Foviance

“In particular the website project saw us all working together with one of the UK’s leading usability agencies, Foviance, to produce excellent results.” Ross Laurie, Managing Director of Line

By Robert Brauer

Eating fast food is my most dubious habit. To me, it is neither a culinary delight, nor a tolerable source of nutrition. However, every once in a while and especially when I am enjoying my passion for travelling foreign countries and getting immersed into different cultures, the chances are high: I will end up in fast food shop. Most of the times, it will be a chain with stores all over the planet. The names are well known. In situations like that, when it comes down to choosing between exciting foreign cuisine and a trusted but maybe less exciting burger, the burger simply seems to be the most reasonable choice.

This choice of experience is no exceptional case for human nature. Albeit the awareness of possibly missing out on a remarkable experience, I am turning myself to a relationship of trust. Even though it might not be the best experience in the world, I know what to expect. In commercial terms, my need can be described as a customer experience of consistency, which is an important driver for the trust relationship between a customer and a brand.

Not surprisingly, the described experience is a major revenue point for international fast food chains, and the example can be related to almost every service or product. For instance, when deciding to try a completely new device experience, such as a tablet computer. For an appreciator of the functionality of an iPhone, it is straightforward to choose an iPad. Despite the significant monetary investment that it requires, a baseline user experience is shared among the devices. Overall this reduces the possibility of the new purchase to be a technologic gamble as well as a source of frustration.

Generally speaking, consistency within multichannel experiences is a design challenge that concerns a wide variety of brands and services. Multichannel experiences exist simultaneously among several customer touch-points. Online as well as offline, a coherent and integrated customer experience builds up trust by mediating competence and direction as well as generating perceived familiarity. Despite the broadness of the problem space of managing a trusted relationship between customers and services, almost all key issues and design requirements can be determined, investigated and revised. Consistency within multichannel experiences in this case is achieved though the following characteristics.

• Coherent – basic idea of the service is perceived as consistent across channels.

• Complementary – coherent service experience delights with specific benefits within chosen service channel.

• Simultaneous – benefits of service channel can be combined as needed.

• Shiftable – service adapts to customer flexibility and present needs.

• Synchronized – service allows shifting between channels and shared features across service a shared among channel.

Characteristics like these not only ensure that the service delivers consistently among websites, microsites, mail, social media, in-store and even call centre experiences. Familiarity and stability also improve the overall quality of the service beyond the perception of trust and allow design space to delight with innovation and significantly increase adoption rates of new features and services.

This article was originally published by the Customer Experience Magazine

One of the leading companies in terms of customer experience management is Foviance, Richard Sedley gave a beautiful presentation on multichannel customer engagement issues.

At the end of this week Paul Blunden, Foviance’s CEO, will be stepping down from his position as the head of our company.

Paul has been with us for over 10 years and CEO for the majority of that time.

Foviance’s hard-earned reputation for the excellence of our work and staff is in no small part down to the vision and leadership Paul has provided us. Everyone at Foviance would like to thank him for all his efforts and wish him well in all his future ventures.

Former CEO of Wheel and Foviance Board Chairman Philip Hunt will assume the role of Executive Chairman. Paul will continue his association with us as a Non-Executive Director.

22 July 2011

This article was originally published by Seb Joseph, NMA

When it comes to determining the usability of mobiles, it’s vital to know how people use them and what differs to their use of PCs. Research by Foviance looks at the variances.

The phrase ’mobile usability’ is something of an oxymoron. While users are consuming more content on their mobile devices, the experience is blighted by download delays and awkward input. The lack of usability guidelines from platform owners means brands are struggling to create content that’s as emotionally engaging for consumers on mobiles as it is on PCs.

Part of the challenge for brands is capitalising on the different cognitive interactions users have with content on mobile devices versus PCs.

According to research by usability consultancy Foviance, an increasing number of 18-30-year-olds are using their handsets primarily for entertainment and social interaction.

Surveying 278 candidates aged 18-30 nationwide, the report found that a notable proportion (75.4%) said they only used their handsets to manage their social media profiles, while half claimed they only used their PCs for work-related activity.

In addition, nearly 70% said they typically spend between one and two hours a day on their handsets, compared to the 73% who spend four hours or more on a PC (mainly at work).

The instantaneous nature of interaction on a mobile suggests that people are thinking less about the content they upload to the web via a handset, whereas their use of the PC reveals more contemplative thought processes.

Social media was the most prominent activity carried out on both PCs and handsets, with 90% of those asked saying they accessed social networks on both platforms.

“Social media content is becoming the most important thing people do on both their smartphones and their PCs,” says Catriona Campbell, founder and director of Foviance. “The difference is what aspects of social networks people are using when on either platform.”

We have launched the follow up to our ground breaking Multichannel Customer Experience Report. Last year’s report provided insight into how businesses were thinking and acting in the area of multichannel customer experience.

The 2011 survey covers:

•         What attributes are important for delivering a great customer experience? 
•         How well does your organisation (or your clients) integrate different touch points?
•         With questions around organisational maturity, measurement and challenges

Last year we used our maturity model to look at the progress organisations were making across five important dimensions of customer experience: Leadership and culture, brand, customer insight, customer touch points and systems and processes

We believe if an organisation can capture these five dimensions in their roadmap, then they are likely to gain the business performance improvements they are searching for, to implement a multichannel customer experience strategy.

We will be using our maturity model to see if companies have changed their behaviours in these five areas, over the past year. To enhance the report further, we will also be running a second B2C survey alongside this one but we will keep you updated on that before it is launched in July.

Complete the Multichannel Customer Experience survey here, and receive a FREE copy of the full report in advance.

We will be attending the Gamification Fantastic Tavern, hosted at the Brickhouse on Brick Lane.

There will be 4 rapid presentations from Richard Sedley and EA games, a panel discussion with guests from Microsoft Kinect, Fortune Cookie, Electronic Arts, Wolff Olins, Kempt and Gamoolasoft. Cancer Research will be hosting a brainstorm, explaining some of the critical challenges they face. The event attendees will then be split into think tanks to address their questions.

The Tavern will be wrapped up by the Kinect team about how they see the future of gestural interactions and interfaces unfolding.

NMA: Foviance carried out research to determine the usability of mobiles and PCs and how they differ. By Seb Joseph,  30th June 2011.