Customer Centric

I have received recently from a friend this video about a famous brand expanding its activities to other territories

Does the economy downturn change the consumer or the advertiser?
I think that current situation (despite real financial difficulties for many people) does not trigger a new behaviour from consumers. It plays a role as a catalyst. People still want to achieve the best ratio “value for money”. The way to achieve it is becoming simply more critical.

Consumers are looking for 2 very basic things in their interaction with brands: consideration and satisfaction…because they are human beings. They want to be treated for what they are and not for what they are supposed to be. A good illustration on this paradigm is the recent worldwide buzz on Sarah Boyle.

Many marketing professionals are trying to conceptualize what are the new needs from consumers, what have changed. Consumers have not changed after the dismantlement of Lehman Brothers. The change is coming from brands (and related service providers) realizing that the quality of the relationship with consumers is finally the most important on the long term.

A recent report from Forrester Resarch highlights that “Customer experience” is currently the most important driver of customer loyalty.

I have tried to identify some tips about what a brand could START, STOP and KEEP on doing to strengthen its relationships with consumers.

Let’s start new things!
If there’s an issue about the quality of your product, you may consider as Electronic Arts that the best is to accept your mistake in a positive and constructive manner.
It could be risky but if it works…

ARK (Act of Random Kindness) is a clothing brands asking their clients to be kind when they wear one of the clothes they purchased. It is a very creative initiative to get consumers sharing actively values of the brand. The consumer experience  is definitely unique.

Let’s stop doing things?
Using a potential competitor as an ally
T Mobile and other major operators in Europe and in the USA have blocked the access to Skype via the iPhone. This position is based on technical requirements which are hidding their concern about loss of revenues. We could assume that the customer experience is negatively impacted. It could have been smarter to conclude an exclusive deal with Skype (even with some limitation) and turning this decision as an additional service for clients.

Turning an obligation into an opportunity
Since last year in France, banks must send to each of their client a consolidation of all fees perceived during the year. Most of the banks have just implemented this new regulation as a constraint. It could have been more efficient to propose at the same time to the client an appointment with a brank representative. He would have taken the opportunity to answer questions, interact and eventually discuss about better investment solutions than paying for fees.

Let’s keep on doing other things!
FNAC, a French retailer specialized in books, music and other cultural goods, have set industry standard in terms of client comfort. For example, each customer has enough space and seats to read books without being stressed by sales staff. The merchandising and store layout do integrate completely this service.

The luxury watchmaking brand Roger Dubuis was ranked #1 in terms of customer esperience in Switzerland. The mistery shopper survey was done by Bilan (Swiss business magazine). A watchmaker and a yound lady with a psychologist diploma are teaming-up in the flagshipstore in Geneva to provide customer with all attention, expertise and consideration that you may expect from watches priced at $30 000 and more.
Unfortunately it is extremly difficult to expand this performance to a large network of POS

5 tips for building a fruitful relationship with consumers
1- If you have done a mistake or if there is a quality problem, be pro-active, inform the consumer and propose a solution without being prompted.
2- Customer experience is a matter of excellence in every moment of interaction whatever the communication vehicle..so qualified, motivated and autonomous teams are key
3- Customer experience needs to be considered as a core component of the brand or the product
4- The best is always to exceed expectations
5- A CRM system will not achieve an outsdanding customer service by itself

I strongly believe that excellence in customer experience is a matter of company culture rather than being a marketing topic. The brand and the advertiser would need to understand first the language spoken by the consumer before trying to voice their own words.

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