Customer Centricity

We recently released our 2012 Multichannel Report. It shows that companies are making some progress towards customer-centricity since last year, but still have some way to go. The graph on page 23 of the report shows a series of organisational indicators of customer experience maturity and illustrates this point very well.

(Reproduced with permission)

This one chart touches on all of the main themes which form the basis of customer- centricity:

• STRATEGY: Customer-centric organisations are focussed on strategy as determining customer experience outcomes (the first bar).
• PROCESS & GOVERNANCE: Customer-centric organisations design their processes around customer experience outcomes which result from them, and govern their processes on this basis (the last bar). 
• REWARDS: Customer-centric organisations ensure that each individual is motivated to produce good customer experience outcomes (the third bar).
• SYSTEMS: The systems in customer-centric organisations are specified and implemented to produce optimum customer experiences, either directly or indirectly (the last bar).
• MEASURES: Customer-centric organisations measure and analyse the customer experience accurately and track it consistently (the seventh and ninth bars).
• CHANNEL EXPERIENCES: Of course, the result of all of this is that customer-centric organisations produce better customer experiences (the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th bars).

Strong on strategy, weak on operational delivery

The strongest performance is in the adoption of strategies, and it’s clear that customer-centric strategies are really taking hold now, but the operational changes needed to drive results from them are not yet in place. The operational customer experience really sets more CX-mature organisations apart from the rest, and is where many companies are currently stumbling.

How to measure it?

Customer-experience-mature companies recognise that strategy, process, rewards, governance and systems have a major impact on the customer experience, however, very few measure or monitor this impact. Almost all customer experience measures are focussed on measuring the channel customer experiences themselves, but not the operational factors which determine these channel outcomes. It’s hardly surprising then, that companies do not always make the connection between operational causes and customer experience effects.

I predict that the measurement of the impact of strategy, process, rewards, governance and systems on customer experiences will represent the next level in customer experience maturity over the next ten years. These measurements are needed to build the case for the strategic direction required to drive true customer-centricity.

These measures also allow a business case to be built which ties organisational factors to customer experience outcomes, and hence the case can be made, for the organisational changes which are needed for companies to become truly customer-centric. This is when customer-centricity really starts to deliver benefits.

Customer-centricity continues to grow

Over the next ten years, we can expect the economy to be fairly rocky. Increasingly, customer experience will be seen as the main USP and differentiator, especially in the service industries on which so much of the developed world’s economy is based. As channel-level improvements start to reach optimal levels for many companies, we will start to see greater focus on the connections between customer experience outcomes and deeper, organisational and strategic factors.

Earlier this year, Google chairman Eric Schmidt named Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon as the four companies which currently rule consumer technology. It’s not a coincidence that these four companies are among the most customer-centric around. As Amazon CTO Werner Vogels puts it “ We want to be the most customer-centric company on the planet ”. Where these 4 companies lead, the rest of us generally follow, so it’s time to sit up and take note of customer-centricity.

As you will see from the results of our Multichannel Report, it’s not easy, and most companies have some way to go. You can download the Multichannel Report here.

Whilst trying to find a coat online last week, it occurred to me how online fashion retail is still not very customer centric, despite the huge rise in online clothes shopping over the past few years.

I often don’t have a clear picture in my mind of what I want, just generally two specific things; what type of item (skirt/top/dress…) and what I need the item for (work/daytime/evening…) I do know what styles I like (classic/glamorous/urban…) and possibly thanks to Gok Wan, my shape (hourglass/apple/athletic…)

However, when I arrive on most fashion websites I feel overwhelmed by the choice and generally find myself trawling through endless pages of unsuitable items, and then giving up. Part of the reason for this, is that the filters provided do not help me narrow down the items using criteria that I actually have in mind. This is because, more often than not, the filters are based on the direct properties of the item (colour, brand, size) as opposed to the personal categories that users search by (purpose, style, shape.)

Adapting the filters like this could help users to find suitable items more easily, and, once reading about the items, I think that there is also scope for additional product information to help inform the buying decision. This could be things such as:

• Different ways to wear the item
• How the item looks on different sizes/shapes
• What others who previously bought the item think of it.

One website that takes a novel approach to shoe retail is stylistpick. Users are asked a series of questions about their fashion preferences before they are presented with a selection of shoes each month that the website thinks will suit them. I actually found that this narrowed the choice too much as there is no way to see all products, or re-do the style quiz if you need something for a different type of occasion. Although it’s not perfect it’s great to see new approaches being used.

The lack of customer centricity generally seen, surprises me given the size of the market, physical diversity of  people shopping and disposable incomes that many people have these days. Whilst I know that people’s clothes selection is very personal, I’m sure that there are others out there who wouldn’t mind a few more recommendations to help find the right thing. So, come on fashion websites, help me spend my money!

In the last newsletter issue of the year, it has become a tradition to round up the events of the last twelve months as well as making a few predictions for the year ahead. It’s a useful process that provides an opportunity to take a step back from the business and evaluate how we have done and whether we are still on track. It is also an opportunity to test my assumptions about the market and to think about the trends we are seeing in our customers and whether we are ready to support them.

2010 seems to have been the year that mobile finally came of age, although I think a new term is needed – one that properly encapsulates what is really going on. Perhaps ‘new technology’ is a more inclusive way to think about it, as our work has shown that ‘mobile’ is too limited and remains lumbered with hand-held connotations. Now would be a good time to mention the iPad, and we certainly had fun with our iPad back in May, but I’m also thinking of the work we’ve done with utility companies around the use of smart-meters, and in the financial services sector with chip and pin.

2009 had witnessed a slowdown in the evolution of multi-channel customer experience due to the pressures of the recession and I had wondered whether it would receive greater attention in 2010. The good news for customers is that this certainly was the case, with plenty of research and events focussing heavily on multi-channel, and customers increasingly asking us about it. It is possible that a focus on customer retention spurred by the recession underlies this increased attention, but I also see a wider interest in customer centricity prevailing. The rise of social media has certainly had an influence here, and a professionalism of the discipline is starting to emerge.

Foviance’s own social media capability has greatly increased in 2010 with the arrival to the team of Guy Stephens and Richard Sedley.  Guy is expert at helping organisations leverage social media in their customer services departments and speaks and lectures widely on the subject. Richard is also extremely well known and even lectures for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, delivering its social media course. I fully expect that the Foviance social media proposition will evolve considerably next year, while in addition to customer service and social media strategy services we will also incorporate solid research and measurement.

So finally to 2011 and some predictions. Will it be the year the book and magazine dies? I wouldn’t go that far, but I think 2011, with the launch of various iPad lookalikes, will be the year when we start to work a little more paperless and make a mental leap from paper to digital ‘ink’. At least two of the magazines I carry in my bag each day are now available in iPad editions (although the subscription is for the printed version and the digital one comes free – when will they learn!). The ability to explore beyond the page is also exciting – I can certainly see myself commuting to work next December and not being surprised by all the people on the train and tube reading from handheld, digital devices.

Of course I will still be surprised if we arrive on time – some things technology seems unable to improve…

This article was written as part of the Foviance December 2010 newsletter

November has been a busy month for Foviance. We released our multi-channel customer experience research report in the first week of the month with a launch event at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden and were surprised to find we were sandwiched on the 3rd floor between Kim Cattrall on the 2nd and Stella McCartney on the 4th. Illustrious company indeed for what proved to be a very successful launch.

What should not have been a surprise, given the findings of the report, was how well attended the event was. Everyone I spoke to talked about the organisation they worked for struggling to get to grips with what they considered to be, a very complex problem. People attended from a range of organisations across the charity, telecoms, media, retail, travel and financial services sectors and all had or were starting to get to grips with how to deal with customers seamlessly across multiple channels. They spoke of challenges and barriers which were mirrored in our research and also supported the areas we have focussed on in the Foviance customer experience maturity model.

Our maturity model looks at the progress organisations are making across five important dimensions of customer experience. These are: leadership and culture; brand; customer insight; customer touch points; and systems and processes. Our work shows that if an organisation can capture these five areas in their roadmap, then they are likely to gain the business performance improvements they are searching for through the implementation of a multi-channel customer experience strategy.

In our research report, we also provided a definition of what the term ‘multi-channel customer experience’ means, as follows: ‘Multi-channel customer experience: the aggregated experience a customer has of a brand gained from all interactions across managed and unmanaged touch-points for the duration of that relationship.’

It is useful to work with a definition as it sets the boundaries for the subject area. Where multi-channel customer experience is concerned most people I speak to feel it is so big that it is hard even to find a start point. This is why for many people we suggest a simple touch-point audit to get started and to give them something tangible to work with, so that they might then consider their priorities and next steps.

The most encouraging outcome from the multi-channel research launch was that organisations on the whole are starting to focus on their customers and to talk the language of customer centricity. The term is still misunderstood but the motives are correct and that can only be a good thing. Clearly there is a long way to go, but with evidence becoming available that supports the business case, I see happy times ahead for all sorts of customer.

This article was written as part of the Foviance December 2010 newsletter

Would you recognise your typical customers if you saw them?

In a multi-channel, customer-centric world, its vital that business are able to reconcile two equally important but overlapping sets of customer profiles – those identified by their marketing teams, and those targeted by their digital channel.

Foviance segmented personas enable these marketing and digital teams to work together with greater focus to align their customer focus more effectively. They also serve as a communication tool, enabling stakeholders across various departments and senior management to be aligned behind the same set of customers.

Used throughout every project, personas support the growth of the company as a customer-centric business, focusing on improving and enhancing the customer experience across all touch-points.

In our latest Foviance whitepaper, we look at ‘Segmented Personas: bridging the divide between marketing and design’. We examine how accurate personas informed by real-world data can help businesses effectively bridge the gap between marketing and digital channels, delivering a sharper focus on customer-centricity.

Download your copy of ‘Segmented Personas: bridging the divide between marketing and design’ today.

This article was written as part of the Foviance October Newsletter

Over the last few years since the term was coined back in 2004, an increasingly diverse range of ‘Web 2.0’ technologies have enabled the rapid development of a new breed of applications, loosely grouped under the term ‘social media’.

From the start, social media applications were ‘C2C’, as it were – interactive, collaborative and user-centric. Consumer generated content creation and networking were fundamental to early players such as Facebook, which when it was first unleashed all of six years ago held no promise for the enterprise. It was primarily used for sharing holiday snaps and anecdotes with remote family members while avoiding the complexity of bulky e-mail attachments. Social media platforms weren’t about business, they were about people – enabling users to connect across communities sharing similar interests while pointedly leaving big brands out of it. The buzz was about corporate blogs, RSS and VoIP. ‘Viral’ still referred primarily to e-mail, not YouTube. Read more…

If there is one word that sums up the year we have just been through it would be ‘unpredictable’. I have heard it said again and again in every area of our customers’ and our own business.

A year ago, when I put together my round up of the year for the 2008 year end newsletter, the recession was really gaining momentum on the back of the credit crunch and we already faced a very difficult outlook. In 2009 with the recession in full-swing, business was in constant flux – one day there would be no projects underway the next there would be a half a dozen urgent propositions. Like every agency and consultancy in our industry, we had to become masters at expecting the unexpected and delivering great experiences for our clients. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com and is republished here with permission.
In my last column I discussed the need for organisations to develop a more customer centric approach to the development of their online channel and outlined a simple framework to help organizations improve the quality of the customer experience. Underpinning this framework is the need for a range of quantitative and qualitative measurement and analytical techniques as customer insight is a key component of delivering improved customer experiences. This time I’ll be taking a brief look at some of the tools in the customer experience toolkit. Read more…