During his session, “Harnessing the Consumer/Brand Dialogue For Better Business Results,” at Forrester’s Forum For Customer Experience Professionals East last month in New York City, Answers.com CEO David Karandish told a story about a play he was in during seventh grade called “Just Desserts.”
A girls in the play with him forgot her lines shortly after it began. Karandish didn’t know what to do, but he forged on with his own lines anyway. But, he too forgot some of his lines and skipped over a crucial part of the story.
Lesson learned? “Dialogue is very important,” Karandish said.
It’s never more important than between a brand and its customers, he said.
“The concept of dialogue between your brand and customers will ultimately drive satisfaction and that delight.
Brands are reaching out to consumers through advertising and direct messaging. In turn, consumers are sharing their feedback about their experiences, and talking with each other,” Karandish said.
The customer journey begins with curiosity, he said. Nearly 140 billion consumers access Answers.com each month.
“There are a lot of opportunities to get lost and a lot of opportunities to turn around along the customer journey,” Karandish said. “Customers in stores are browsing competitor websites to get a better deal. How do you delight them and bring that emotional connection to them?”
As companies balance deadlines, budgets, demographics, and planning, the customer journey, Karandish believes comes down to this: “When you’re looking at the customer journey, it’s all about listening and responding. That would be great if you only had one customer. But, with thousands of customers, it’s difficult.”
Karandish said his company takes listening and responding, and translates that into a measurable result. About 1,200 brands are engaged with Answers.co.
“We’ll take your customer experience and apply analytics, measure what’s going on, and deliver insights,” he said. “Without Customer Experience analytics, I couldn’t tell them anything. We’re taking this art of Customer Experience and translating it into a science where we measure exactly what’s going on and what will ultimately impact customer satisfaction.”
Highly satisfied customers are 83% more likely to make a purchase, he said, and 78% are more likely to recommend a specific company.
“Customer Experience is not just an art that you can go out and say this is interesting and this is something you want to do, there’s an emotion to it, there’s a science to it,’ Karandish explained. “Measuring and improving your satisfaction is what we’re here for.”
Karandish offered a few key takeaways:
- Identify opportunities to harness consumer brand dialogue
- Be able to interact between what consumers are saying about your brand and what you’re saying to consumers
- Evaluate what you’re doing in terms of Voice of the Customer, how you’re analyzing Customer Experience, how you’re capturing it, are you measuring future impacts, or just analyzing what people have said about your brand