Consumer

Having read a fair bit about ‘Apple reinventing the textbook’  and having watched the launch, I don’t think anyone can say for certainty which way this will go; beyond those raised by the Econsultancy blog (which missed the bit about Apple’s publishing partners talking about iBooks)  There are a number of points to note:

• Anything that makes textbooks more interesting can only be a good thing. However, is it possible to turn every book into an amazing visual journey. I notice they only showed introductory science book examples. How complex can the topics become before the book reverts to mainly text? What about drier subjects like some branches of mathematics?
• Does this risk trivialising learning? They’ve taken the study questions and made them more interactive. Fine, but this is just like any web based learning environment, so not exactly revolutionary. And not everything can be represented as a multiple-choice question. It would have been great to see more innovative approaches to learning. Without this, there is a risk that the reinforcement of learning is only very shallow.
• Immersion. There are lots of potential distractions on an iPad. Just how effective will it be as a teaching tool.
• Reading experience. iPads are not e-Ink displays, which means that they will be tiring to read over time. People seem to cope with this, but if kids are looking at a screen solidly for 5 days a week, I’m not sure that’s amazing for their eyes.
• Typing. Nobody is going to claim that an iPad makes a great tool for typing for long periods. The problem is, if a school invests in iPads for each student, then they’re not going to provide laptops too. So what are students going to use to do coursework while at school?
• Exclusion. I echo the sentiment about this being too expensive for most schools/students. It would have been nice if the iBooks format was slightly more open, so it could perhaps work via a browser for those schools that couldn’t afford iPads. This is not in Apple’s interests though, hardware sales are where all their profits are (and why they can make the entire iBooks platform free software. You need an iPad to view it and a Mac to create it).
• Reach. As the article states, cost aside, not all schools will want to move onto an entirely Apple ecosystem. I’m not sure this matters to Apple though and I don’t think they’ll be worried if they only carve out a small niche in the education market. For one it’s great publicity for how socially responsible they are, it also helps to cement use of Apple products into the next generation of consumers and it will drive sales from those wealthy schools that can afford it. Now they’ve made the software, there are no major costs to supporting it (even interactive books are likely to be less costly to host and serve than apps, music or video as they will be smaller files prone to lower levels of demand).

So, there are limitations, but it is likely to see success within those schools that can afford to adopt it. Just don’t expect to see it revolutionise education overnight.

Hands up if you enjoy the retail changing room experience. Hands up if you buy clothes online.

Thought so – and so have a host of other people. There have been two approaches to this – one of which I blogged about earlier which is trying to improve the online experience by using virtual mannequins based on your measurements. Hawes & Curtis has now implemented it and in fact the same company has now released a female form.
The other approach is to set about improving the off-line experience – the dreaded retail changing room.

The latest innovation in the field is the virtual mirror. Possibly the first major retailer to implement a version of this was Macy’s in New York City, who trialled a virtual mirror about a year ago for a limited time. The Magic Fitting Room was set up in the dressing room area and featured a body-length mirror along with an iPad tablet. The shopper stepped in, a photo was taken to calibrate position and body orientation. They could enter their Facebook log-in information, an e-mail address or a mobile phone number on the iPad then browse a (rather limited) selection of tops, bottoms, dresses and jackets. On selecting an item, a digital representation of it appeared on the mirror, superimposed upon the reflection of the shopper as if she were actually trying it on. When they are done, shoppers could share the look via e-mail or Facebook to see what their friends thought. They could also receive a text message or Facebook post indicating the location of these items in the store. “Reaching out to and engaging with the digital-savvy, young consumer is something all retailers are striving to do,” said Joe Feczko, Macy’s senior vice president for innovation.

That’s all well and good – but having gone through this virtual try, you still had to traipse through the store to find the item on the racks and probably try it on for real just to make sure (assuming it was in stock, that is). Not exactly a time saver then.

Style me  has also come up with an interactive virtual mirror, slated to appear in stores sometime next year. It is not meant to replace the changing room but rather augment it or enhance it. After the system calibrates your body size and shape while you stand still a few seconds, the user standing in front of the mirror can browse by brand or clothing item the same way they would with a Kinect (e.g. swiping the air to turn a page, hand hovering over an icon on the screen rather than touching it). The next thing is to try it on virtually – so the item appears “on” you. You can then save, take a picture to share by email or on Facebook, and decide if you want to actually try on or not. It’s an opportunity to share a laugh with your friends, they say. Really?…

I can see quite a few things “wrong” with this. For one, this comes across to me as a “digital savvy young consumer” approach to shopping – an afternoon out with your friends, you try on a lot of things – some quite unlikely – have a giggle, post a funny pic on Facebook. For grown ups, the perspective of standing in the middle of the shop floor virtually trying on clothes probably does not appeal so much – nor do I know many adult women (let alone men) who shop with friends all that much or who have the time, especially those with children, to virtually try on a bunch of things before deciding which to take into the changing room. And if I have to do this in the privacy of the changing room I might as well be trying the clothes on anyway.

I also seriously doubt that calibrating by just standing a few seconds in front of the mirror will provide an accurate enough body image – you still need to try the item on for fit. While I see the sense of having an online virtual me based on my measurements (see above, fit.me) to help online ordering, I suspect the technology is still not sharp enough to make it reliable enough in helping select a size. The one technology which currently seems to offer real benefits in this area is the Intellifit system which actually scans your body to tell you what size and model to buy.

Other companies doing similar things:

Using Kinect:

TC2

Glasses to You

Frames Direct 

Finally, what about men? Would they use this?…

Welcome to the consumer survey section of our second Annual Multichannel Customer Experience Report.  

This report looks at how a total of nearly 5,000 consumers (spread across five separate surveys) regard their experience with companies in the retail, travel, online banking, mobile phone and gaming (gambling) sectors.
Our consumer research shows that the relative importance of different attributes varies by sector, as does the frequency of overall interaction and use of different channels (including online and offline).

• Customers are increasingly moving online, however, the face to face experience is still important, the call centre and brochure being relegated to less important ways of buying
• Mobile experiences are weak – even if you’re a mobile phone company!

To download the whitepaper a valid e-mail address is required, however Foviance will not contact you unless you specifically request it.

CA Calls for European Businesses to Wake Up to ‘Web Stress’ or Risk Losing Customers and Sales

• World’s first* neurological experiment into poor online customer experience proves existence of ‘web stress’
• Brain wave analysis indicates that consumers need to concentrate 50% more than normal when using a badly performing website
• Two most stressful points of the online sales cycle are search and checkout

* Based on extensive desk research in February 2010. Read more…

To explore ‘web stress’, CA partnered with Foviance to see if application performance had an impact on buying habits and consumer behaviour online.

Using an EEG (Electroencephalography) cap and sophisticated neurological and physiological testing equipment, volunteers were wired up during the study and had their brain wave activity monitored. Everyday tasks online such as finding and buying items were tested by the volunteers.

The results revealed that search and checkout were the two most stressful points of everyday processes carried out online, resulting in the volunteers exhibiting a heightened level of ‘web stress’. This type of stress results in more than three quarters of customers abandoning websites before they have completed the task that drove them to the site in the first place. To download the whitepaper a valid e-mail address is required, however Foviance will not contact you unless you specifically request it.

By Billie Andersen

At an event for Social Media Week London last week, a question was raised over whether responding to people on Twitter and similar social media sites would encourage more customers to air their complaints in public. In my opinion, the answer is that it probably does, particularly if people see others being responded to effectively. However, this should not be a reason to ignore disgruntled customers. People will still have their grievance, whether or not they choose to voice it. Read more…

By Marty Carroll

Economics has not fared well in the current financial crisis. Economists placed too much of an emphasis on people’s likelihood to act rationally when making decisions. People do not always act in their own self interest and this is largely a consequence of biases that affect our ability to make decisions.

Economists and psychologists have been exploring our perceptual biases since the 70′s, but these biases have come to assume a new prominence in the most recent crisis because of the writings of behavioural economists such as Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely and Robert Shiller. Read more…

By Marty Carroll

Customer experience is not a fad. Yes the terminology is bandied about much more than before but before customer experience we had customer satisfaction and customer engagement. Using the words ‘customer experience’ implies that an organisation is looking at how consumers experience the brand in a more strategic way. Indeed we’ve been gratified to see a large number of organisations really grasp the concept and value of customer experience. Some initiatives have delivered excellent returns on investment and have proven very effective, but we now believe such initiatives are no longer enough in themselves, and here’s why.Modern customers and consumers have an unprecedented ability to communicate with each other. As a result of the comments, interactions and opinions of customers published across every digital channel, there now exists a vast knowledge pool of insights into every business, and almost complete transparency in every marketplace.

Read more…