Foviance

Recently a pair of cords caught my eye in a magazine spread. I duly noted they were from the Gap and at the next opportunity I hotfooted it over to Gap.eu, thinking I might just be tempted into a purchase.  Once I got to the site however…no search box!

Having happily purchased from Gap.com, though in a distant past (we are talking around the year 2000) – I was stunned. To me, search boxes are an essential element of a good user experience. For most sites I can think of, an included part of the landscape along with the logo top left and the privacy/contact us links at the bottom. Just to make sure I asked a colleague to take a look, thinking I might have missed it – but no. Not there. So to find those trousers I needed to click on Women, click on trousers and scroll down scanning dozens of images to try and find those cords. Needless to say I gave up.

Gap.eu – missing a search bar, top right.

It niggled though, as I was pretty sure the US site did have a search box. And lo and behold, there it is – top right, where there was a blank space on the .eu site. If anyone from The Gap is listening out there, you might want to put in that search box and close the gap?

 Gap.com – including a search bar, top right.

By Simon Raistrick

We wanted to do something different for our holiday this year, so we decided to go to Belgium and Luxembourg; which by the way, is an underrated holiday destination if you like castles and forests. Since we have a baby, we decided to drive there, to reduce the hassle. But how would this compare to our usual experience of taking the plane? I’ll use this case study to highlight some important components of the multichannel customer experience as we crossed the channel.

The booking process was pretty simple, and pretty much matched the process for booking a flight. The best part, however, was when we arrived at the ferry terminal in Dover. This is a classic case of a “moment of truth” – the customer is under stress, and the way customers are dealt with at times like this makes or breaks a customer experience.

We pulled straight off the motorway, through a well-organised and signposted road system. A good example of how the customer experience before the customer arrives into a company’s property is important. The Port Authority of Dover and the Highways Agency played their part in making this a good customer experience.

Next came the really clever bit. I’d like you to imagine the most efficient possible way you could process people onto a ferry, and I bet that the way P&O do it exceeds this.

We came to an arrangement of check-in booths with barriers, like motorway toll booths, and as we pulled up to the barrier, the man in the booth said “Mr Raistrick, how many people are travelling with you today?”. I was shocked and delighted. This was like arriving at the Ritz.

A camera at the gate, connected to a car number plate recognition system had matched the plate to the booking record, and appeared on the screen in the booth within a few seconds. This is the most important aspect of the multichannel customer experience – touchpoints between channels, and what makes or breaks this is whether the channel you’re using (in this case face to face) knows about the last channel you used to interact with the company (in this case web).

We were processed extremely rapidly, which was good for us, and good for P&O – a great example of how customer experience and cost-saving can go hand-in-hand. We were then given a lane number, which we hung on our reversing mirror, and drove through a well-organised system of hundreds of lanes, until we found ours.  A man checked the number on the mirror as we drove onto the ferry, increasing their efficiency and reducing delays.

Once on the ferry, the first thing which improved the customer experience was the usability of the navigation. We were on deck 5, and took the orange stairs, a fantastic cross-referencing system to allow us to find our car again.

The food and seating on ferry were, I must admit, nowhere near as good as what I’ve experienced on other ferries recently in Scotland, the Baltic and New Zealand, but then again, it was a lot cheaper too, so I didn’t necessarily expect this. A good example of how a company’s customer experience strategy can focus effort on those “moments of truth”, whilst not needing to improve the entire Customer Experience to maximise the RoI of Customer Experience investment.

Whilst on holiday, we decided to move our return date forward a day, so I logged onto the website, because this is much cheaper and easier than calling when you’re abroad. This was one moment of truth where I was disappointed – there was no way to change it online, and no information on how to do it either. I was wasting time – I wanted to be visiting castles, and here I was fishing around a website (or “some stupid website” as I no doubt referred to it at the time). At least the website had a phone number, so I called up, and they charged a nominal £10 fee to move the day. Stress over.

Customer service is often neglected as it is not seen as ‘critical path’, or is managed by a different team with a different budget. However, it is a key part of the customer experience, and relatively cheap improvements could make a lot of difference (and, in this case, reduce costs too, as channel shift from phone to web usually does).

When we returned from our holiday in Belgium, feeling suntanned (yes, suntanned!) and full of chocolate, we arrived at the port a bit early. Having driven quite a way, we were not in the mood for any hassle, but the same efficient booth greeted us, and we were booked onto the next available ferry hassle-free. The airlines could learn a thing or two from this high level of consistency between the way the customer is processed in different countries.

Not having to take the plane was a breath of fresh air. I didn’t have to stand in a line, take my shoes off, remove my laptop, deny myself access to liquids, have my retina scanned, or have my luggage rummaged. The airlines have no control over this, but it’s an important lesson in how third parties can make or break a customer experience. ‘Verified by Visa’ take note.

Although not perfect, my experience with P&O helped us to have the most relaxing holiday we’ve had in ages. A superb cross-channel customer experience.

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 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.

The left side of our brain tends to be associated with functions that are analytical, rational, logical, and objective. The right side of our brain tends to orientate to creativity, intuition, and flexibility. In analysts, the left-hand side of the brain will tend to dominate, whereas with creatives and designers, the right-hand side will be stronger.

Optimisation using testing and experimentation technologies (such as Adobe Test and Target, Webtrends Optimize, or Google Website Optimizer) is mainstream for a lot of organisations. Companies such as Dell have built teams and processes to drive testing and experimentation through the business. Those companies have learned – and others are painfully discovering – that successful testing and experimentation is not only about implementing one of the many available technologies. It’s also about the need to harness people, resources, and processes around technology.

It’s similar to web analytics a few years ago. Back then, organisations implemented a system thinking that it would solve their measurement problems but then realised they needed analysts. Likewise, organisations must build structures and processes around testing and experimentation technologies, otherwise the business will not extract the potential from the system.

Testing and experimentation involves a lot of moving parts. Tests must be designed, assets created, technologies configured, and results analysed. Successful testing and experimentation programs require strong project and program management capabilities. Larger organisations typically have dedicated resources for program management, whereas in smaller businesses it might be part of someone’s role. In either case, a central function must identify which tests are planned and then manage them through the system. Workflows must be created to ensure that the assets to be tested are created and deployed onto the system at the right time. Tests must be monitored to ensure that any variants that are adversely impacting the experience can be dealt with.

Two Places Where Right-Brained Creatives Can Assist With Testing

All of this is predominately “left-brain” activity, i.e., managing, coordinating, analysing, testing, and experimenting also needs “right-brain” input, a more qualitative approach incorporating a user experience perspective. This right-brain input is important into two areas:

• Test program development (what to test)
• Test design (how to test)

Test programs are often built on the basis of web analytics reports showing which parts of the site might have problems. An additional input into the test program can come from understanding what’s working and what’s not working from the user experience perspective. The main sources of insight are from voice-of-the-customer survey programs and user experience testing. Many organisations have ongoing survey programs and many elicit user feedback through open-ended questions such as “How else can we improve the site?” User feedback can be a rich source of insight, but it must be mined, contextualised, and interpreted. These are right-brain attributes. This qualitative input helps to define what are the important areas of the site to improve and where to direct testing.

Second, right-brain input is needed for test design. Once a test area has been decided, the next issue is to decide what different elements will be tested. In a test, there will always be a winner even if it’s the existing version. With testing and experimentation technologies, you can cycle through many different combinations until there’s a significant improvement. But the challenge is how do you know that the variants that you’ve decided to test are the best ones? How do you know that the winner is not the best of a mediocre bunch? Optimisation specialists may know that certain things tend to work from the body of tests they’ve seen, but other inputs such as user experience expertise help to improve the quality of testing.

Good testing and experimentation is a combination of art and science, rational approaches and intuitive perspectives, and left-brain and right-brain inputs. It’s time to take a whole-brain approach to testing and experimentation.

This article was originally published by ClickZ

Following the success of the Directors Forum in March, Foviance are sponsoring the third forum, which is focused on Multichannel Customer Engagement.

Hosted at the Gallup Office overlooking the London Eye, the day will include keynotes from global experts, examining how to provide a seamless customer experience over the widening range of channels to market including; social media, mobile, call-centre, web and instore.

Paul Blunden, will be a keynote speaker opening the forum with his presentation:

Multichannel customer experience – from consumers to clients: Multichannel customer experience means different things to different people. This keynote presentation will consider how different stakeholders define the issue with some examples of how they approach solutions to the various challenges they encounter. The presentation will include real consumer examples from Foviance research practice as well as examples of what Foviance clients are doing.

Paul presenting our maturity model at the forum

To download our Multi-channel Customer Experience Report

It can be all too easy to fall into the mindset that user experience just applies to the digital field. However, on a recent trip to Delhi I was reminded how much UX and IA principles really do apply to so many other areas of interactions in life.

Whilst there, I travelled around the city using the metro system and being unfamiliar with the city, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to navigate where I wanted to go to. Being thrown into this new environment highlighted how additional details in the communication of a metro system, allowed a much clearer understanding of location and route. This led me to reflect on the London transport system, I wonder if visitors to London struggle with the way that information is presented on the London underground and other transport systems?

So what was different in Delhi? One thing I noticed was the tube map on the platform. London underground platforms have a map of the line, however, it only shows stations in the direction which you are travelling towards. Whereas the Delhi metro maps show the entire line and greys out the stations that you are travelling away from, using an arrow to confirm direction of travel. I found that this gave much more context to my location, made me confident that I was on the right line and going in the right direction!

In London, the line on the underground map is displayed as a poster. Long term closures of stations are indicated on the maps but otherwise you mostly have to rely on the tannoy, or watch out of the window to determine where you are, and if there are any issues. The Delhi metro maps also have a poster but use an LED system, where a red light indicates what stations the train has already passed. It also shows a green light for the next station coming up and indicates which ones are closed. Meaning at a glance, I could see where I was on the route, how far I had to go to my station and if I might encounter any issues with closed stations. It also meant that I didn’t have to attempt to decipher a crackly tannoy in another language as I was already confident that I had all the information I needed.

These are just a couple of small differences that I felt positively impacted my journeys on the Dehli metro. There are so many more touch points, both online and offline, where a user of a system like this requires additional information. This highlights how the attention to detail in the way in which information is presented really does effect the usefulness of  information, and therefore usage of the system. It also shows the importance of user research for offline experiences such as these, as the decision about how something so simple is communicated, really can impact the lives of millions on an everyday basis.

So far I have downloaded a lot of apps, free and paid for, many of which I have not used, I need to find the time. There are apps for education, design, games, news, and just about anything and everything.

The Sunday Times published a Top 100 list of the best apps a couple of months ago,  which I’m still working my way through. There are many articles and blogs all over the web talking at length about some of these apps, best of  articles, not to mention the App store’s own featured rankings.

That’s the first big problem: the size of the market means it is quite hard to know what to buy or download, not what works or what is fun. It’s like the old saying, about spending your first year at university making loads of new friends and the rest of your time there trying to get rid of them! I find there is not enough good information out there to give you confidence in your purchase. The same applies to the ratings and comments within the app store, quite often there are too few for them to be reliable. While this has relatively little importance for free apps, it becomes more problematic when you consider the cumulative spend on paid apps which range from 59p to £5.99 or more. 

Navigating with one’s hands, tapping and swiping is becoming increasingly natural. So much so, that my 6 year old the other day tried to “click” with his finger on the family PC’s screen. Granted he’s had minimal experience with keyboards, and has much more experience with touch and gestural interfaces, from iPod touch to Nintendo Wii and DSi. Still, shades of things to come, I think.

One frustration however is the lack of consistency from app to app, beyond the general swipe and pinch gestures. Many of the text heavy apps react in quite different ways and have resorted to different modes of manipulating the blocks of text and images. Flipboard folds pages down the middle (almost so it looks like a three dimensional shape), Le Figaro (French newspaper) scrolls up and down as well as turns the pages, while the innovative PushPopPress has published Al Gore’s “Our choice” as a fantastic interactive book – with interactive graphics, video, and voice overs. In a similar spirit, Alice in Wonderland comes with interaction that hints at the future of books, I think. But the only consistent thing is the inconsistency. Tapping once or twice, where hidden menus might appear from, what some of the icons mean even – is anybody’s guess. This should take a while to sort out, and naturally companies like Foviance will contribute to the development of best practices for the user experience on tablets.

Photography on the iPad2 is stunning – the Reuters app, for example, showing an editor’s selection of the day’s news in photo – Flipboard is as great as Scobleizer said it was, allowing single point of access to your news sources and social media accounts. Too many apps are still not optimised for iPad and the rendering is fuzzy if you use the full screen space – like bad resolution on your computer screen when you over enlarge pictures. This should change as more developers upgrade their apps.

I’m not using my iPad as much as I hoped to – for one I still feel such a geek taking it out on the Tube! More to the point, it’s another device competing for my limited time: email and browsing tend to remain PC activities as the screen is bigger and the keyboard more comfortable, texts are sent from my iPhone (a wi-fi connection is not always handy, and watch those data charges on iPad 3G!)…I read a Kindle (more ergonomic to hold than the iPad) and paper books and magazines (but if there is an iPad version available, the subscription will not be renewed).

As a newspaper/magazine substitute it really comes into its own, but it’s an expensive substitution! Luckily there are other emerging uses, I have watched a film on it and found it surprisingly immersive. Literally holding the movie in your hands takes you into the picture much more than sitting in a huge dark room with strangers, and the screen is plenty big enough for this. Of course if you have to use headphones because others are present it becomes a little anti-social, just as listening to music can be.

There are also some excellent educational apps both for children and adults. From learning musical notation, playing the guitar, maths bingo, virtual visits to Ancient Rome and the fabulous photography available on the Nasa and the Hubble apps.

In fact I am seriously considering an iPad for the kids when they are a bit older rather than a first computer. I am also exploring using it instead of a paper notepad (saving the rainforest!). With writing apps – either with digital transformation or without – and a stylus, it’s becoming more of a viable option, and when you throw in productivity apps such as Instapaper and Dropbox you have the potential to completely change the way you work.

All in all then, I am thrilled with my purchase; it was well worth the money, the hassle of ordering, the wait and all. It’s a great device; one that you really feel is changing the game as you use it: and how exciting is that?