotlight. According to a recent Gartner survey of CEOs, respondents rated CRM as a top priority in terms of avenues for growth, followed by e-commerce. Similarly, Gartner found that increasing customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, and revenue are the top three CRM goals for 2012. During their opening keynote at the Gartner Customer 360 Summit this morning, Gartner's Gene Alvarez, research vice president, and Ed Thomson, vice president and distinguished analyst, shared 10 CRM-related trends to watch
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Site design, personalization, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are not getting the attention they deserve in terms of the online customer experience, according to Kevin Cochrane, Adobe's vice president of product strategy and solution marketing. "When people think of the online customer experience, they're focused on the design and 'sexiness' of their website. They don't do enough research into who their customers are and what they're trying to accomplish. Not all customers are looking for the same thing," Cochrane told
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Today I made a purchase that I was compelled to make. It wasn't something I needed or had planned to buy. But I had to have it.
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Whenever I see a Chevy Camaro my heart rate revs up. Seriously. If I'm driving and see one parked, I slow down to ogle it. If I'm on the highway and see one up ahead, I'll try to catch up with it to check it out. I'm so struck by them that I feel like I'm cheating on my Ford Mustang whenever I gaze longingly at that sleek masterpiece of a muscle car.
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When it comes to using customer centricity to improve business performance, there is no one secret formula for success. Customers, companies, and the relationships between them are unique. Therefore, each organization's customer-centric business strategy must be unique, as well.
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You've doubtless heard the now-clichéd phrase, the only constant is change. When it comes to marketing, however, the only constant is complexity, according to Bruce Biegel, managing director of Winterberry Group. During his presentation at a Direct Marketing Club of New York luncheon, Biegel shared some insight into that complexity, as well as related trends to watch in 2012.
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Social media is like a tornado, creating a whirlwind of open dialog between companies and their customers. This is how Get Satisfaction CEO Wendy Lea described social media to me when we recently discussed the topic.
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Sure, most every company would like to handle customer service themselves. For some, let's just say, it's not their core competency. These companies look to outsourcers for assistance--but can you really outsource customer experience? Not if you think of it as getting the lowest price for cheeks in seats.
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When it comes to considered purchases it seems that everyone--B2B and B2C buyers alike--wants a second opinion. In fact, 100 percent of the nearly 100 respondents to 1to1's recent survey "How Social a Social Customer Are You?" seek recommendations on occasion before purchasing an item important enough to research before buying. While only about a third of the survey respondents seek recommendations prior to every considered purchase, only 4 percent rarely ask for recommendations.
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If you're not harnessing social to its full potential, we're here to help. 1to1 has joined forces with parent company Peppers & Rogers Group to bring you Social Media Week from January 23-27: five days of content and activities that aim to help you launch or improve your social media strategy. Why next week? We're celebrating the release of our social media-themed issue of executive journal Customer Strategist. The entire issue examines how social media drives customer engagement and business
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It seems that marketing folks are torn. In most organizations marketing "owns" social media monitoring and welcomes the opportunity it provides to interact with customers, but they don't want to get pigeon-holed into become the monitoring group, according to Chris Cottle, executive vice president of marketing and products at Allegiance. Cottle called this situation the dysfunctional social paradigm.
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Everyone has a place they love to go because the customer experience is so fabulous. Yours may be a restaurant, boutique, hotel, or spa. It may even be a bank or gym or dry cleaner or copy shop. Or perhaps a gallery, theater, or museum. And the reasons you delight in the customer experience at your favorite place are as varied as the places themselves. The reason you enjoy the customer experience may be because of stellar customer service, but
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Looking to lose a few good customers? The quickest way to send them on their way to the nearest competitor is to not provide your employees with the training and information they need to handle customer inquiries. Let's look at two recent examples:
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Forget baubles and gadgets. Here's what I really want for the holidays:
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"Customers are taking real service issues to social media and expect a response," Conversocial President Joshua March told me during a recent discussion about social trends. "When companies don't respond, it upsets customers. In a public setting like social, this situation can become a massive PR disaster." Poor customer experiences used to be "private," March said. Now they're public. "Consumers can read reviews and comments and discussions and see exactly what kinds of customer experiences other people are having," he
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Victoria's Secret recently invited me to its "invitation only" holiday event. Why the quotation marks around invitation only? The holiday event turned about to be as exclusive as a free concert in Central Park. I received my invitation via email and called to RSVP for myself and a guest (my daughter, Claudia). I printed the invitation as instructed: "Must present invitation for entry." And on Sunday, December 4, off we went to the Victoria's Secret store in Herald Square in
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One aspect of customer experience that's often overlooked is intention. If, for example, a company advertises its support of a charitable organization, is its intention to truly help that organization by getting customers involved, or is it simply looking for an "easy" sales boost from socially conscious customers? If the company doesn't make clear that it's the former--a customer experience plus--their flawed intention will potentially damage customer relationships instead of improve them.
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Far too many business leaders think they can make a few one-off improvements to their organization's customer experience, and voilà, customer engagement will follow. If it was only that easy. "Customer experience is a journey, not a destination," Sophie Vlessing reminded attendees during her session at NACCM earlier this week. Vlessing, senior vice president of strategic marketing and student experience at Kaplan University, shared her roadmap for taking a customer experience journey that leads to ongoing innovation:
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The best way to engage customers: Tell stories. Stories connect people on an emotional level, and emotion is what drives people to action. "Stories define us and give meaning to our lives," Peter Guber, Chairman and CEO, Mandalay Entertainment Group, and author Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, said during his keynote this morning at NACCM. "Stories break down barriers. They work."
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Zappos.com is well-known for its culture and customer focus. What makes Zappos.com a service company? During her keynote this afternoon at NACCM, Jamie Naughton, speaker of the house, chief culture ambassador, for Zappos.com explained:
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The power has shifted to the consumer in terms of driving change, Scott Hudler, vice president, brand marketing, Dunkin Brands, said during his keynote this afternoon. "It's not about your strategy; it's about are you meeting customers' needs." Retaining customers is more challenging than ever in today's customer-led market. "Even our best customers are not monogamous; they're very promiscuous," Hudler said, adding that customers will go to competitors more often if Dunkin's not meeting their expectations.
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Do you have raving fans? Do you have employees that are as engaged as those raving fans? Companies will rarely have the former without the latter. "The number one law of customer loyalty is employee satisfaction," Pete Winemiller, senior vice president, guest relations, NBA's Oklahoma Thunder, said during his keynote at NACCM this morning.
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When was the last time you sent or received a hand-written thank-you note? It was probably longer ago than you care to remember. Unfortunately, the written thank-you note seems to be a dying art. Fortunately, however, for those who use them, the power is unmatched.
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Consumers are making their gift lists and checking them twice. On most consumers' lists: gift cards. According to the National Retail Federation, nearly 60 percent of shoppers polled said they would like to receive gift cards this holiday season. And about 50 percent of consumers surveyed for First Data's 2010 U.S. Gift Card Consumer Insights Study purchased gift cards as holiday gifts in 2010. Gift cards, however, aren't always perceived as the most personal gift--unless the recipient has specifically requested
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It's just days before Halloween. And while chocoholics like myself are thinking, "Candy!" most everyone in business is thinking, "Let the holiday rush begin." This year's "rush," however, will be primarily about wallet share. National Retail Federation is predicting a moderate 2.8 percent growth in overall retail sales this year, despite also forecasting that consumers will spend about $704.18 on "holiday gifts and seasonal merchandise," down from $718.98 in 2010. Retailers, it seems, will need to focus heavily on slicing
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Channel proliferation, data overload, and privacy concerns are just some of the issues that direct marketers across the globe are dealing with today. In a conversation with me after the DMA's annual conference, Australian Direct Marketing Association CEO Jodie Sangster shared her insights on the three biggest trends facing marketers in Australia and around the globe today, as well as how they can better handle customers' growing privacy concerns.
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Customer experience comes in many packages. Literally. Last night, while flying home from the CXPA's Member Insight Exchange, I was reminded how powerful packaging can be as part of the customer experience. And it happened with my eyes closed.
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A common theme in many sales organizations these days is rethinking the sales process to make it easier for customers to buy. That evolution, of course, includes providing the training and support salespeople need to improve their customer interactions. One company focused on how sales impacts the customer experience is Arrow Electronics. During a panel discussion at AchieveGlobal's The Future of Sales Effectiveness briefing earlier this week, Joe Cataldo, senior director of talent management and development at Arrow Electronics, shared
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How's this for personalized service? Renaming a restaurant in customers' honor. This is the approach the iconic steakhouse Smith & Wollensky is taking during the month of October. From the 3rd to the 31st, the restaurant is changing half of the name of its 49th Street and Lexington Avenue location in New York each day in honor of one customer who takes a "pledge" online "to make Smith & Wollensky their exclusive steakhouse."
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As much as customers complain about contact centers, there are plenty of great experiences with caring, engaged agents, too.
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Does your frontline staff feel important, respected, valued? If not, your customer experience will suffer--even if those employees are empowered.
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Ah, yes, it's that time of year once again: The time when some of my favorite brands send "Happy Birthday" cards and gift certificates. OK, I admit it. I excitedly anticipate this annual stuffing of my mailbox. It's my favorite aspect of my loyalty program memberships. The reason: It's actually personal.
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"Listening is the infrastructure behind customer centricity," Maribel Sierra said during her keynote at Social Customer 2011. "It can inform and drive every aspect of a business." Sierra, Dell's director of global social media and communities, is a passionate advocate of customer listening and the benefits it provides. "Listening works," she said, adding that even if you can't resolve every issue, customers appreciate that you listen to their ideas and concerns. Listening positively impacts NPS, brand, and more.
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When sales reps are in front of customers, or when service reps are on the phone with them, do those reps have all the information they need for the circumstances? Often they don't. They have to derail the conversation at hand to search for what they need. That information is often housed in siloed systems that require a new sign-in, a call to a colleague, or even escalation.
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Customer experience is a hot topic. There's no doubt about that. There are, however, many perspectives on the vast topic of customer experience. Here are 12 from conversations I had and sessions I attended at several recent industry conferences:
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There seem to be two types of brands these days: ones that continue to deliver on their promises despite the turbulent economy and pricing pressures; and ones that use their brand equity to sell products that aren't nearly the level of quality that the brand originally promised and delivered. That group of brands is likely boosting their margins, but how long can the fun last before consumers catch on and lose trust.
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The sales cycle is evolving more and more to become a purchasing cycle. Increasingly, customers today--both B2B and B2C--are researching products and services, seeking insight and advice from their social networks, and inviting salespeople into their purchase process when the decision is very nearly made. With customers taking charge of the conversation, data is developing into a sellers' best productivity tool.
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As turbulent as the economy has been recently, and is now, there are still customers out there with money to spend. The important question is will they spend it with you? One place consumers are spending: Godiva. Yes, upscale chocolate. In fact, in June the company's year-to-date sales had increased 19 percent globally and 12 percent in North America, according to Mahender Nathan, vice president, direct, for Godiva. The reason for this growth, in my opinion: customer-driven innovation.
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Converging forces like increasingly demanding customers and harsh market conditions have made the competitive landscape tougher than ever. It can be a challenge to stay positive and to continue to focus on customer experience when the pressure to grow is so intense. Lisa Nirell, author of Energize Growth Now: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company, shared some insight with me recently about ways to do both (stay positive and customer focused) and to create growth as a result.
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I recently read that companies want customers to spend the loyalty points they earn. Really? I'm not so sure about that. There are nearly as many ways to earn and spend loyalty points as there are companies that offer them. But some businesses definitely make redemption easier than others do. Many airlines, for example, have a terrible reputation for an overabundance of blackout dates when customers can't use their frequent flyer points to purchase tickets. Conversely, there are companies like
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When asking customers what they want, the trick is to ask the right questions. Henry Ford was quoted as saying, "If I had asked customers what they wanted they'd have said, 'A faster horse.'" I'm sure that's the case. I'm also sure that if Apple had asked customers the same, no one would have said, "A wallet-size device to carry around my music."
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If you think of customer experience broadly, it encompasses every interaction point a customer has with an organization. That includes far more than customer service. Also in the customer experience ensemble are products, billing, shipping, mobile apps, marketing communications, the website, social interactions, and more. Each of these areas tends to have its own "owner." In fact, if you consider the vast number of disparate customer touchpoints, it seems impossible that any one person could oversee it all in a
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"What's in the black box?" Nick Primola asked during his presentation at Forrester's 2011 Customer Experience Forum. "The customer relationship. It's not the next shiny object or product models to sell. It's a relationship founded in mutual trust and mutual value."
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As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. But customers shouting for service on social media aren't the only consumers getting a quick response--though it may seem that way. It also happens in brick-and-mortar settings, when a frustrated customer gets loud. For example...
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Customers are looking for service and information online, that's a given. Companies' response plans...that's often unknown. Organizations are responding to customers' complaints and inquiries in myriad ways, including hiring interns or agencies, creating a social taskforce, or taking an ad hoc approach where they may have marketing or customer service staffers track online interactions as their schedules allow.
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Does hiring right matter? You bet. Yesterday I went to Starbucks for a lemonade iced tea. Not surprisingly, the store was busy. The barista was pouring, mixing, and blending with expert proficiency. Until my drink.
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