We live in a time when merely offering superior products and quality services will no longer guarantee a competitive edge. That level of customer engagement is now commonplace and expected. At best, it represents the minimum standard, or even the starting line, where the race for customer loyalty begins. Actually wining that race requires taking customer experience to the next level.
“It is all about getting your customers to love what you are offering them,” Deepak Advani, General Manager of IBM Commerce, told attendees during IBM Amplify 2015 in San Diego. “We know that people can use logic and reason to make decisions, but we also know that real decisions are often based on emotions and feelings.”
These emotional connections are only created when customer experiences are personalized, meaningful, and relevant to the lives of individuals. The key is delivering true authenticity, and the call for its advent is not an entirely new concept. But Advani is perplexed by how often it’s overlooked, especially now that authentic customer experiences are more than a strategically advantageous move. Authenticity and personalization are actually crucial.
“No two people are the same,” Advani said. “People have different likes, dislikes, propensities, passions, and these preferences and personal inclinations change. Having that type of customer engagement at every touch point is absolutely critical. We are moving to a world that is data driven, and brands must understand which trends are relevant to different individuals.”
Some of the greatest brands have always excelled in this area. They understand customer behavior and what will drive emotionally resonating connections. Advani uses Apple, with its sleek and captivating designs, as a perfect example. He also urges marketers to look at Singapore Airlines, which even considers and incorporates welcoming fragrances to further entice and enhance sensory perceptions. And, of course, Harley-Davidson, which has built a base of customers so loyal that many willingly tattoo the brand on their bodies.
This is also the way IBM thinks, and Advani urges all brands to do the same.
“Now that we are in the world of mobile and social and analytics, this has to be done at scale,” said Advani. “This is no longer optional. We are moving to a world where you need to really understand your customers, and you need to deliver an experience that blows them away.”
On an intellectual level, most brands absolutely agree. The problem is that they have trouble following through. There is a huge disconnect between the customer experience brands think they offer, and what the consumers actually perceive.
This was made demonstrably clear after IBM recently surveyed 1300 consumers and 250 brands. It showed that 81% of brands felt that they consistently deliver truly personalized and authentic customer experiences. However, 78% of consumers completely disagreed. The vast majority felt no such effort from brands.
The main reason for this disconnect, according to Advani, can be found in way many brands manage, analyze, and act on customer data. Technology and data management has very quickly become vastly complicated. With so much data being generated, separating the signal from the noise is increasing difficult. To ease this process, Advani recommends breaking the data into subcategories, which can be more effectively integrated and assimilated.
Currently, the data collection and managing processes of most brands tends to start (and end) with descriptive and behavioral data. This generally looks at demographics and past consumer purchase behaviors, but it is simply not enough. Advani urges brands to go further. They need to also start mining interaction and attitudinal data from additional sources such call centers, online forums, and a host of customer feedback channels.
When all these different data streams are pulled together, brands will be better able to laser in on who their customers are, what they are doing, how they are doing it, and, most importantly why they do what they do.
“It is no longer B2B or B2C,” Advani said. “We are moving to a C2B world, which is customer-to-business. Brands that are successful are not thinking of their business as a portfolio of products, they are thinking about it as a portfolio of customers. They know them, they understand them, they relate to them on a personal and authentic level.”
In this new C2B world, innovative companies will spend more resources discovering how consumers really operate, and then deliver the synchronized customer experiences that can generate true advocates.
Success depends on considering the entire experience from every angle of the consumer’s perspective, and it all starts with a very simple question.
“How is your customer feeling today?” Advani asked.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.