Insights Drive Better Customer Experience

In 2014, Marketing Insider Group released an ebook looking at the future of the customer experience. It featured a series of interviews we conducted with customer experience experts, outlining how customer needs would change in the coming years and providing strategies businesses could use to meet those demands.

Looking back, we can see how experts correctly predicted the emergence of omnichannel experiences where customers wouldn’t necessarily begin and end their buying journeys on the same platforms. According to SalesForce, 71% of customers prefer different channels depending on the context, so this prediction came to fruition.

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Re-examining some interviews from the past can be valuable for modern organizations carving a path because much of the information remains relevant today. Here’s an interview with Jamie Anderson, former Vice President of CRM Marketing at SAP and current president of Global Field Operations at UserTesting, answering some questions on providing a better customer experience.

Quick Takeaways

• Revisiting past expert interviews can provide valuable strategies for modern organizations, as many of the predictions remain applicable today.

• Experts correctly predicted that customers would start their buying journeys on one platform and finish on another, emphasizing the importance of seamless omnichannel strategies.

• The focus on personalized customer service has become a standard expectation, with companies needing to engage customers on a deeper, more personal level.

• An extreme future prediction involves a shift to a Consumer-to-Business (C2B) model, where customers control interactions based on their data’s value.

How Do You Define a Customer-Focused Company These Days?

That’s a great question. I guess there will be many definitions of what makes a company truly ‘customer-focused.’

I think any organization that creates innovative products (or services) with a ‘customer first’ mentality can truly claim to be ‘customer-focused.’

By customer first, I really mean thinking from the customer perspective back into the organization. Only then can they truly understand the customer perspective, and that’s crucial to becoming customer-focused.

In addition, I think how socially active a company is coupled with their desire to truly ‘engage’ their customers (as opposed to broadcasting to them) via these channels is also a useful measure.

Customer-focused companies can discover fantastic insights about how their products, services, and brands are perceived by their audience. If the company possesses the internal alignment and cultural desire to turn these insights into action, then the potential to differentiate from the pack is much, much greater.

Sometimes, I think this lesson represents a modern-day perspective from a poem I learned at school by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. The poem is called ‘To a Louse.’

It’s a funny poem detailing the poet’s mock indignation at seeing a ‘beastie’ crawling all over the bonnet of a well-to-do lady. “O would some power the giftie give us to see ourselves as others see us.”

Well, now – almost 300 years later – brands hold that power in their hands every day. The gift to see themselves as others see them through the voice of their customers. The smart ones are doing this today.

How Do You Balance the Need for a Better Customer Experience With the Return on That Investment?

Hmmm. It really depends on the basis for the ‘better customer experience.’ There’s usually always some kind of compelling event for organizations when they begin to consider an investment.

In commodity play markets like utilities, for example, it’s pretty simple. It goes back to one of my very first projects when I worked for a large utility provider.

Their CIO at the time actually answered this question on the development floor one day when he said, “People are asking WHY are you making such a big investment in customer service, and I say it’s simple – we can’t make our electricity go faster than anybody else’s, and we can’t make our gas burn brighter BUT every day if we deliver the best and most responsive customer experience on the phones, on the internet, and in the field then no one can match what we have!”

I think sometimes the notion of ROI (return on investment) can be a challenge when companies invest in building processes that don’t necessarily drive measurable sales and marketing outcomes.

Perhaps we should be thinking of this as ROE (return on engagement or return on experience).

How Can We Re-Imagine the Ways of Organizing Companies to Deliver Better Customer Experiences?

I think they already are. The term ‘channel-less’ has crept into everyday circulation in industries like retail, for example.

Similarly, the notion of omnicommerce has gathered momentum as customer buying journeys seamlessly span multiple interaction channels in a single commerce transaction.

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This demand for change is largely ‘customer-driven,’ and the challenge is that most businesses have arranged themselves in an ‘inside-out’ fashion of loosely coupled interaction channels, making this goal very difficult.

Do You Believe Customers Want to Be Part of the Development Process, Especially For Consumer Products?

I am not sure of the wider implications of that one. Smart companies, like LEGO, are already engaging their customers on social communities and, in some cases, co-innovating new products with their customers, too.

This scenario is where the power of social communities comes into their own. At the heart of it, though, there needs to be value for the customer in getting involved and a commitment to truly collaborate on behalf of the company and for customers to see an outcome for their input. Without that, it’s a very tough ask.

What is the Most Extreme Future You Could Envision for the Customer Experience?

C2B – Consumer to Business or ‘The Customer Network’ – is the future. The idea is that Customers/Consumers control everything based on their knowledge of the value of their own data. Businesses must find a way to connect with their customers through this service and with relevance. That’s how they become the ‘signal through the noise.’

Will Companies Stop Selling Products and Services and Start Selling Experiences?

This is a great (and topical) question. Recently, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the company of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

Zappos re-invests the money it makes NOT into marketing but straight back into the customer experience. From Tony’s perspective, the top 3 priorities for his business are as follows:

• Culture
• Customer Service/Customer Experience
• Clothing (the product)

To Tony, ‘brand’ is really just an extension of the company culture. If you get that bit right, then everything else will follow.

We Now Have 3-D Printers and Distributed Manufacturing. Do You See a Greater Need For Personalization?

I can agree that customers are looking for greater personalization. How that manifests itself, I am not sure.

It comes back to the issue of the ‘signal to noise ratio.’ As consumers, we are consistently bombarded by news, ads for products and services, and offers to the extent that we filter most things out that don’t have immediate relevance to us.

However, when the right offer hits us at the right time (and right place), we are very receptive. The more this happens, the more our expectations rise, and with an ever-increasing awareness of ‘what can be done.’ As a result, it seems reasonable that the desire for personalization and customization of products and services will increase.

How Important is Customer Experience For B2B Companies?

It’s like customer experience by osmosis (moving from B2C to B2B). You have to remember that we are ALL consumers. Just like the clamor for BYOD (bring your own device) being a by-product of the consumerization of IT, the ever-increasing customer expectations we experience as consumers naturally bleed over into the experiences we expect in a B2B context.

The major topics here certainly focus on creating the type of intuitive user interfaces that are synonymous with consumer applications.

What Technologies Do You See as Enabling Better Customer Experiences?

I see real-time analytics delivering the personalization and relevance that typifies great customer experiences.

True omnichannel presence is also essential as customers use more and more channels to interact with a single brand. The consistency of this experience is a major factor in how they perceive the brand as a whole – one element of weakness in the omnichannel strategy, and the entire brand suffers as a result.

What Are Your Thoughts on the Opportunity to Use Your Purchase History to Improve Customer Experiences Versus Privacy Concerns?

I think it ultimately hinges on the individual’s desire to share that information. You’ll also factor in the benefit or value they get from sharing.

Take SAP customer STM as an example. To the user, there is a terrific value in the app. It connects them to their specific travel schedules and provides smart recommendations. These offers are based on the information they have willingly shared.

I always say that one of the simplest measures of brand loyalty/brand affinity today is, ‘Do customers use your app?’ With the proliferation of applications available to customers today, the measure of your value can be determined by whether a customer is prepared to ‘grant you real estate’ on their digital device.

Think about it – how many apps have you downloaded and test-driven only to find within the first 15 minutes of download that they are bullshit and then subsequently deleted almost as quickly as they were downloaded and installed.

Let me share another example in Caesars Entertainment.

Caesars Entertainment is the World’s largest gaming company due in no small part to its commitment to data-driven marketing and customer service.

When I listened to Tariq Shaukat, CMO of Caesars Entertainment, deliver a talk recently on customer loyalty, he explained the importance of transparency and respect for the customer in terms of how the data gathered is used to market to them. He said, “…there are certain things our customers simply ‘expect’ us to know when we communicate with them.”

In the case of brands like Caesars, that ‘trusted’ relationship gives them value-based permission to use the information to consistently enhance and personalize their customer’s experiences.

The Role of Technology in Shaping Future Customer Experience

Since we’ve already looked back ten years, it makes sense to look into the future. In 2034, technology will continue transforming how businesses interact with customers, making experiences more personalized and trustworthy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will be at the forefront of this transformation. These technologies will enable businesses to understand their customers on a deeper level. They predict their preferences, needs, and behaviors with incredible accuracy. About 38% of retailers already use this technology on some level, and another 15% plan to implement it in the near future. Therefore, it’s easy to see how common AI could become over the next decade.

AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants will provide real-time support, offering personalized recommendations and resolving issues instantly. This level of personalization is sure to make customers feel like the brand values and understands them, driving loyalty and satisfaction.

There’s a good chance for technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to alter how customers engage with products and services, too. Retailers can have customers try on clothes, test furniture, and take virtual tours of vacation destinations without leaving their homes.

This experience connects online and in-store shopping, offering customers a rich, interactive way to make purchasing decisions.

In service industries, VR could be used for virtual consultations or training, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology will also be crucial in shaping the customer experience by enhancing trust and transparency. With blockchain, customers will have greater confidence in the security of their data and the authenticity of the products they purchase.

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This transparency will foster stronger relationships between businesses and customers based on trust and reliability.

These technological advancements will improve customer interactions and create richer, more personalized, and trustworthy experiences by 2034.

Building Your Company Now and in the Future

Growing your business means creating an organization that thrives now and for years to come. You’ll need to be on top of the latest customer experience trends to provide people with what they want and focus on marketing tools and techniques that get your desired results.

Marketing Insider Group can give you a strong start with our Graphic and Website Design Services. We’ll create a responsive, user-centric website that engages your users, and we can even write the content that keeps them coming back for more. Book a free consultation with our team to learn more.